Dry brushed in the raccoon eyes with Vallejo Model Air 71.047 Grey.
Finally satisfied with the catchlights on the head I’ll be using (on the left). Took about eight attempts, I figure.
Getting there.
I had thought I’d be done by the end of March. Starting to feel the pressure of golf season coming soon, and less bench time, and the need to get my Titanic hull ready for paint (have to do that outside this summer). Might have to put The Phantom on hold for awhile so I can get to that. We’ll see.
Mark, everything is looking very good. I like how your faces turned out with that color you selected. Yeah, I agree with you about modeling taking a back seat once the warm weather hits. My excuse is the never ending yard work. Even taking a ride on the motorcycle takes a backseat to that chore.
Looking good! Adding the dark circles around the eyes brought the head up to the next level.
I like how everything looks in the last pic. The heads look even better in it.
I sure hope golf season doesn’t end up impeding completion, but I understand if it does. It’s all about priorities.
Thanks guys. I’m pretty happy with how the heads have turned out, so far. Still have the wash to apply.
Re: completion…. I talked to the wife and apparently the son-in-law has LED work lights. Who knew? Benefit to this is I can perhaps paint my 53” Titanic hull in the garage instead of outside. Painting it outside would require about 7 wind free days. It’s often windy where I live. Hence, worrying about getting the hull prepared. Hard to predict when I’d have a chance to paint it. I mentioned to my wife that I was considering renting work lights and that’s when she stopped me. She knew he had work lights because he helped paint our basement, when we first bought our house, while I was away at work. He had brought the lights over for that. My only other garage concern is dust, but it’s probably doable and, if so, will give me way more breathing room.
Anyway, kind of off topic. Long story, short, I should get the Phantom done soon, in light of this new information.
Do you use it as a wash? Reason I ask is, I thought I’d try the yellow ochre I have for the wash for the face. BUT WAIT!, that would be an acrylic wash on an acrylic base. Contrary to Aaron’s advice in the Scale Model Basics video on the subject. Therefore, I want to go with an enamel wash. BUT WAIT!, Vallejo doesn’t do enamels. Scalemates indicates Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow or Humbrol Africa Korps Desert Yellow as similar shades in enamel.
I thought Tamiya paints are alcohol based acrylics, so I’m doubtful on that one. Looking to go with the Humbrol. Stopping at my LHS this morning to see if they have it.
Having said all that, just wondering if I’m choosing the right road on this?
Progress is looking awesome Mark! The eyes look perfect, and everything else is shaping up clean! Can’t wait to see it assembled.
Wonder if you could set up a basic jig to suspend a tent of masking film (like a thin sheet of plastic, available at any home center) over the model, right after spraying, until the paint is hard enough to not grab any dust from the air?
Definitely agree with this – you can use some acrylic washes over cured acrylics (I’ve never had a problem with Vallejo’s washes, for example, harming cured Vallejo, Tamiya, or Citadel paint), but there will always be the problem of them drying too fast, and having too much surface tension. This leads to them not flowing how you want, leaving tide marks, collecting in spots you don’t want, etc.
One thing to consider might be artist’s oil paints – they work great for washes over acrylic, and a bunch of other neat effects. You can thin them to whatever consistency you want, it the color flows and blends wonderfully, totally dependent on how much thinner you use, and over an acrylic varnish, you can wipe it completely off and start over if you don’t like the look. There IS a bit of a learning curve to using them but there are lots of tutorials out there.
If you’re at the LHS, they might have some of the Abteilung502 oils, which are made for modelers. Otherwise any art/craft store will have some. Just avoid the cheapest of the cheap, which tend to not have the pigment density we’re after. But a tube of ocher yellow oil paint and a little bottle of odorless mineral spirits would be fun to mess around with, if nothing else. Maybe grab some burnt umber, burnt sienna, white, black, and Payne’s grey if you’re already there…
I actually use both buff and yellow ochre quite bit, but not as a wash. I mostly use them for mixing colors and dry brushing highlights.
Tamiya paints are alcohol based and from some of the things I’ve read on the forum whatever mix they are using it is pretty hot. I would not recommend Tamiya acrylics ever be used for a wash. Which is probably why Tamiya has a separate line of enamel based washes.
As for Vallejo. I have had some minor issue with Vallejo pre-made washes softening the acrylic clear coat and on rare occasion the paint underneath. However, Vallejo Model Color thinned with water to make a wash hasn’t presented any issues for me.
I’m curious to know what is the goal of your wash? An applied wash will of course do two things.
act as a filter to add a subtle shift in color
settle into the crevices and shallow parts of the model to add color. Usually to imply a shadow.
They of course can be done together or separately depending upon how the wash is applied. What effect(s) are you looking to achieve?
Thanks for the advice. I asked the on duty Saturday kid at the LHS if they had “Artist’s Oils” and he had no clue what I was asking for. He pointed me to the enamels which are “oil based”, he said. Kind of embarrassing when both the store and the customer have no clue. Not a total loss, however, as the enamels he showed me were Tamiya enamels! I picked up a small bottle of the XF-59 Desert Yellow. I’ll play around with that. In the meantime, I’ll check out Michaels for the artist’s oils. I’m not aware of any other craft store in my area.
Thank you again.
Turns out Tamiya has some of their paint colors in enamels as well. My LHS has about 75-100 colors in stock. As for the enamel based washes…I did not know that. I’ll look into that as well. Learning stuff everyday!
