Review

This offering from MMP books was part of a package that arrived from Casemate UK. This is a soft backed booked authored by Dick Taylor and Andy Brend. The book is roughly A$ in size and presents its contents over 156 pages of a semi gloss paper that displays the images well. The contents of this book are aimed directly at us the military modeller and covers real examples of what we group together as weathering. The contents of this release are covered in the following sections:

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Canvas & Textiles

Dirt and Dust

Engines, Exhausts and Instruments

Fuel, Grease and Oil

Mud, Glorious Mud

Rust

Tracks and Tracked Suspension

This title firstly looks at vehicles of all types and ages, all the way back to World War 1. The text in the title is very minimal with the exception of the introduction that goes into detail on what the purpose of the book is and how many factors can affect the finish of the vehicles, everything from time in the field to the geography of the area. So the book gives us a look at how long term exposure to the elements effects the colourization of stowage and paint. The other area of concentration is the deposits that build up on vehicles in use in the forms mostly of mud and dust. Something that the book shows very well is that unless in conflict or particularly harsh conditions paint chipping is very rare and rust only really hits areas such as the exhausts.

As I have said it is the photographs in the books that tell the story of the vehicles life and environment. The chapters start with a short introduction that is of minimal interest to most, but due to no text being supplied with the photographs is a must to a small degree. The photographs themselves are all of a very high quality that shows their subject well, but I cannot help feel that a small caption for each picture would have helped in some areas. An example of this is a panel with paint missing, was it caused by two surfaces constantly coming into contact and so a consistent feature or caused by a “love tap“ along the lines of “Open your bloody eyes Drive”.

Conclusion

When I first open this title I was not expecting much, but I have to compliment the quality of the images and the idea behind the title. Nothing explains the state that vehicles get into than photographs of actual vehicles as it takes away the “It’s not natural or realistic” retorts. I have to say that some of the patterns or patinas that appear I never would have believed and so this title is one worth adding to the library when it comes to painting and finishing.