A long time ago in a childhood far away I purchased an old Tamiya 1/35 Jeep with the intention of building it. Back then I was mostly focused on airplanes, and this was the very definition of impulse-buy… So this model got half-built, then forgotten. Parts got chewed up by the carpet monster, and the hull made it from Sopron to all the way to Florida. (From 1994 to 2006… talk about long gestation.)

There it was used as a test-piece: I used it as a testbed before each airbrush session, so it was painted in all different (and funky) colors. It also got more and more damaged. And then I saw a photo of a model of a burned-out tank, where the burned off rubber rims were replicated using white pigments. I really, really wanted to build something where I can show off some burned rubber. (Talk about buying a coat for a button.)

Then came the idea. While building an M40 SPG I thought I might as well finish the Jeep. There were no real plans; I just wanted to make it look like it was completely burned out. I replaced some parts of the chassis with aluminum foil, which was torn and bent; I took away most of the seat cushions with a rotary tool, and covered the remains with more foil, and essentially, that was it. The Jeep was covered with olive green, and then I just went for it with different rust colors. Black, orange, brown, and red in different shades were added to stimulate the effects of burned and oxidized/rusted metal. I took off the rubber tires of one of the wheels using the rotary tool, and sanded them more-or-less circular. (They did not need to be perfect; things bend.) The other wheels were used to test an interesting product called Rust-it: a colloidal iron mixture which is used as a paint, and then treated with acid to create rust.

Unfortunately I have not taken photos of the original, or any of the steps… it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.

I used a cheap picture frame as a base, and plaster mixed with corral sand (the only sand around Florida) to set the model into. Some more airbrushing made it look like some hard-shelled battlefield somewhere in the Pacific, The story was simple: the Jeep broke the front axle in a shell-hole, and was subsequently damaged by further shelling; one of the explosions set it on fire, and it burned out. There were no causalities; no skeletons or human remains were placed into the diorama. (I’m a pacifist, to be honest; I cannot really explain my fascination with these machines of war.)

Once it was in place, I used some oil filters, some oil paint directly, and a lot of pigments to make soot and dirt. I also used white pigments to finally get my burned rubber down. (Unfortunately this is the one thing you cannot see really.)

My then girlfriend was so taken away with the result, she made me an offer I could not refuse (as in: you will have to give this to me, because it’s awesome), so I’m proud to say, this was the very first model I’ve ever given away.