How to paint and weather an aircraft model....

[Guest]

What dessert is that Laurie, blancmange or angel delight? :P

Haha sorry, I couldn't resist that one!

[Guest]

What dessert was that then Patrick ?

By the way you are using superfluous commas.

Laurie

[BarryW]

Last night I had to go out and did not have a lot of time but I did manage to mask the underside.

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At least without the flash you can see it really is Medium Sea Grey!!! My camera is still not good enough to pick out the fairly subtle colour modulation on the light underside very clearly.

As for the masking.

Note that I have not fully masked up under the wing. I will fire the paint downwards over the wing and the curved edge will itself mask the underside. I did mask some of the more prominent features that might catch overspray when I do the sides.

You can see at the front where the delination is a panel line I masked directly with Tammy tape giving a hard edge. Along the sides of the fuselage I used white tac snakes which I fixed in place with Tammy tape.

Before spraying I will have some minor adjustments in places to the 'snakes' and this is easy to do.

I should be able to post pics of the paint job tomorrow.

One more shot of the masked aircraft:

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When I got home I found the canopy paint masks were delivered and I expect to have time to mask up the canopy tonight.

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[BarryW]

A bit later than normal posting today as Fridays I have a breakfast business meeting....

Anyway I got the canopy masks on having first cleaned the transparencies with a cotton bud dipped in i.p.a..

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Liquid mask had to be painted onto the main canopy part as you can see. These masks are worthwhile but I find on removing them they leave behind a glue residue and that needs cleaning off which is not as easy as it sounds.... But nevertheless they are an easier option and worthwhile for inexperienced modellers to use. Normally these days in 1/32 scale I use parafilm m which leaves no residue but do need careful and tricky trimming around the frame, not for the feint hearted.

I then sprayed the model with Vallejo Model Air 71.097 Base Grey, which is a close match to RAF Ocean Grey.

Vallejo do fall down a bit on RAF colours, they do a RAF set but many of the colours are not convincing. The recommended Ocean Grey in their leaflet, as is their recommended Medium Sea Grey, are both too dark with little contrast betwen them. Confusingly their recommended MSG is not the paint they call MSG which I happen to prefer to their recommended one..... For RAF Green there are three candidates and which one you use depends on what souce you cross reference to... confusing or what.... I am hoping Vallejo will soon produce a proper set of RAF camo colours as they are producing the paints an AK Interactive RAF set not currently available in the UK.

Anyway - I used my normal procedure for the Ocean Grey coat, sprayed the base coat making sure pre-shading showed through, sprayed centre of panels with the base coat/20% white thinned mix and then misted on a very thinned base coat filter which gradually built up to create the effect I want. The pictures of this show the effect much clearer than the lighter underside grey.

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As I said it is a bit clearer in the pic but you still cannot fully appreciate the full effect.

Next I will be masking up for the green camo. I will be leaving the model 24 hours so the paint cures before masking for which I will use white tac snakes and tammy tape. I will need then to restore some pre-shading (black this time) in the green areas before spraying green.

I will be working on it tonight and a short while Saturday but I will not get the time to post until Monday morning.

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[BarryW]

Here is progress over the weekend.

I cut thin strips from a White Tac sheet, rolled them into snakes and used the to mask up the camo. Then used Tammy tape to fill the areas that need masking off. Some people, I know, will just use the 'snakes' as a guide while airbrushing but I much prefer this method as it is only tot easy to go wrong and get overspray if you don't fully mask. Note that I did not remove previous masking.

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The photos carry you through the sequence. What I did not photograph was how I restored some preshading where the green was to go with black. I followed my usual process spraying the green in the three stages. The photo above probably gives the clearest representation yet of the colour modulation I have achieved. On the wing you can make out how the lighter panel centres go across both colours.

I will next paint some details, the exhausts with buffable Gunze Iron, the lights and so on. I will then be doing a little touching up with localised masking using the airbrush. For the latter you need to put a very small drop of white into the base coat. Remember the overall effect is 'lighter' to allow for scale effect. Fortunately there is not a great deal of touching up to do....a couple of odd spots.

I will 'buff' the exhausts with a cotton bud which make them look like metal.

Tomorrow I will post some more pics showing the next stage as well, laying down a gloss coat to take the decals.

[BarryW]

I noticed I left cotton buds off the list of tools and materials.

Most of what I use are the old basic Johnsons or supermaker own brand - they are cheap and I use these in large quantities for cleaning the aibrush, removing excess wash in tricky places, buffing buffable metallics and so on. There are 1001 uses for them.

But I also use Tamiya botton buds.

Mostly medium triangular and very small triangular. Sometimes you need something to get into awkward small places or a 'tighter' bud perhaps.

I really cannot build a model without them.

