Beginner mistakes

[Guest]

As the title states, im a beginner. Uve improved somewhat sinc emy first model, but i never finished it. Its a Tamiya Hanomag, and it was grossly painted.
I redid the paint, taking alot of it off and repainting it, but now im at the weathering. Ive never done this before. I tried my best, using tutorials, but I keep on seeing people using airbrushes and modeking oil paints. Ihave enamel and artists paint, and enamel thinner, and this is the result of my "weathering."
[ATTACH]324360[/ATTACH]
It took me too long just to do that, since my artists oil paints take so long to dry.
Anybody have any advice and tips to make it look better? Its still not done. I did a crappy dark brown pinwash (or at least i tried) and thats what i got...
This model also has been decinated by beginner mistakes. For some reason i decided to use sandpaper to remove the paint when i first started. Now i just use thinners and rubbing alcohols to do that, but alot of the finer details and stuff are destroyed. Barely any rivets left...

[Guest]

Hi Reid.

I've found that washes don't always work over a brush painted finish as they tend to pick up the brush marks. The aim is to have as smooth a finish as possible to start with. One way of doing it is to have a fairly dark base colour, then dry brush on lighter coats to pick up the detail - a simple but effective method. Either way, it does take time to build some expertise with the paint and you will become more confident over time. Have a look through some of the excellent build threads on this site for inspiration.

[Guest]

I’m not a fan of oil paints myself, largely because of the long drying time you’ve also discovered. I’m also not a fan of these modern 1532872-step painting processes that build up everything in dozens of layers and extremely detailed steps that all take ages to complete.

Simple weathering: paint your model in its base colours, then apply a wash of thinned dirt-coloured paint, thicker where dirt accumulates and thinner where the vehicle would remain relatively clean. When that has dried, you can drybrush more dirt onto areas that would pick it up, where the crew walks over the vehicle, etc.

Simple shading and highlighting: paint your model in its base colours, then apply a wash of a darker shade of the base colour all over it, and when that has dried, drybrush the whole model with a lighter shade.

[JR]

Welcome firstly to the best forum there is .
Perhaps it is the most confusing part of the finish there is Reid, so don't feel put off by it.
I see in your post you mention you used enamel paints, today the trend is to use acrylic paint. Water based it dries quickly allowing you to progress , in stead of waiting for hrs for it to dry .
Several members on here produce great work using only brush and artists acrylic , Ron Spanner is the man to help if you don't want to go down the air brush route. Peter Day only uses brushes and again produces stunning work .
I'd be inclined to get a simple model to build in a scale you feel comfortable with , such as 1/35 as the details are better than 1/72 to see . Get some acrylic paints and have a play. Washes are a thing of practice, a coat of gloss varnish applied first would let the wash flow around a hatch for example and give a great finish of showing the detail .
Don't give up, keep looking at some of the U tube videos. Some by Vallejo , a paint manufacturer and Amig would help you I'm sure
John