Paint & Weathering Guide: Andy's 35th scale Lanchester Armoured Car from Copper State Models

Copper State Models 35th scale Lanchester Armoured Car of WWI vintage has already been reviewed and built up by Andy Moore. Today has taken up the challenge to get the kit painted and weathered to a great finish - see how it turned out and how you could do a similar thing to your own kit in the third part of the Lanchester story...

In-Boxed: Lanchester Armoured Car
Manufacturer – Copper State Models
Kit Number – CSM 35001
Scale - 1/35
Price - €44.77 from Copper State Models

In-Boxed: 1/35th scale Lanchester Armoured Car from Copper State Models

Construction Guide: 1/35th scale Lanchester Armoured Car from Copper State Models

Today: Paint & Weathering Guide: Andy's 35th scale Lanchester Armoured Car from Copper State Models

Copper State's new Lanchester was definitely looking good after the build, and I was looking forward to the painting stage. The construction had been a breeze, taking only a few days with no real issues encountered. The painting looked like it would be similarly straightforward as most of the included marking options are simple single-colour schemes. To some that may seem a little limiting, but I always find mono schemes to provide a lot of scope for shading, highlighting and tonal variation. Time to break out the airbrush then, but first the model was broken down into sub-assemblies, cleaned with IPA and the parts mounted ready for painting.

Since the build had been so fast, I wanted to keep the painting stage to a similarly rapid rate, and to that end, I didn't bother with any priming. The first step was to lay down a simple pre-shade with a dark grey, Gunze Aqueous Extra Dark Sea Grey in this case. This was sprayed along the rivet lines, panel edges, and generally around the nooks and crannies. At this point, I still had the front fenders unattached to allow me to get to the areas behind them more easily.

The scheme I'm going for is finished in Admiralty Light Grey (these were Royal Navy vehicles), which is a pale bluish grey. CSM don't actually list any paint codes for this, or any of the other schemes although, in fairness, the required colours aren't ones that are readily available from most manufacturers. I believe Meng have a version of Admiralty Light Grey in their paint range but, in my case, I'm going to use what I've got to hand, starting off with a patchy coat of Gunze RLM65 Light Blue. This was intentionally kept quite loose, leaving a lot of the pre-shade still visible. I'd also added the front fenders at this stage.

 For the final grey coat, I went with another RLM shade, this time RLM76 Light Blue, again from the Gunze Aqueous range. Like the previous coat, this was also applied in a mottled, patchy fashion, but concentrating more on the upper areas of the model, leaving more of the darker RLM65 showing around the lower body and chassis. I finished off by giving the whole thing a light misting with the RLM76 to blend everything together.

With the main painting done, I gave the model a gloss coat ready for the decals. Compared to most armour builds there are a fair few decals to be applied here and they're mostly quite large too. Fortunately then, they all went on perfectly with no hint of silvering or traces of carrier film showing. I did remove the R from the large R.N.A.S. decal and apply it separately to avoid the need for the carrier film to pass over the rivet detail (on the opposite side, it was the S that was removed), but all the remaining decals went on as they came.

As well as the lack of paint codes for the main markings, there's also no mention of detail colours in the instructions. You'll need to use the illustrations in the marking guide and the box artwork (and a bit of intuition), but it's nothing too taxing. For the lower chassis and drivetrain, I simply gave the whole area a heavy wash with a diluted dark brown acrylic. Very little of this is seen on the final model, so you don't need to go overboard with detail painting.

There's a section of decking behind the rear entry doors to which I'd added some woodgrain texture during the build. In reality, this would probably have been painted the same grey as the rest of the body, but I wanted to make more of a feature of it. I gave the planks a base coat with a pale wood shade, then using various brown tones, added some shading and tonality. A dark brown was thinned down to a wash and used to accentuate the grain texture.

The main finish was still quite glossy from the decaling stage and would need matting down. Before doing that though, I added a pin wash to bring out the rivet detail. I didn't want the wash to be too dark so mixed up a warm medium grey for the job from various Abteilung oils.

After sealing everything with a light coat of matt varnish, I got started on the main weathering. These vehicles were used to recover downed pilots on the western front, and would have got pretty filthy, and I wanted to recreate that look on the model. The first step was to add some general grimy shading using Lifecolor French Brown. In some areas, this was painted on neat, then feathered with a clean damp brush. In other places, it was splattered on by flicking the bristles of a loaded brush against a toothpick.

The headlight bezels were also painted at this stage, and I went with a chrome look which is the way they're shown on the marking guide. The box art, however, shows them in a brass finish and, as the only period photos of Lanchester armoured cars are black and white, it's impossible to tell which is correct. Take your pick then, and go with whichever you prefer.

For the next step in the weathering I switched to an enamel filter from AK. This is the NATO tanks filter but, for a filter, it's actually quite thick and you can use it almost like a heavy wash. It's a shade that's become a favourite of mine for this kind of dirty, muddy weathering.

Like the acrylic paint used in the previous step, I applied the wash/filter both by daubing it directly on and by splattering it over the surface. I concentrated on those areas where mud and dirt would accumulate over time, and where the wheels would flick it up over the body.

When applying mud effects, I like to layer up different tones as that leaves a far more realistic finish than you'd get from using a single mud colour. The next layer was a lighter and heavier mix using AK Earth Effects combined with European Earth pigment. That was splattered around the chassis and up around the insides of the fenders.

Up until now I'd left the unditching boards off as it would make painting them much easier. These had been textured in the same way as the decking on the back of the chassis, and they were painted in the same manner too. Once painted, they slot very easily into the brackets on the front and rear fenders.

When they were in place, they had a round of mud splattering to tie them in with the rest of the chassis. That was done with the same combination of pigments and washes used before. At this stage I also started to add some damper areas in the corners using a mix of AK Wet Effects and Dark Mud wash.

The wheels had been painted separately, then weathered using the same methods as the chassis. The earth effects/pigment mix that I'd used around the fenders was painted over the tread of the tyres, then wiped away leaving the mix in the grooves.

I could have left the weathering at this point and called it done, but I felt the model was still lacking some extra contrast to make it pop a little more, so I mixed up another, even darker mud mix using dark brown and black pigments mixed with AK Fresh Mud. That was splattered around the corners of the unditching boards, and the front and back of the chassis.

Again to bring out a little more contrast, I added a few subtle streaks to the upper body using acrylics mixed with a glaze medium. 

These were painted on in thin lines, then gently blended to soften the effect.

During the main build I'd scratch built a bucket to sit in the holder on the side of the body. That was painted up and weathered, along with a resin stowage bundle from Value Gear to sit on the rear decking.

The final little addition was a cloth rag, made from tissue paper soaked in thinned PVA, and draped over one of the spare wheels. Once dry, it had some further weathering with enamel washes.

And that wraps up the Lanchester build. This was a great little kit to work on. The build was fast thanks to the relatively simple nature of the kit, and also due to the excellent fit of the parts. Despite that simplicity, the detailing was very good, with the only slight disappointment being the lack of clear lenses for the headlights. That was a fairly simple fix, and it certainly didn't spoil the fun of the build.

A walk around the Lanchester in close up detail.

And another whirl at a distance to show you the whole car.

I think, above all, that is the main thing I've taken from this build; it was simply a lot of fun to put together and paint, something that's not always the case with many of the complex kits on the market these days. If you're looking for a quick and easy project, and something that's a little different to the usual armour staples, then this new release from CSM comes highly recommended.


Andy Moore

This new kit of the Lanchester is available directly from  Copper State Models as well as their distributors worldwide.Thanks to them for sending this kit to Andy to review & build.