Painting a Ha Go
In this blog, I'll be exploring my attempts to paint a Japanese Type 95 Ha Go Tank for an article in the magazine.
It is often the case that we need to get a few extra models painted for a magazine article. We can get hold of one very well-painted Ha Go, but we will need at least two more for the article.
In wargaming terms, the Ha Go Type 95 is quite a tasty prospect. It carries a 37mm anti-tank gun and two machine guns, and its light armour usually keeps it cheap points wise. In games like Bolt Action, it can deal with enemy infantry and other light tanks. Heavier tanks can be pinned by numbers.
Our first problem is the tank colours - what colour should we paint it? A quick Google-fu comes up with several examples, but we should be wary. Exhibits in museums are often repainted using whatever paints are to hand. A good example is the Ha Go in the Bovington Tank Museum. While it looks impressive, the paint is not original, nor is it painted in a correct Japanese paint scheme.
Instead, I've tried to look at original photographs. Virtually all of these are black and white, but the overall patterns of the tank camouflage can be made out. The actual colours are more guesswork, but I'm not going to be too strict on these - I could go to the expense of getting one of the specialist colours from a paint manufacturer, but that'll take time and money. Close enough will be good enough!
The model I'm painting here is a printed Trenchworx STL, which comes as separate parts. The assembly is very easy, with only the headlights causing a minor issue. I simply had to drill out the holes and trim a slight amount off the headlight stalks.
As with all printed kits, I've made sure the resin is cured, and I checked all the parts fitted with a dry run before using superglue.
The first stage of painting is to put on a base coat. Here, I've used Army Painter Desert Yellow colour primer as the base coat. It's always good to start colour schemes with the lightest colour as the primary. I'm going to try a technique I've not done before, using a masking putty and successive layers of spray to make the camouflage pattern.
I'm using masking putty from Model Craft, but there are other products by various manufacturers. I've heard playdough and other alternatives can be used, but I was worried about it leaving a residue.
I rolled out the masking putty, trying to follow the patterns in both original photographs and those garnered from pictures online and books. These won't be exact copies, but they'll be 'good enough'.
The modelling putty itself is easy to apply and can be teased into shape with a cocktail stick, which makes for easy work. I tried several designs, mainly following where the Desert yellow paint had covered the model better.
A second layer of putty will be applied once the light green base has dried. This will be followed by a brown spray coat, though application via marker pen remains an alternative.
The subsequent blog post will address track painting, pin washing, weathering techniques, and the application of transfers.
