When it comes to weathering armors, there is a great choice in the different techniques to use and it is not clearly defined in which order we should perform them. How do you proceed right after the painting session? Please put these techniques in order:
Here is what I did with my last tank:
What about you?
I pretty much follow the order you outlined here.
Glad to hear I’m not completely dumb. He He. The main reason I ask this is because I wonder if the flat coat could be done earlier in the process. It would probably change the aspect of the general washes.
Do you put another coat of clear over the decals before the wash?
It’s been a while since I built an AFV, but whenever I drybrush, I always do it over a flat coat. It just works better for me that way.
Sounds like a good idea. The decals may slide if not sealed properly.
So let’s do it again:
I do my flat coat after the clear coat and then the washes so they’ll bite onto something.
What material are you using for your washes Tigerman. Cause I tried what you said using acrylic paint and water but that leaves a kind of water mark and it doesn’t look realistic. It shouldn’t be a problem with artist oils tough.
You sure that was me? I use artists oils, because I always spray acrylics.
What I meant is I once sprayed the flat coat first and then applied the wash but I was not using artist oils at that time and the results were not very good. But I had “not so bad” results using acrylics over clear gloss coat.
Washes applied over a flat or dullcoated surface will always “bloom” and/or leave tide marks depending on how heavy the wash is for the reason that Tigerman mentions. The added “bite” or “tooth” of the flat/dullcoat surface encourages this by dramatically increasing the surface area of the space in question vs. a gloss surface that allows things to flow and be moved around/adjusted. Both can be used to great effect to produce various results depending.
Watermark?
In this situation, it’s my understanding that when you use water, you should use distilled water because the impurities in regular tap water are what causes those little uglies.
Steve
I recently started doing my washes with artist oils, and I’m very pleased with the results. I formerly used Acrylic paint with amonia glass cleaner, which wasn’t bad.
Here’s my order
Gloss Coat
Decals
Semigloss coat
Wash, Drybrush, powders, spot rust marks with paint
Flat coat.
What’s a pin wash?
Semper Fi,
Chris
Chris: A pin wash is simply a wash applied with a fine brush in definite areas to accentuate the contrasts lets say. Like a black pin wash applied in engraved panel lines.
Steve: It is not a problem anymore cause I now use Artists oil over a coat of Future. And I was not refering to watermarks like you mentioned but more of a “hard edges” mark that looks fake due to the use of water base paints. I sometimes have difficulties to tell things properly in english … lack of vocabulary simply.
Steve,
Here’s an example of a pin wash placed over a flat surface:
The left side wasn’t coated with Future while the right side was. As you can see, the wash (with oils over acrylic base coat) blossomed. When it dried, there was a “watermark” at the edges of the blossom that couldn’t be removed.
As I understand it, you want to wash with a medium different from the basecoat of paint. But, it appears that the finish being washed is almost (if not equally) as important as the medium being used for the wash.
I stand ready for reproof if I am wrong.
Thanks for the clarification on the pin wash. I developed a habbit of washing twice. Once overall, and then the small spots I thought deserved more.
Thanks
Chris
[#dots] Ya know, after thinking about it.
[:-^] Weathering actually goes back one more step “before” number 1. When you initially paint the model you need to [^] consider the overall appearance you want it to have and incorporate the amount of fading (if any) of the finish, which is best done with a lightened shade of the base color.
I do spray clear again after applying the decals. Looks to me like it makes it more uniform. Then I spray the flat coat.
How long does it take for the oil wash to dry or how can you tell if you can spray clear already?