I’m 67 year old retired civil engineer and in my youth I used to build plastic models, now I’m starting again with my favorite topic TANKS but I have a BIG PROBLEM, my hands are not the same with paint brushes. How can I paint the tires of the wheels in a way that I see in pictures of experienced tanks modelers? I mean, looking the model from a side How I can paint the front part of the tire without smearing the adjacent part of the same wheel. Do you have a method?, masking the central part? or what?
I begin air brushing the lower hull with the primary color and then I used brushes for the tires but as I said my hands shake sometime and I have to restart again.
Please give me a hint. THANKS from the bottom of my heart.
Feria
You can use circular templates or stencils to airbrush the center and/or the rim with an airbrush. If you use brushed, paint the wheel the colour is it supposed to be, then use a thinned dark grey to paint the tyre. Place the tip of the brush against the rim of the wheel and let the thinned paint flow around it. Painting the rest of the tyre is then easy.
I start by painting the entire wheel the color of the tank with the airbrush. After it is dry, I mount the wheel on a toothpick. Usually I use two toothpicks with a rubber band around them. This forms a wedge inside the hole of the wheel and keeps the toothpicks in place. Next I start painting the black on the rubber portions of the tire. Now there is no need to be too careful here. Bracing your hands on the edge of a table while holding the brush, and wheel (still on the toothpick) will help stop the shaking. Make sure your black paint is not too thick. You want it thick enough so when you apply it, you cant see through it, but not so thick that it clumps up. Now at this stage you should have a painted wheel with a sloppy application of black rubber. Now comes the easy part. Drybrush with the color of the tank (same as the color of the inside of the wheel) from the inside of the wheel out. This should cover up all those spots that the black was not supposed to be. If you got really sloppy with the black, it should not be a problem to touch up with a small brush, and some thinned paint. One last note, it sounds like I use a lot of toothpicks, but I paint with acrylics, and while one wheel is drying, I’m painting the next one. By the time I finish painting the second one, the first one is dry, and the toothpicks can be taken out of the first one, and put into the third one. Oh ya, and a small piece of styrofoam makes a great toothpick holder while the wheels try. This technique goes surprisingly fast too.
I’m very new to armor. As a matter of fact I bought my first tank last night! But I have been modeling aircraft of and on since 1965. The method I used was to paint the wheel then wedge tooth pick in the wheel then chuck it in a dremel tool, lowest speed. when you have the wheel spinning pretty straight touch the tire part with black paint. It’s the most accurate method I’ve tried. Been doint it for many years.
In piece work like fashion I spray the tire with Floquil grimy black. I don’t worry about over spray. I have used a long set of curved tweezers to hld the wheel in place. I’ll do all the wheels at once, including a couple or more vehicles at one time. I drop the wheels into a container to dry. The next day or so, I palce them behind an appropriately sized opening in a circle template and airbrush the body color. I’ve worked on as many as three Panzer IV based vehicles doing this. You can get a lot of work done in short amount of time.
the great thing about using a template is its fast (other than waiting for the paint to dry) and they usually have lots of different sized circles in the template, so you can pretty much find a circle on the template to fit any size wheel you are painting.
I don’t always use the following technique, but it does work. Instead of using a standard black marker, I use a Staedler pigment liner. They are available in staples and they have an extremely fine point. However, the best thing about them is that they are truly black. Standard or “run-of-the-mill” black markers tend to be closer to very dark purple than black.
I don’t use any templates, but I do airbrush the entire wheel black (or NATO black, a really dark grey that already looks weathered). I then carefully airbrush the hub the required colour, trying not to overspray onto the tire. After weathering ( a black wash and a drybrush, followed by pastels), any overspray is hidden. It is basically an adaptation of the method in the link below. Hope this helps.
My technique is close to the template technique. First, I measure the diameter of the hub. Next, using a circle cutter and the hub measurement, I cut out a circle from some thin sheet stryene. Then I airbrush using this homemade circle template. It always comes out perfect and the exact size. I can also save the template for later. Jesse
The templates and such are really good ideas, the sharpies and pens too. I usually do the toothpick spinning around for the paintbrush method. One thing about the paintbrushes is to get good ones and take care of them. Something I forgot for a while and finally remembered after wasting alot of time on stuff re-doing it over and over again. Paint consistancy to will go along way. thinning the paint down to the consistancy of whole milk and a good soft brush will make the job alot easier if your are going to do it by hand.
I usually paint the wheels while they are still on the sprues. It makes them easier too handle. First paint them in the base color. If it is a light colored vehicle I use “grimy black” paint for the wheels, on a dark colored model I use “flat black” After the paint has dried I snip the wheels off the sprue, then take an exacto knife to clean up any excess sprue leftovers. Then it is a simple task to touch up the paint where the sprue was.