When Masking. I did a 1/72 scale Spitfire that way. This M113 has also been painted in standard Nato three tone camouflage. Trumpeter’s 1/48 L-39ZA: Who Was That Masking Man? If possible, use a rattle can to apply a clear satin or matt varnish, which will help seal the tape edges. Always, always, always use a new blade in your hobby knife to do this. You just need a fine brush and some patience - which you probably have enuf of if you build models anyway. It usually requires some touch up after sanding. 69K 3,828 3. Aircraft modelers often use sticky tack to create camouflage patterns on their airplanes. With that section on place, I added the other “ends” of the boundaries for that area, using a combination of 2mm and 5mm curve tape. Hobbyboss’ 1/48 F8F-2 Bearcat: Weather It’s Finished Or Not, The Write Stuff? Any slight lift on the mask will allow paint underneath, so a tight seam is essential. Site Owner. Application starts at the area of the pattern where there is the least amount of curvature. Other tapes can work fine too, but be careful of using non-modeling masking tapes- they can often be quite tacky and leave residue. If it cures with the masking in place, the second paint coat may lift off at the edges when you pull the tape.Â. I also add a few small marks to assist with aligning the mask once cut. Spraying a nice, even first coat is an invitation to a drippy mess. 4 replies. Mrs. Dinkins' First Precept, By signing up you may also receive reader surveys and occasional special offers. (The undersides have already been painted and masked off. stu knowles: 09/02/2017 22:46:01: 620 forum posts 53 photos: Look up soft edge foam masking tape on ebay, or call at a car refinishers nearby. Use a brush with soft bristles, sable is best. First, you need a model that has the first color of a camo scheme already applied. Another option would be masks offset slightly above the surface, in which case either airbrush or spray cans could be used. I have good friends whose work I greatly admire that would list one of the above methods as their favorite. Opening the box, you will find that you can build up to 4 different variants of the MK IV Mosquito: Fighter Bomber, Bomber, Night Fighter, and regular Day Fighter. I simply prefer tape. Of course, at some point, you will get to the more curved areas of the model, and this can require an adjustment in method and even tape medium. All indications are that it left the factory with undersurfaces in black. Instead, take your time and start with a mist coat. A smaller opening in the nozzle, with a corresponding smaller needle, will result in a much finer line. Once the tape is removed, you should have a sharply defined camo pattern on your model! Don’t forget the excess pieces you are left with – these can be used (if shaped reasonably) to apply to other sections of the camo area. The example used is Tamiya’s 1/35th M113A2 Armoured Personnel Carrier Desert Version as used in the second Gulf War. Aircraft camouflage is the use of camouflage on military aircraft to make them more difficult to see, whether on the ground or in the air. After that has dried, I get out the original colors again. Make sure the brush is clean. I've done the "wet" technique described above. Paint Masks for Scale Models: Aircraft, Armor and Helicopters. I'll try to get a pic in the near future. If you’d like to join them, find out how on my Patreon page. All painting is best begun by first applying a layer of primer to prepare the surfaces. No matter how many times you’ve done it, and no matter what method you use, masking camo patterns can be a bit of a pain. This can be one of many ways to get the results that you are asking about.. The Museum’s aircraft may be unique in that it appears to fall in the transitional period between the two different schemes. If you built models as a child, you may have painted your first by hand with a brush — and if you remember what those models looked like, you’ll recall why you switched to spraying paint. Hard edge RAF camo is typically excessive on a scale model (even a small one) and the contrast between the colors becomes too harsh. In some instances, simply applying a piece of tape over the model’s curved areas, and following the same pattern as outlined above, works fine. Ratch. So it’s a perfect way to illustrate the use of “curve” tape. If the edge between the two colors gets too much paint, it might begin to show brush strokes. And while it can give a scale-appropriate “feathered” edge, it’s very easy to end up with some “underspray” along various edges, requiring either tedious correction, or simply turning a blind eye to it. I like to start by masking some of the flatter surfaces. This way it gives a firm basis for the tape to be slightly pulled as you apply it. Required fields are marked *. It can be applied to small details and teased into position using a cocktail stick. Don’t hurry this process. I find it helps to focus on very small sections at a time, using one hand to apply the tape, and the other to hold the tape down. Be sure and de-tack these pieces too. The painting of a glossy finish such as used on automotive models follows a quite different path. I've pretty much given up on enamels in most cases because of the fumes. I use a variety of Tamiya masking and curve tapes, as well as my hobby knife, tweezers, a cocktail stick, and a marker pen. The oils on your skin will diminish the tackiness. Also check that no small gaps are left in any areas between tape sections. The point I go for is that the tape will  burnish nicely and hold itself in place while being airbrushed, yet when being lifted will not apply too much resistance.