I painted in batches as not all of the kits were ready to paint at the same time. My paint of choice was Vallejo Lifecolor using an Iwata Eclipse CS airbrush. I love these Vallejo paints. The bottles allow for precise drops and when mixed with Vallejo thinner and retarder, they sprayed easily without too much clogging at the nozzle.
I opted against going with Mickey Mouse camouflage as that requires a lot of masking and there were eight vehicles to do. So, an early war scheme was chosen with paint mixes taken from a fellow Internet modeler’s documentation of Khaki Green #3 and Dark Green #4. For the first couple of Beaverettes, I didn’t add any scale white but changed my mind for the latter six. Given that the six Mk IIIs were all different sizes in scale, the fact that they weren’t painted the same didn’t seem implausible.
The first color was Khaki Green which I then over-coated with Future to prevent the masks from lifting up the base color (on some of the Beaverettes, I got bolder on the latter bunch and dispensed with the Future). Then I masked with Silly Putty which is quick, lifts easily and doesn’t take the Lifecolor acrylic with it.
Here is with the Silly Putty removed:
After all this was done, I applied Future and let it sit for 48 hours. Decals were applied, the decals cured and then covered with Future again. Finally, weathering. I like to use dot filters and you can see the first stage of this here on the Sgt’s Mess Mk III (no amount of weathering was going to cover up this kit’s faults)
I opted against pigments for mud and its cousins as this was an inspection scenario so the vehicles would be tarted up for the big smells.
A few words on decals. I used a combination of these decals:
- Road Transport Images – RAF Vehicle Markings – the yellow circles
- Aleran Miniatures UK – BEF 1940 Transport Markings – vehicle registration numbers
- BW Models RAF and Command Markings Pre -1945 DC 49 – now available through Matador Models – the RAF roundels and the F/13 markings for the rear panel.
- Archer Transfers Mini-Series Lettering Black and White DT575 – for the number ‘5’ placed on the yellow circle.
I never used the Extratech decals. No other kit had any decals included at all.
Purists will have plenty of reason to quibble over my choice of vehicle registration numbers. But, may I remind the gentle reader that we’re dealing with an eventual diorama here of an inspection of hastily-assembled Beaverettes in Britain’s time of need. Poetic license liberally taken.
Cropredy Beaverette Project 
