Discovered by accident an easy way to color the small tank prisms that appear on most of the modern tanks…Abrams, Bradley, etc. Was coloring the inside of a Bradley range finder that’s mounted on the turret using a magic marker because I thought it would look transparent (which it did). Then I tried it on the surface of those many little prisms that surround the hatch. Worked like a charm. I used a blue Sanford “Sharpie”, extra fine point permanent marker. When dry it even has a kind of iridescence that looks quite realistic…just another one of those things where the wife yells, “Where the hell did those markers I had go?”
They also have a good article in the new issue of FSM about this same thing. In there they suggest even trying some of the colored plastic confetti that is somewhat see through. But you do make a good point.
Cool. I personally use a cheap brand of Saphire blue found over in the acrylic paint isle in Hobby Lobby or Walmart. It has a metalic metal flake sparkle to it. I can’t remember the brand name there are so many over there but you will know it when you see it. In fact the only name brand acrylics I use are the modelmaster desert sand, signal light red, amber, flat white and olive drab. OH and I use a metal flake Emeraled Green for for my military robots [Gundams] gun sites and eyes and for the older tanks like the Bull Dog… I still gotta paint those vision ports!
I personally use the Tamiya and MM acryllic clear paints. You can lay a silver or gold coat on first and then use the clear to follow up and get the iridescent effect or even mix and match the colors after they are dry.
It is still in progress so I can correct the flaws to it and they all get an additional coat of gloss or future, but it seems to work pretty well to me.
I saw the article in the recent isue of FSM…It just seemed so elaborate for a simple thing. I’m going to stick with my discovery. I think it took me 5 minutes to do six prisms. i fyou spill over the #11 exacto scraped away the overage.