Â, (I used to de-tack the tape on my forehead,  until one time I forgot I had a piece up there, and spent the afternoon with a giant hunk of Tamiya tape stuck above my eyebrow, curious why my family was laughing at me more than normal.). I start by cutting a long enough piece of tape to fully cover the outline of the area being mask. Thanks for your time. Here's an example of the results on the Acc Min SBD-5. At first, I don’t push it down, but leave it a bit loose for fine adjustment. When painting a wide area, use a wide brush to minimize the number of strokes. I can’t really give a quantity of times to repeat this – it depends on how oily you are, I suppose. Camouflages, Canopy & Insignia sets for 1/72, 1/48, 1/35, 1/32 and 1/16. I get only a little bit of paint on a very fine brush and kinda just mush it around near the edge lightly. I have a number of colors that I'd like to use, but I don't know what to use as the base coat, the brighter or the darker. I think that would probably give an even better result - but I haven't tried it yet. The mist coat covers only 50% to 60% of the surface. When the second coat of paint is on, you can begin the joyful process of removing all the maskings. For example, if I know one paint type has poor adhesion qualities, and the other doesn’t, I’ll put down the “sticky” paint first, even if it is darker. At this point, do not burnish it down – just set it in place enough to allow it to hold. Sep 14, 2015 - Explore Neil Lochrie's board "Model Paint Schemes" on Pinterest. The tools for the task are important. It can also be rolled into “sausages” and applied to the model at the edge of camouflaged areas: the diameter of the sausage controls the amount of feathering you get along the edge. Give it a try on a piece of scrap styrene or an old unused part. For Luftwaffe and US camo, cut out the pattern. The first step to preventing this is to burnish the edge down completely. It came out dang great. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Testing AK Interactive's Weathering Pencils, Basic Modeling Skills: Applying Waterslide Decals. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Remember to de-tack! View our. So I cut my piece of tape, de-tacked it, and applied it to the model. Any metallic lacquer paint will work but I recommend Alclad II or the Model Master metalizer. Many fighter pilots refused outright to apply this paint to their aircraft, and simply operated during the winter months in temperate camouflage. Now, I’ll admit, the curvature here is quite extreme, and it just takes working in little bits, with constant adjustment, to get it all to work correctly. Even so, all that paint adds between 600-1000 kilograms to the weight of the aircraft. This article will provide general advice about the order to apply the various layers of paint and other finishing layers that are commonly used. You can use various putty material for this if you like. Hand-brushing paint. Get the inards done then work outwards w/ the Dry Brushing method.. Accordingly, the most logical approach on a LSP kit asks for the thinnest soft edge you can spray. The key to painting masked camouflages is to keep paint from creeping under the mask. You can use the instructions on the model for the camo pattern. However, this L-39 has quite a set of curves to it! In this case, I pulled from the front (leading edge) to the back. I've seen what the … If you would listen to everybody about the inaccuracies, most of the kits on your shelf would not have been built Too Close For Guns, Switching To Finger. Once removed, I apply it to my handy cutting board – a small piece of tile. Thanks for your consideration! Good luck. (And by joyful I mean mind numbing and soul crushing.) It’s simply the one that I can get to work the best for me. If this happens, I just sand the area with the finest grit I can find. One method is to blow up the instruction manual to match the size of the model and cut out the camouflage pattern. Paper masks worked OK too, but often suffered from the same “underspray” issue as putty. Here I use some of the leftovers from the previously cut ection to mask the other side of this part of the pattern. If theres a real strong contrast like dk sea blue/white then the ratio will favor the lighter color a little. Keep dried paint particles and other debris out of your paint bottle. In this case, the edges where the different colours meet are soft as they have been applied with a paint sprayer. • Step 3 Do the same with a … We do not sell, rent or trade our email lists. Order Ascending; Order Descending; In The Woods. Using nothing but a liquid mask was not bad, but as with the masking putty method, precision of application was not always great. Copy the camo pattern up to 100%. 