Hi Guys
I don’t own an airbrush and can’t justify the purchase (to my wife)
so the question is those mottled camoflaged patterns used by the luftwaffe…can the be done by hand and how??? please,please
Cheers
Chris[banghead]
My tip is to take an old brush and cut the bristles, leaving only a few millimeters. Then you use the brush with only very little color and stipple dots in the pattern you want.
I hope this helps.
Azgaron
People have also said that teensy little pieces of a soft sponge held in tweezers are very effective in creating the soft edges of the mottling on Luftwaffe aircraft
Just like drybrushing with a paint brush, put a little paint on the sponge, then wipe off almost all the paint…dab onto the surface of the model…but do it little bit by little bit.
It’s easy to add more paint to a mottle spot…but it’s not easy to remove too much paint afterwards…slowly does it, and you’ll surprise yourself with how well it comes out.
You have to justify a purchase? Who runs that household?[:-^][;)] Also depends on the scale your working with. The smaller the scale, the harder the paint edge. Depending on the pattern you want, you can just paint it on with a brush.
i have read one article in the FMS mag, the guy mix thinner and paint and it will create a smooth just like airbrush. i believe more thinner than the paint itself so just test it til you get what u want then do it on the model.
I agree. I did an old 1/72 Uhu this way and it turned out great.
Eric
PS. Getting set up with your first air brush will be very expensive (a good air brush, a good compressor, etc). It is definitely a cost which must be justified. I’d just say to budget accordingly and make sure to drop lots of hints as birthdays and holidays get closer. Do as much as you can to help your wife and let her go on her shopping sprees. That way her guilt factor will work to your advantage. Hopefully you have a wonderful spouse like most of us do. Heck my wife gave me her Aiwata (sp??) air brush AND she bought me a Craftsman compressor for Christmas a few years back! I’ll say one thing, once you have an air brush you’ll wonder how you got by without one.
Hi Spong…
For many years I din´t have an airbrush so I figured out a way to get the mottle effect
without it. I still use it as you can see by the photo of the SM-85.
Get yourself some " Chalk Pastels", good ones, a box in an art store is about 10 or 12
US$ with about 12 or 16 color.
Scrape the color you want, or several to obtain a fine dust of colors . Cut the bristles
of a small brush to a very small bushy thing very near the metal part.
Smear iton the chalk dust and they apply to the model using very small strokes, to the
size of the “mottle” you want, start with one color then apply the next to get the
final camouflage you want…from about 2 feet away it looks very much as if you had
done it with with an airbrush…
I use it a lot in “black exhaust smoke” over and under wings…when you got what you
want, spray it with “matt spray” which you also buy for about 3 bucks at the art store.
Hope it helps you…practise some on an old model.
The dirty black smoke on the wing of this Piaggio-32 is black pastel dust applied as above.
I never could get the effect you see in these pics with paint no matter what I did with it…
Check out this technique for mottling…
http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/mottleshl_1.htm
There are mottling masks available too. Thin metal sheets with varying shaped holes.
For straight or wavy edges take a look at this. I just posted this today show how I didi the camo on a Spit.
/forums/42/772922/ShowPost.aspx#772922
I would think any of these should work with a spray can and some practice.
You’ve got a couple choices… Aztec (Testors corporation) makes some good dual-action airbrushes for a decent price. You don’t have to go with a compressor right off the bat. There are air-brush propellant cans that works pretty well (this is how I started). You just can’t control the air flow precisely. Secondly, you can use simple 3 x 5 index cards and cut small multi-shaped holes in the card (and use it as a template), then use a stippling technique with a stiff bristled brush. Places like Hobby Lobby or Wal-Mart (that sell craft items) sell stencilling brushes that have short, stiff bristles. This may work well also. Hope that helps. Frank
Hey Chris one way to get extra pocket money for new toys is to sell off the old toys you no longer play with on eBay. I do’nt know of anybody that does not have some sort of collection or hobby that no longer interest them. You would be surprised how much some of the things you have stash away are worth. Being that you have raised the funds in this mannor there is no need to justify the cost since you are not dipping into the household budjet. Just a thought. I recently sold of many car parts I had stored in boxes in the garage. Alot of the parts were for vehicles I no longer even owned! Being that these were parts for Corvette’s and Camaro’s I collected a nice little sum and used the money to build my model stash to a very nice size. Even though I am single I still have to answer to my own common sense and not go overboard when purchasing toys.
Soulcrusher
You might not be able to slip a high end, double action Iwata passed your old lady, but there are very inexpensive single action starter Airbrushes available these days. My local Big Lots has a Chinese copy of the Badger 350 for $9.99 with everything but an air source. I picked up couple for the heck of it, and it works every bit as good as it’s inspiration. I’ve seen this and similar models at many thrift and Dollar stores as well.
Using that with a few masks will work well for most applications. Although I have a number of high end airbrush models at my disposal (I’m a commercial Illustrator), for modelling the single action airbrush gets the most use 75% of the time anyway, quite frankly.
I always seem to be plugging these things, but they are well worth it for those who cannot yet afford an airbrush. Testors makes a spray GUN for about $14, including the can of air and five bottles of acrylic paint. It has a special top so you can spray from the bottle, so you have to get an extra normal half-ounce bottle in order to thin your paint to spraying vicosity. While these guns give a wide spray and high pressure, as you use them you learn to control that part. It’s all in keeping your paint farther away from the surface than you normally would, such as with a rattle can.
Then, with one of these bad boys, all the skill is in the masking. I did countless models before I got my double-action Aztec and compressor from the giant hardware warehouse store ($45 bucks, complete with two guages and nobs to control intake and output). But back to those countless models. Each was better than the last because I learned to mask primarily with Post-It Notes, and it’s all in how you cut them, and how far or how close you rig them to stand away from the surface to get a soft edge, varying the spray angle to further finesse the sharpness or softness of the edge.
In fact, I learned to use a stack of Post-Its taken from the pad, with the number of notes determining how thick the stack will be that I stick to my airplane. Then I take the top note and let it overhang about 1/4 to 1/2 inch, allowing for the soft demarcation.
As for the stipple, the guys are right. Go to your penurious wife and hit her up for some of those makeup sponges, with tips about 1/4" wide or smaller, to stipple that Luftwaffe paint on. They are normally used for applying and spreading makeup, but they are great for a lot of modeling uses, such as soaking up an overdose of Micro Set/Sol on your decals.
Hope this helps.
Tom
PS: Also, these spray guns use much less air than airbrushes attached to cans, for some reason I have yet to figure out.
…this is a great technique that I have used on Armor…it is especially good if you are aiming for a subtle and/or faded look…I have an airbrush but thought the technique sounded promising so that’s why I tried it…now I use it sometimes in lieu of the AB (on Armor)…ualso good if you are trying to get
Thanks to all of you who have responded
I’ll give these all a try.
Some of you wondered who wears the pants in my household the answer is :::::I do:::::::::when she isn’t home
Cheers
Chris[:o)]