fading decals

I am trying to achieve a faded look to my model aircraft (mostly ww2 era 1:48 scale). However, the site that I have that walks you through it, does not tell you how to do the decals, the modeler just painted the insignia on. What is the best way to achieve the weathered and faded look on decals, such to match your preshading? Do you just airbrush the decals before you put them on? Is this possible/feasible? Any advice?

Kurt

You can try pastels. If you don’t like the look, you can wash it off.
Hope this helps.

heelo there and welcome to the forum!
thin paint down to the consistency of coffee using a dirty black brown mix.
test on a piece of paper first.you should only barely be able to see the color.

then if u dare try it on the model or an older one.Some people call this post shading
and u can do it all over the rest of the paint job too.Be carefull due to the high amount of
solvent in the paint it might take a little longer to dry ,m so it ll be alittle tacky for a while.

good luck experimenting!
eng hui

ps; if look at my signature pic , u can see the spinner is too clean ,it
hasn’t been post shaded like the rest of the a/c.

I found a little bit of everything, a little scraping of the decals in the proper direction, with a little ‘guts’ when it comes to air brushing a base coat over the top of the decals really makes a realistic look to a model. But if you overdo the airbrush the decals just fade and sink into the model paint. If the ABing is done just right the weathering effect is very striking.

You can use a base color such as medium gray, dark gray, black or even yellow!!, (used it on swedish roundels, even on top of blue), in a drybrush fashion. Looks really good.

ahh thanks, at hit the spot