September 2019 - Model Military International 15of this base colour, various brown
coloured chalk pastel was added
randomly all over the bundle. The
ends of the bundle’s stems were
painted a light brown colour to
simulate freshly chopped wood.
These vehicles carried an
un-ditching beam made from a
large piece of oak wood that was
sandwiched between two sheets
of steel. When the tank was stuck
in mud, this beam was attached to
the tracks and dragged around the
entire frame to hopefully push it
out from it’s entrapment. I painted
the wooden part in light tan, then
after giving it a coat of gloss, it
was given a wood-grain pattern
by streaking some diluted brown
oil paint onto it. This received a
second gloss coat after drying,
and then the two steel plates were
airbrushed NATO Black. After
weathering the black with some
chalk pastel, I rubbed some of Uschi
Van der Rosten’s metal polishing
powder on to highlight a small
percentage of the exposed metal.
In the 1919 photo of Deborah
about to be buried in dirt, the
view from the top shows a wrap
of insulation on the exhaust pipe
near the commander’s hatch. I
fashioned this by
taking a thin strip of Tamiya
masking tape and wrapping it
around the pipe, securing it with
some cyano glue.PAINTING DEBORAH
The colour of these vehicles is a
bit of a mystery. The instruction
sheet gives the paint call outs in
their sponsored brand of Ammo by
MIG to be A.MIG 088 Khaki Brown.
References state that after the
multi-coloured Solomon scheme
of the earlier tanks was dropped,
that the Mk.IVs were painted in
a brown colour, but even shades
of it in the blacks & white photos
seem to vary.
Since I prefer to use Tamiya
paint for airbrushing, I saw that
the mix for the colour of their
Mk.IV model consisted of a mix
of XF52 Flat Earth and XF
Deck Tan. Since this appeared a
bit too “pinkish” for my liking, I
added a certain amount of XF
Khaki until I arrived at a very
satisfactory (to my eyes) non-
descript muddy-looking Brown.
To begin with, I like to give
my tanks an undercoat of black
as a pre-shade to all colours to
be added after. The model was
airbrushed with Tamiya’s XF1 Flat
Black. A dilute amount of the
Mk.IV brown paint mix previously
described was lightly airbrushed
over the black base, allowing the
shadows to remain and a mottled
finish to appear.MARKINGS
I had no markings for this tank,
and went by references of other
tanks in the same Brigade to figure
out what to add. Osprey’s book on
the Mk.IV tank actually contains
artwork showing a colour profile
of D51 Deborah with the “D51” on
the sides and the vehicle number
“2620” near the back. The actual
vehicle seems to sport evidence
of a triangular red marking on the
side near the front (also seen in
German photos of the knocked-out
Deborah) but there is no indication
or explanation of this in any
references I could find.
I decided to cut a mask and
airbrush the D51 number on all
sides as per some of the photos of
Mk.IV markings, and add the name
“Deborah” to the front of the glacis.
I improvised a few stencilled letters
for the name from a etched metal
sheet of soviet markings from the
Scottish company Sencilit. Since
there was no “D” or “R” in the mix,
I had to play around with various of
the stencils to make it work. After
placing the masks, the area was
airbrushed with an off white mix of
Tamiya acrylics.
The tank’s number “2620” was
made from a set of rub-on decals
from a set of soviet markings by
the old MIG Productions line.To pre-shade the paint scheme, the model was airbrushed black to start with.
For the name on the front glacis, etched metal stencils from the Scottish
company Sencilit were improvised from their Soviet set.
The code “D51” was cut into sheet styrene and used as a stencil for the
top, back and sides of the tank.The serial number was marked using dry rub-on markings from an
older Mig Productons sheet.A