[BarryW]

Last night I removed the canopy masks. I use a cocktail stick and pushed the masking in away from the frame before picking it off. If you don't do that you risk pulling the paint away from the frame.

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I then clean up the canopies with a very small Tammy cotton bud dipped in ipa. Below they are awaiting the clean up but, as you can see they are reasonably good anyway with just a little cleaning around the edges and some glue residue to get rid of..

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I then picked out some detail on the aircraft with paint, lights and exhausts among others and touched up the camo (not much to touch up, thankfully). Be careful to use a small drop of white in the base coat to touch up and if you airbrushed it then touch up with the a/b too, with localised masking. If you don't do that then you can see clearly where the colour has been touched up.

Here it is with the last of the masking removed.

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I then need to prepare the surface for decalling.

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I use Humrol Clear as it sprays perfectly with no thinning and no messy clogging. The hook is to hang it up to dry after by putting one end in the spinner hole.

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I did two coats, 30 minutes apart to get the ideal surface for decalling.

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I tried photographing the model on a white kitchen roll and while it captures the colour better it looks too dark. I really need a proper camera or maybe learn to use my Blackberry better...

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Apologies for my photography....

next I will be decalling tonight......

[Guest]

Fantastic and useful thread

I have a question Barry.

You use white tac to mask. Is any difference with the "blue" one?

Seems yours sticks softer!!

[BarryW]

Hi Polux - apparently there is no oil residue with white tac, according to Phil Flory anyway.... I have not tried blue tac for this so don't know first hand.

mmm..... I just noticed that the last pick shows the colour modulation better than any of the other pics....

[Guest]

Thanks Barry

[BarryW]

Last night I started decalling and first got the no walk lines on.

Then I hit a problem with the Sky band - I just could not get it to fit into place and in fiddling around trying to get it neatly into place it broke apart. Same thing happened with the yellow leading edge wing bands. Usually I paint this kind of detail but thought I would try the decals this time, never again.... Normally I would paint these first and mask them off before applying camo base coats but now I needed to mask and paint over the gloss coat....

Here is as far as I got with the decals:

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The masking up for the tail band was easy enough, a thin 1.5mm strip of tape and then widened it out and sprayed the Sky - it covered well as you can see.

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The wing were another problem as I needed to mask off without the risk of pulling away the no walk lines.

First I used Tammy tape taking care to avoid the decals.

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I then used this..... the perfect solution.

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First you cut off a small piece and remove the backing...

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You then stretch it out and leave it for some seconds to 'settle'....

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It can then be cut and applied to the model and manipulated to follow curves. There is no stickness with this and it stays in place.

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Above you see it half way through spraying - the yellow as always did not cover well but wegot there in the end.

I found very little touching up was needed and ended up with a neat job. I then sealed it again with Humbrol Clear to leave it another 24 hours to harden so tonight I can finish decalling.

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[Dave W]

I have read a lot about how to get these paint effects and not really understood it.Your tutorial has made it all clear to me.Too late to do it on my current build.But I will definitely have a go on my next model.

[BarryW]

I am no expert at decalling and I have no real trick or tips to pass on. For me it is the stage I least like though the decals really help bring a model alive.

Last night I hit a problem.

I started applying the decals, which went on well. I did all the white blanks supplied by Tamiya that go under the roundels and tail flash (though I think slightly thicker decal in the first place would be better...) plus the stenciling and squadron codes etc.

As I started applying Microlsol I hear a bang outside, it sounded like a shunt. I dived across to my window to check no-one had crashed into my car (they had not...) but while doing so my grip on the model slipped and I touched a squadron code.... the one that I had applied Microsol to with the inevitable result. The code cannot be saved and I posted a SOS on the forum last night to see if anyone has some in their spares box.... Many, many thanks to Ian and John for responding who are checking to see if they have them. If the worse comes to the worse I will buy another kit, its not expensive, its a nice kit and I could build Sailor Malan's bird or the clipped wing version at a later date. Anyway, whatever happens there will be a short delay until the issue is resolved and I can move to the next stage.

here is a pic of the model as it was left last night.

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Tonight I will apply the roundels and tail flash over the white blanks. Incidentally, you might be able to see some white fogging on the model. This is a reaction between the Microsol and the Humbrol Clear and is nothing to worry about. When I seal the decals with another coat of clear that will disappear.

Once the decals are finished and sealed it will be time for a washes to start the weathering process.....

[BarryW]

A quick updated - the decals arrived, thanks Neil. I will be applying them and sealing the decals with Humbrol Clear tonight and will post the next installment tomorrow morning.

[Guest]

Thanks for posting all this, Barry - it's really useful and I'm picking up lots of tips. It's also good to know I'm not the only one who suffers the odd setback when modelling!