As background: I most often paint on canvas (and two cars), but have been expanding my skill sets into model kits, GKs, figure repair and now minis. I really enjoyed the relatively small scale in terms of workload and session length. There was a lot more flexibility that enabled me to be more productive with less stress than with larger projects.
I approached this kit in the same way I would approach a 1/144 scale armor kit - this is armor, it just is armor with legs. I researched damaged and burnt out tanks (lots of color footage from Ukraine now).
The kit is by Max Factory, PLAMAX MF-57, depicting Dougram after its (spoiler alert) heroic scuttling the end of the series. Most often this scene is portrayed years later with Dougram completely oxidized and sand colored. I wanted to put Dougram in a more immediate context, shortly after the fires would have died. As you can tell from the kit (and the series), Dougram was not actually "blown up" but self-destructed more internally and remained visually intact. To that end my primary focus would be on the effects of flames on his paint and the terrain.
Test fitting, with an old die cast 1/144 Dougram to compare scale.
The kit was beautifully molded, but for some reason the backpack cannon had a flat tip! So I drilled that out. I also (not pictured) cleaned up and scribed lines to properly separate the right forearm from the right leg where they cross.
Then my first attempt at zenithal priming. It was tricky to get the model assembled without fully gluing it, as would need access to inner details later. Not the best zenithal, but it was useful as a road map for shading later.
Then thin washes to lay out the colors. Note most of Dougram's signature purple paint was painted in a dark silver. Washes will come later to add some purple over these areas as I wanted to show how the heat from the fire had burned most of it away.
The base painting more-or-less complete, really more of a block-in. I would go one to refine the highlights and shadows to exaggerate contrast because of the small size of the model.
I was not happy with the slightly sculpted but smooth base. Sure, at this tiny scale we shouldn't see grains of sand because in scale they would by big rocks. And where Dougram was scuttled it was open desert, no rocks or distinctive terrain. But the base needed some sense of texture. So I experimented a little and ended up going with a mix of PVA and baking soda (with a little water) and that gave me a nice faint read of texture that I then enhanced with a couple different tan washes. The blast and fire soot was drybrushed using Muso Black. I haven't heard of people using Muso as an alternative to typical flat blacks, but I find its extra darkness reads really well as soot. You can also thin it to do washes. I used water soluble oils to add oil staining and hydraulic fluid runoff.
Then more refining of the paint tones, chipping, subtle heat-staining around the right side of the torso (exit of the self-destruct fire) with red and yellow inks followed by Muso drybrushing.
Then weathering with Tamiya powders and more refining and touchup. A pic with Dougram finished, posing with the paints used:
Finished pics:
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