#2. “settle into the crevices and shallow parts of the model to add color. Usually to imply a shadow.”
I’m not sure what #1 is about. Is that what DOT Filters do? I haven’t gotten around to looking into that yet.
All this is very new to me. Thank you all so much for your help. It is much appreciated and is making a difference than just me trying to educate myself.
Artist Oils is a general term to describe the oil based paints found in the art section of a craft store. I don’t think I have ever seen them stocked at a LHS. As @Toimi_Tom mentioned Abteilung502 is a modeling specific set of oil paints and would likely be the one kind you might find at a LHS.
Awesome! Hopefully that’ll make things easier for you.
Effectively yes. It adds a very thin nearly transparent coating that subtly shifts the base color. A wash is commonly a single color of fairly uniform coverage. A dot filter is effectively this in spades with additional tonal and color variation created due to the random placement of dots and the usage of multiple colors.
Check out the Jan/Feb 2025 FSM issue. It has two excellent articles on both of these topics and it has excellent pictures demonstrating the results. Check out pages 15-20 as well as pages 50-53.
Yes, thank you. A reminder. I’m actually aware of these articles but have not had the time to peruse them in depth. The consequences of learning and building at the same time. So many resources. I long for the day when I can just build / finish without having to spend time on learning. Not to say that I’m adverse to learning, but it is time consuming and conflicts with workbench time. Looking forward to the day that I can do things with confidence and not wondering about the how and why. Getting there.
The basic airbrushes that I have been using, thus far, are similar to the Badger 350, but they are in fact not Badger 350s. I have two of them.
They are cheap ass knock off clones. The first started acting up a week or two ago. Intermittent spraying. The second one started doing the same tonight. One issue is, they can’t be taken apart for cleaning. The lower brass portion (where it connects with the jar) is molded into the plastic body of the airbrush. Literally, it can’t be removed. Good luck trying to clean this cheap ass clone. Not going to happen.
I have a Badger 350 Fine tip and a Badger 350 Medium tip on order.
I wish I had seen this earlier. I picked up a brush like yours based upon the results you were able to get with it. At first I thought the nozzle was molded in too, but it’s just a tight press fit. You can absolutely back it out and clean it.
Congrats on getting the Badger!
In case you’d like a backup brush here’s what I did to take out the nozzle assembly and clean it.
Pull the retaining ring.
Then unscrew the paint nozzle most of the way.
Patiently push backwards away from the air nozzle. Paint nozzle/tip will eventually pop free. It may take a little more force than you are initially comfortable with, but it will come loose.
Finish unscrewing the paint nozzle and you can pull the paint tip out the bottom and do a full cleaning.
After the initial release it became much easier to remove during subsequent cleanings.
I managed to disassemble the airbrush with pliers, based on your description.
Some modifications to the main body (read: sanding the opening) required to improve ease of removal in the future.
A reprieval! Instead of the two knock-off clones being destined for the trash bin they now have a second life. I will keep them in reserve for primers and clear coats.
As for my build…I’ve been busy on it. Struggles with the clothing. Updates forthcoming.
That’s great news!
Never hurts to have another airbrush around.
Looking forward to the next set of updates. I’m confident you’ll figure out whatever is going on with the clothing.
As an aside, I for a while thought the “artist” part of the name was used by we modelers to imply that they’re not, well, “modeler’s oils” but I’ve since learned that there are “artist” grade oil paints and “student” grade oils. They are the same colors, and use the same pigments, but the student grade ones have a lot less pigment and use lots of fillers instead. The first ones I ever bought were “student” grade and they were nearly useless for weathering use. I’ve since grabbed a few tubes of “artist” grade oils, plus the aforementioned Abteilung502s, and they are worlds different. The 502s in particular are nice because they do actually dry, when applied thin, to the touch in a few minutes and thinner-proof after a few days. The student oils I used before – I bet I could still wipe them off that old Tiger I I built a few years back.
I think you’ll have to go to an actual art store to find “artist oils” as I’m not sure if Michael’s or Hobby Lobby will have them, though they do have “student” grade oils. I go to BLICK art materials here in MN.
The big advantage of oils is that you can use them for washes, pin washes, filters, and all kinds of other weathering/shading/toning effects, just by varying how much thinner you use.
No problem at all. It’s all good. Your intel is gold!
I’ve been to my LHS since last time, when I talked to kid employee. This time I asked one of the veteran employees about artists oils. He steered me toward two local art supplies stores. Failing that, the Abeiltung 502s are available at my go to online store. Amazon has them as well, and $1 cheaper than my online store. And ya, I’ve decided not to waste my time with Michaels.
Watched round one of The Masters today. Cleaned the two knock off clone airbrushes (thank you again @PhoenixG ) but nothing else.
Came across this video from Will Pattison this morning – aren’t algorithms great? – and he does a much better, more thorough, and more educated deep dive into the oils than I did. Check it out!
Mark, we have here stores called Joanne’s which are going out of business, and they had a great selection of Artist Oils. I was in the store by me recently and they still had a large selection of those oil paints. I don’t know if they ever had a Canadian presence but give them a look. I have one a mile away, you might be different.
BTW and FWIW, in my research I discovered that Abteilung 502 is owned by AK and they have rebranded their oil paints. Apparently, it is for political reasons. There’s a short Reddit discussion on it.
@chauncy Thanks for that intel. Unfortunately, Joann’s is not in Canada. The closest one to me is in Minot, ND. A seven hour drive with two washroom breaks factored in.
