Lots of Tanks

I've been working on a huge force of IG tanks for a friend of mine.  Progress has been pretty slow with me squeezing in what time I can between classes.  Start to finish, the total time ended up being about 10 months, but thankfully my friend was not in a rush.  Total number of hours spent was probably around 50.  I really didn't keep careful track though, so that could be pretty far off.  Anyway, here's the complete set of 16 tanks.

I was told to create a desert themed set of tanks that looked like they'd been in the field a while.  They came primed the lovely tan color that is the base on all the vehicles.

After a bit of research it occurred to me that my typical rust approach wouldn't really fit in with a desert theme.

So, rather than rust I decided to try to make them look like they'd been sand blasted.

Step one was to sponge some scorched brown over all the the edges.  Any corner got tagged with a scattering of brown paint.

The next step, which was probably the most time consuming, was to carefully paint a coat of silver inside the brown from the previous step.

I then picked out all of the rivets to add a bit more interest.

After that it was just a matter of finishing up the details and sealing everything.

I'm rather pleased with the final look.  There's a few things I think I probably could have done better though.

Some level of shading/highlighting to the base color I think would have made the final product a little more interesting.

The tan surfaces are still just a little too flat, but once the weathering went on there was really no way to go back and change it.