Truck rear - how do you paint them?

[Extra Crispy]

I'm painting up a pack of 57mm AT Guns and have started with the prime movers aka Dodge Trucks. The truck is covered but open at the back. How do you paint areas like that? Just black? Very dark green? Something else?

[Mk 1]

Mark - Not entirely clear from your question ... I think you are asking about how to paint a truck with an enclosed cab but an open truck bed?

In any case, here are some examples of how I have painted trucks in recent years ...


I don't actually have a lot of pics of open-backed US trucks. In this case it is a US truck converted into an Auto-canone for my Italian Tunisian force (I think I used the Dodge 3/4 ton weapons carrier as the base for these conversions). Because the bed is full of gun and gunners you can't see it too well, but I have used the base color of the truck for the truck bed, but applied a double-dose of dark wash (one black, one brown) to bring out the wood planking and to make it look more used.


This conversion is a Russian GAZ truck originally from the GAZ AA Gun Truck kit, with the quad-Maxim MG mount removed and kit-bashed POL barrels added. With most of my Russian-built trucks I paint the bed in wood tones, and then black-wash. The result is kind of a dirty wood kind of look.


Here is another GAZ truck, in this case with an empty truck bed.


For those cases where the truck does have it's canvas covers in place, I try for a variety of shadings even within a particular unit. I do this by differing the undercoat as well as the washes.

In this case it was white primer, but in some cases I undercoated with the base color of the truck (in this case Italian Gray-Green), in other cases leaving the canvas in plain white primer. Then I paint on a canvas base that is a mix of the truck color (Italian Gray-Green) mixed with some tan. It looks like two different colors have been used, but that's actually the difference the under-coat makes. Canvases that were undercoated come out looking more green, those that were only white-primed come out looking more tan. Then wash with either black or brown, then highlight with Sahara Sand (a very pale light green/beige). It is really not complex at all.

Even if it starts at the same color as the painted metal of the truck, canvas is quite variable in the rate at which it fades. So I want subtle differences not only between the canvas and the metal, but between the canvases of one truck to the next, and even between the canvas over the bed and the canvas over the cab.

Not sure if that's what your looking for. Hope it helps.

[Extra Crispy]

What I was asking about was covered trucks like this:



At the rear is an opening where normally you;d just be able to see into the bed. How do you paint that?

[piersyf]

Why do you think they're open? I have 4 of the 1 1/2 tonners and they have fully enclosed backs. The creases in the inner canvas aren't as pronounced, but they're there...

[pmskaar]

From my examination of the sculpts in my collection, iI agree with Piersyf. On all the covered trucks including the Maultier where the canvas is actually a separate piece, the rear end is covered by a tarp that rolls down over the back.
The tarp on the Maultier and also on the Zis 42 are separate but both ends are solid and not open at either end.

I am not saying that GHQ's depiction is right or wrong but the evidence seems to be that the tarp is on the back. I suppose one could paint the back as opened but I have always painted mine as closed by a tarp.

Pete