Painting a Lancaster Bomber - With a Brush!

[JR]

Should have said originally, " draw a straight line as a joiner, you've got to be joking " :smiling2:
Hope your all well , and stay that way 570

[spanner570]

...... draw a straight line as a joiner.

453. Sometimes I can't even walk one!

Also, I forgot write in the opener, and your timely abuse reminded me. If you do draw a line and follow that neatly, you can get a slight ridge between the two paints. Doing it as described should leave a nice soft edge.

You take care too good buddy.
570

[JR]

Don't you just love this site :smiling2: at times like this the banter and friendship is what we need!

[Guest]

Great thread Ron :smiling3:.
It is always great for people to know the basics and not everyone can use an airbrush.

[Jim R]

Hi Ron
Great stuff.

During the delicate application of the paint and the need to concentrate, DON'T hold your breath. If you do, by the time you reach the end of the fuselage, you will be dead!

By 'eck that's good advice. I wondered why I kept falling off the chair in a faint.
On a serious note - Do you ever add a drop of washing up liquid to the paint as a flow improver?
Jim

[spanner570]

Hi Ron
On a serious note - Do you ever add a drop of washing up liquid to the paint as a flow improver?
Jim

Thanks Jim.
Re- your question, the quick answer is no. Knowing my luck I would loose the model in a pile bubbles.

I suspect because I thin my paints right down, flow improver perhaps wouldn't make that much difference. If any.....

Ron

[Tim Marlow]

Actually it does Ron, it reduces the surface tension of the water allowing the paint to flow better and not try to bead up. Best way to use it though is to add a drop of washing up liquid to water in a container and use that solution to dilute the paint.....If you add washing up liquid directly to the paint it would probably wreck the paint carrier and make the paint behave oddly.....

[spanner570]

Thanks Tim, but I'll stick with the simple tap water method I'm used to and has served me well, but thanks for the info. none the less.


Moving on to the other bits.......PETER LOW, WAKE UP AT THE BACK!

Again the parts are left on the sprues for easier handling and painting.

As before with the fuselage, mix enough colour for your needs.

Here's some wing components brushed with a first coat of colour. you can just see the patchy coverage, particularly on the engine thingies




In detail, the starboard lower main wing. Note the state of the wing tip. I'll clean that up after the part is painted and removed from the sprue.

I don't paint the panel lines first. It's not necessary. Sometimes I see this done way too heavily anyway. The brush does enough for my liking as I go along.

'Colour modulation' In my book that is just a posh way of writing 'shade difference' I've seen some long winded ways of doing this. I just alter the consistency of the paint on certain panels to give a lighter or darker tone/ shade. It's near enough for me and works just fine. Add you own rude words here please...............


Right, using the large flat headed brush, quickly paint the whole surface. Try and do this in one go rather than waste time re-charging the brush. Pay particular attention the all around the edges. If you are painting a completed aircraft's wing, brush on the light underside colour first. Don't worry, if a bit of the colour is transferred to the upper surface. The darker upper colour will easily cover it. Dark over light - Remember?

The trick with brush painting a wing, no matter what scale, is work from the centre, outwards to the wing edges. If you paint from the edges inwards, your brush is guaranteed to get huge drips and lumps of paint on the under side of the wing. Once you are happy, gently lay off the paint in the direction of the airflow. Finally check the wing undersides. This whole exercise should be done very quickly. Faff about and the paint won't have chance to level out and you will be left with ridges of paint on the surface. Be warned!

Here's the half wing after it's second coat of Vallejo Black, directly onto the white plastic. The panel lines are showing more than enough. The state of the sprues give an indication of how I just quickly I applied the paint at the start, and how much easier it is whilst still on the sprues to keep your 'Comics' clean.... :thumb2:



The upper starboard main wing after the same treatment as the lower. I had some left over black, so I gave some of the outer engine thingies a second coating too!



Right, off into the playground and collect your milk and biscuits!

Cheers.
Ron

[Gern]

Do you know anyone who sells those mythical straight lines you talk about? I don't have any and I can see there are definitely times when they'd be useful.

[adt70hk]

Ron

Sorry for being late to the party!!

And thank you very much for starting this thread. My brush technique sucks and so I'm finding this very useful.

I've seen other builds elsewhere done purely in brush and one in particular springs to mind that was amongst the best I ever seen using either paint application method.

This is also useful because I have a Lanc in three stash and there is no way it will fit in my small spray booth!!

Keep up the good work.

Andrew

[Ian M]

Great thread Ron. One day I to hope to be able to paint sumit with a brush and not have it look like it was painted by a three year old with a twitch.

Funny, not seen the Tamy lanc on here for ages and suddenly everyone's doing one....

[prichrd1]

Keep going Ron, good little tutorial :thumb2: :thumb2: , and i see we have "glorious technicolor" photo's with today's episode !! :smiling::smiling::smiling:

Paul.
:smiling:

[spanner570]

As I've been over the salient points for brush painting this model, I'm in danger of repeating myself. So I'll wrap it up in the next few posts.



Closed bomb bay doors.



Final coated inner engine and undercarriage things.


At this stage I glued the aircraft together. After gluing the various bits, and after cleaning up the edges, I touched up the colours with neat paint straight from the bottle. This avoids a shade difference due to revealing a bit of the naked nude virgin plastic. A final last job coat will blend everything in.

Yellow bits done too. There are nice panel lines where the two colours meet, so I was able to use these as a guide for my brushwork. I obviously did these light over dark. Straight from the bottle, two coats over the green with a flat headed brush. Same rules as the main wing painting.


I'll mention the turrets later.


Cheers.
Ron

[spanner570]

The turrets.
I haven't the patience nor skill to mask canopies or turrets, so, using a very fine pointed brush, I paint them freehand. Then when dry, any wobbles I clean off with a sharp pointed cocktail stick.
Here are the three turrets prior to 'scraping'

I've also added me a pilot from my spares box.

More dust specks! Luckily not stuck to the paintwork. I didn't spot them until I looked at the pictures.








Cheers.
Ron

[spanner570]

This is the time to check over the various edges - Just in case! And generally fettle your paintwork ready for the final coat (if required) and then the camouflage. Obviously, a final coat depends on the previous coverage. If you are happy with the coverage, then leave it.





I left the cockpit canopy off and unpainted until after this stage as it made the main painting much easier and safer.

Happy so far?
Finish the turret bits, then paint and fit the Cockpit frame. Then we can set about marking out and painting the camouflage.

Cheers.
Ron