Hey guys,
Working on the Academy 1/48 500MD ASW kit, specifically the tail rotor. I masked off a good section of the ends and painted red first, as the pattern is going to be a red-white-red. Would you just mask over the red, leaving a narrow stripe in the middle so you can airbrush white, or what? It came with orange decals for it, but I wanted to change it up a little. I was just wondering, other than decals, if you had a method in particular for that.
Thanks!
Chris
ALWAYS paint the lighter color first. I would have done this: Spray the entire thing white (well, within reason) mask off the read area, spray, then mask off the red/white areas and spray the inside of the rotor black or whatever color you’re using.
[dto:]
Like he said, white before red. BIGTIME! But I have been lucky in that most chopper kits I have done have decals that cover that marking…
Yeah, I thought of the “lightest color first” thingy about 1/2 an hour after I sprayed the red. Oh well. I think I’m going to try to mask it with some clear tape to get the line thickness right. We’ll see what happens.
you could just strip it… that, or mask off the red, use a primer, then spray the white. it might cause paint buildup, but the red won’t bleed through the white
Well, last night I hit it with the white. I masked off the red leaving a stripe in the middle, and shot some white on it. It actually turned out ok. I was using MM Acryl flat white, and as I think most know, the Acryl’s dry pretty fast out of the airbrush. That was my saving grace. I was able to throw a second coat on within a minute or two. It’s not gonna win any awards, but it looks good enough for me.[Y] Thanks for the support though, guys. 
and dont forget the erosion strip on a lot of TR’s. On a USA helo with yellow tips you should also underpaint with white , yellow doesnt cover well.