PG112 - East Europe Dust Powder Pigment

East Europe Dust Powder Pigment from Lifecolor

A dry powder pigment from Lifecolor named after a setting rather than after a color standard. It is laid on dry with a brush and its point is simple: to give a model dust that matches the color of the soil the real machine moved over. East European soils are as a rule grayer and less warm than Mediterranean ones, and it is precisely this difference that tends to decide the look of a finished model.

Choose the shade by the terrain, not by habit

Choose the pigment by where the vehicle stood and drove, and not by which shade you happen to have at hand. A machine regularly used on the Eastern Front looks false with a warm desert powder, however faultlessly it is built otherwise. When you are building a diorama, matching the tone of the pigment to the tone of the base is the simplest way to tie the scene together visually.

Two tones instead of one

A single shade over a whole model looks flat. The proven procedure is to take two close tones and divide them by height: the lighter one up on the horizontal surfaces, where dust settles and light picks it out, the darker one down in the recesses and by the running gear, where the deposit builds up. Break the transition between them down with a clean dry brush. Because unfixed powder holds only mechanically, you can correct the ratio of the two tones as you like until it suits you.

Who it is for

• builders of Eastern Front vehicles and postwar army vehicles
• modelers of dioramas who match a model to its base
• everyone who builds a patina from several shades of dust

A dry pigment is a loose powder. Do not work with it in a draft, do not breathe it in, do not blow the excess off with your mouth and wash your hands after work. Keep out of the reach of children.