Khador Gun Tank WIP: How to Convert Your Khador Gun Carriage, Part 2

It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but I’ve finally gotten my Khador Gun Carriage converted into a tank, with photographs and a WIP guide to boot. I’ve had it described as anything from a really scary looking Fire Truck, to that Metal Slug Tank. Well, whatever it is, as long as people like it, right?

I’ve gone through how to assemble and convert the Khador Gun Carriage into a tank in my previous post, so this week’s Workshop Wednesday will be more concerned as to how I painted the model.

I had recently bought an airbrush and compressor about 2 weeks ago, and I figured that this would be a great chance for me to practice. Previously, I had only done basic basecoating with it, and this time I wanted to try airbrushing some highlights on. Of course, you don’t actually need an airbrush to paint this model. A relatively large brush should work just as well; but an airbrush does save you some time (at the expense of wasting a lot of paint).

First: the easy stuff. I airbrushed in where the general colours were supposed to be on the base; grey for the cobblestone and brown for the blasted earth.

I then washed the whole base with a very thinned down black, before drybrushing consecutively lighter greys for the stonework, and scorched brown -> dark flesh -> bleached bone for the earth. I picked out the gears on the base with tin bitz, washed it, and highlighted up with tin bitz -> dwarf bronze -> bronze and gold and some silver.

On to the tank. I love sanguine base as my red shade, so I started off with that. Then I highlighted by spraying Skorne red, making sure only to hit the top bits of the carriage. And then I sprayed the whole bottom boltgun metal.

As of this moment the tank was still in several pieces (top bit, bottom/tread cowling, tank treads, and 2 bombards), so it was relatively easy for me to make sure that I didn’t overspray. I still tried to mask the bits that I needed to worry about tho.

Atfer that I picked out the details like rivets (a whole bazillion of them), the bronze in front, luggage at the back, that sort of thing. Also gave the boltgun a heavy wash down to shade the treads and such.

It was a little bit of a blur after that, unfortunately. I used a torn sponge for the chipping and battle damage, and very thin lines for the scratches and stuff. I also did a bit of edge highlighting on the armour plates for a bit more ‘pop’. I also did a lot of washes and drybrushing on the treads with like 2-3 different browns and blacks to grunge it up sufficiently. Really it was just me trying to work on all the small details.

Finally shading done on the dozer blade, as well as inking/washing in some rust and dirt stain lines down from the rivets…

And I’m done!

All in all, it took me a week to convert, and a week to paint. But I think it’s worth it. The tank looks relatively high tech, yet brutish enough to look like it could have rolled off the Khadoran assembly lines. And I doubt anyone would disagree that this thing could very easily slam and trample (read squish) over infantry.

And there we go! I hope you guys like my Gun Carriage to Gun Tank conversion. Please do comment below if you have any questions or critiques or anything to say.