Guys, I need some help. I am building the Tamiya JS-3. I am painting it a Russian Armor Green color. Or maybe an Olive Drab. Not usre yet. My question is this: What color should I use to drybrush with. Whenever I use a light shade of green, it does not look right. The green is too bright. Should I use flat white, or buff? Any help would be appreciated. What do you all use?
Lighten your base color wth a light gray or buff, depending upon what effect you want. Try drybrushing with your custom shade in a small area. If you like it, repeat on a larger scale with enough to do the whole tank.
hey welcome to the forums![#welcome] i built dmls IS2 awhile back and used model master SAC green over a base of black.then dry brush with a mix of mm and white oils. it looks pretty good if you use a light touch
while some would not agree with me on this (i believe) i would drybrush with shades of yellow! yellow is a primary color for green and drybrushes really nice when applied to anything green!! just my [2c]
Light tan or a buff color always worked for me.
you know camo junkie, i could see useing yellow. cool tip[tup]
Levon: I have spent A TON of time drybrushing my last few builds and there are a lot of ways to pull it off…some easy, some more complex. I can offer advice like the rest of the guys but my suggestion to you is to determine your skill, patience and “risk factor” level and then decide how you want to bring your build to life, including the drybrushing. Let us get to know you, start a new thread, show us where you are with your model with photos…tell us what you like, your talents, your goal for the build, etc…
You’ll find that we have a great wealth of talent here…we were all new once, so show us what ya’ got and we’ll take it from there! Glad to have you aboard!
I prefer using tan or buff to drybrush over dark green or OD… I lighten OD and Dark green with yellow, rather than white as well… If I use white to lighten it, it doesn’t look right to me…
I drybrush in steps as well… A slightly lighter shade of the base, then lighten a bit more, drybrushing a bit lighter on the material, then lighten some more, repeating each pass with progressively lighter shades until it’s almost white and just barely touching the highest points of the details… About 4-5 passes altogether…
Never use any light green shade over another green to drybrush. Tan or Buff is the way to go. It simulates the dust that accumulate nicely.
Another way to go would be to use a brownish-black. It will look like wear. Then hit it with another light shade of tan/buff. I guarantee you’ll like the results.
Dust doesn’t accumulate on the high points of AFVs, Doog…
Levon: What Hans describes here is right on the mark, IMO. In addition to the highest points of detail though, pay attention to areas that receive extra wear from crew use and also remember sunbleached areas. Both require the progressively lighter shades…Good Luck!
ive never used tan or buff, ive always used white oils mixed with my base color.usuing the oils gives me more control over the process. HVH has a very valid point about usuing multiple passes,gradually building up color variations. but doog has piqued my interest in usuing buff so im gonna give it a try and see.
Although I build only 1:72 scale,I find progressive additions of yellow to the base green works well for dry brushing with a final very, very dry brush of yellow for highlights.
I have found this to work very well indeed. The trick though is to be subtle and build the colours up gradually, not jump from a darker shade to much lighter shade in one step.
I use Vallejo paints.
Cheers
Mike
i stand corrected…someone else actually agreed with me. [:D]
Try some Panzer Yellow. I use it on my cockpit components (in the rare occasion i build aircraft) and like the result.
On the other hand, i dont drybrush on tanks. It isnt realistic to me. Dust/ dirt doesnt accumulate on sharp edges. It does add some spark to detail, though…
I echo on the black drybrush. If done carfully and restricted enough, it will give the look of worn/ chipped paint. Black might be a bit stark…try dark gray.
How does black / dark grey dry-brushed look like chipped or worn green paint? Does something magical happen to the green to turn it black / gray when it is chipped? This is one recent modeling trend that I can not understand.
According to the champion armor builder Migman of Spain drybrushing is going out of style because it produces unrealistic looking armor. He doesn’t dry-brush at all but instead paints chipped paint on exposed areas, edges, etc. He uses the negative/positive technique.
I don’t drybrush details to simulate dirt or dust… I do it to highlight details and along with the washes, add depth and bring out the shape of objects… For adding dust I use a different technique (airbrushing and/or pastels) same I do for fading, and for chipping/worn paint it’s rubber cement masking and/or pin-point painting, although scuff-marks are still best accompished with drybrushing, IMHO…
Some modellers like to use lighter colours to dry brush their kits but as many have mentioned before, there are many ways to do this.
I actually use darker colours to dry brush my kits to have a better contrast. An example is this:
If you want to bring out the detail by using a lighter dry brush colour then i agree with the previous post above where you mix the base colour with Buff. I do use this mixture on OD coloured kits.
Guys, thanks for all the advice and comments. I can’t thank you enough. I will add pictures and tell you my approach for painting my JS-3 in the near future.