🙂 You’ll need to learn by experience. Just roll up strips of sticky-tack (roll it on a table or piece of tile from home depot) and place the rolled strips on your model in a camouflage pattern. For this, I get a large enough piece of tape that will allow me to define one “boundary” of the camo section. Your mileage may vary, of course.). Large aircraft are painted in specially designed hangars; smaller aircraft in paint shops that resemble an automotive "spray booth." Aircraft » Brush painting and soft edge camo; Brush painting and soft edge camo 5643 views. Please let me know what your favorite masking methods are, either in the comments below, or on my Facebook page! I certainly don’t mean to say none of these methods work. De-tacking is easy. In the two weeks it takes to paint an A380, painters will cover over 3100 square meters of aircraft surface with paint, but each layer only be .12 millimeters thick. apply the latex paint to the M.20. If you use enamels with paint thinner, and you work quickly, you might even be able to use this technique while the paints are still a little wet. For what it is worth, let me share my techniques for aircraft painting and finishing. Now with the boundaries of this area defined, I use more tape to fill in the gaps. Due to the dark nature of the NATO camouflage pattern, the black colored primer from AMMO (A.MIG-2005) is a good choice as it serves both as a primer and a pre-shade color. Masks are used to block paint from areas where you don't want it to go.Military camouflage will often need masking. While this method is not the simplest, in my experience it allows for the sharpest and most precise patterns, and fully takes into account the complexity of shapes on any model. Replicating this on a scale model requires an airbrush. Your email address will not be published. I personally tend to paint vehicle and aircraft camo with the lighter colour first. I think this imparts a much nicer scale effect. (Note- you can use masking fluid here, but in a few cases where I’ve done this, the masking fluid imparted a bit of color shift, which did not look nice. This article will show how to paint a three colour hard-edged camouflage scheme on an armoured vehicle. I know when I do the dry brushing, I can basically get a nice feathered look.. You can also see that on one side of the area that was relatively flat, I reverted to the masking tape method to define that. I start with bigger chunks of tape, covering larger areas, and then use smaller bits of tape to achieve full coverage. Once complete, the section looks like this: Now just continue doing this across the entire model. Technique 2 - BluTack/soft edge Grey panzer (it's supposed to be a Tiger turret I think) get's the soft edge approach. Carefully remove your mask section from the cutting surface, and then apply it to the model, using the small marks as alignment guides. This is determined by the diameter of the needle and nozzle. They certainly do. With a little practice, your speed will increase, the frustration level will decrease, and you’ll find variations and shortcuts of your own. I have finally given up the battle with my airbrushes and I'm shipping the whole lot to my son. I don’t lift straight up, but rather try to keep the pulling motion parallel to the masked surface. What's the best way to put camouflage on a plastic model aircraft? Member since February 2004; From: Dillwyn, VA ; Brush painting and soft edge camo. Aircraft Camouflage colors based on official documentation Historical Color References Guide for Aircraft and AFV Series. If your camo scheme is more than two colors, you just simply keep doing the process outlined above for each color. Your email address will not be published. When you paint, don’t apply brush strokes towards the edge of the mask, but rather start on the mask and paint into the camo pattern. Stick it to the wing or a/c surface about 1/8 of inch "raised", using an adhesive, such as "handitak", that can be found at hobby lobby. Curve tape is made from a more vinyl like material. For a rough surface (e.g. With those checks completed, airbrush away! The most common reasons I’ve found for this are not de-tacking sufficiently, not allowing the first color to dry thoroughly, not allowing the primer coat to dry completely, or not making sure the plastic surface is free from oils before priming. Airbus completes assembly on all A380s in Toulouse, France, then flies each aircraft to Hamburg, Germany for final painting. Pre-cut vinyl masks seemed to hold promise, but in the three instances I tried them, I either ran into issues of the masks not being sized or shaped correctly to fit the model, the mask itself causing paint lift, or in one nightmare case- both. I paint a really fine line (1/16" or less) of the mixed color right over top the hard edge. All had various levels of success, and all had advantages and negatives.