Mig Jimenez, over the past several years, has created a thriving business

based on model paints and eventually, his product line expanded into all aspects of plastic modeling. Significantly, AMMO has produced a plethora of weathering products. These have become so pervasive that words like pre-shading, post-shading, washes, filters, pigments, modulation, and pin-washes are now part of our every-day modeling vocabulary. Trying to navigate all these products and techniques can be daunting. Luckily, Solution Book 13 goes a long way to help you understand and use AMMO’s weathering system.

This publication is in a “magazine” format with lots of pictures, and text written in four languages: English, Spanish, German, and French. Although this volume is subtitled “How To Use Shaders,” it covers much more. The book has two distinct sections: the first (Description and use of products), fourteen pages long, details all the AMMO paint and weathering related products and their basic applications. You can find the difference between a “shader” and a “wash” for example. The second section (Step by Step) consists of 51 pages showing exactly how each product is applied to a sample model. In this case the subject is a 1/48 Tamiya T-55 tank. These products and techniques seem universal to me, so even though the sample is armor, you can carry them over to your own modeling project be it an aircraft, ship, or auto.

To get you started, the author devotes one full page to “icons” that visually depict the process in using the listed product. One side note, the pressure recommended for airbrushing is shown as “Kg” and not the usual “psi.” A Google search revealed 1 Kg is about 14.7 psi. I thought kilograms measured mass.

Beginning with “Priming,” Señor Lopez continues the build through “Base Color,” “Chipped Camouflage,” “Shaders,” etc. He finishes with “Dusting” and “Soot.” Each step has icons to show paint mixing ratios, airbush pressure, airbrush’s distance from the subject for best coverage, as well as options for using paint brushes when applicable. There are 14 steps in this weathering journey with a new step every few pages. The order of the steps in applying the layers of weathering is the optimal sequence suggested by AMMO.The final result is a realistically weathered and worn looking model. If you follow these steps, you should also end up with a beautifully weathered model. Regardless of your experience with weathering, you can learn something beneficial from the pages of this volume. The final two pages show six color profiles of modern tanks.

Again, weathering your model is a choice. If you chose to apply any weathering to your models or if you already apply lots of weathering to you work, I would highly recommend Solution Book 13, How To Use Shaders.

My thanks to AMMO for providing this book for review and to IPMS/USA for the opportunity to do the review.