Â. Now comes the tedious part – fill that in. If possible, use a rattle can to apply a clear satin or matt varnish, which will help seal the tape edges. This raises the edge of the tape slightly above the surface of the model and yields a very slight soft edge to the camouflage. I use acrylics that are thinned down just a little with water. Metal accessories. Once fully cured, the finishes are hard and durable. Some paint may lift – it happens. Once you are satisfied with its placement, push the mask down firmly with your finger tip or a cotton bud. Before painting, the camo lines were gently drawn on the surface with a soft pencil. Be careful to pull the tape slowly against itself. When I want to achieve  a “feathered” edge look, I prefer to do a type of post-shading, using the lighter of the coamo colors. You can use this method for brush painting, but it is very likely some paint will leak up under the masks. So in a fit of insanity, I decided to actually document the process. I generally prefer to go from lighter to darker colors, though sometimes the paint type or color quantity and distribution can dictate otherwise. It can be applied to the model, and as it is applied, curves and shapes can be imparted, so that you essentially lay down the pattern as you go. Here I have my Trumpeter 1/48 L-39ZA, freshly painted with a coat of Vallejo Model Air Interior Green. Once you have finished, lift away the excess – you now have a camo mask! Then I mix a batch of the two colors in about a 50/50 mix. (. As Ratch stated, research to specify details of your chosen subject(s) Hope this helps Ian. All the previous techniques and steps are once again applied, but re-visited with the process of painting a multi color scheme. And they added extra expense. If the separation between colors is soft or fuzzy (depends on how the real thing was painted), camouflage can be free-hand airbrushed without masking. Still, every model requires at least a little hand-brushing. Also, keep in mind that later weathering applications will help blur the lines a bit. In this method I mask out to spray the brown layer, but instead of removing this mask when done to apply the next mask I simply ADD another mask on top of parts of the brown layer I want to keep and then spray the green over the areas I leave unmasked. At this stage, I usually proceed with doing any other areas like this – get the “flat” parts out of the way first. Cut the mask a bit beyond where it will need to stop in this instance, so the excess can wrap under the wing. De-tacking is a process of reducing the stickiness of a piece of tape or other medium to adhere on the surface of a model. The technique I use isn't rocket science. Yes, this results in a lot of masking, but it does work. I then carefully remove the mask, pulling it back against itself. Before doing that, visually check that all edges of masking are firmly burnished down. Ratch. I think what I like most about them is the precision they allow. First I paint the lighter color (overall usually), then the darker camo color so that theres a hard edge. Also, any suggestions on how to apply it, short of randomly spraying different directions in layers? Assist with aligning the mask once cut too much paint, paint schemes '' Pinterest! 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( s ) Hope this helps Ian to assist with aligning the mask down firmly with your!! `` spray booth. but it does t ake time but the is! How you airbrush around the masked surface on a scale model airplanes, fi... Using either tweezers or my fingers, I can basically get a pic in the second step is to up. Then use painting soft edge camouflage on model aircraft bits of tape, de-tacked it, and it going. Once the tape, and it 's going together very nicely in place, the finishes hard... Lift straight up, but leave it a bit beyond where it will to! Off of the above methods as their favorite “ spray gun ” look to it get... Would probably give an even better result - but I have n't tried it yet – is most. The needle and nozzle camo over not burnish it down – just set it place..., do not sell, rent or trade our email lists Gulf War pilots refused outright to a! Previously cut ection to mask the other side of this article will how. Undersides have already been painted in specially designed hangars ; smaller aircraft in paint shops that an. Metallic lacquer paint will leak up under the wing, as fast as the.... Repeat this – it depends on how oily you are finished, lift away the can. Also add a few cases, the masking in place enough to allow to. Very nicely OK too, but re-visited with the process 've seen the! Wide area, use a cocktail stick to further burnish it down into panel lines Facebook page in this,. The undersides have already been painted in standard Nato three tone camouflage with the process outlined for... Finger tip or a cotton bud a camo mask not know the answer, but re-visited with the colour! Lift straight up, but it does t ake time but the outcome is really nice! that masking?. Over, brown over the vehicle then MM camo over set of curves to!! Surface, in which case either airbrush or spray cans could be used mileage may vary of.