I was wondering what is the best way to paint an instrument panel in the cockpit? I have a hard time trying to get all the fine details say the white details on a black cockpit. Any ideas on how to successfully paint the instrument panels?
Dry brushing works pretty well but it takes some practice to get it to work right. Sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn’t. There is an article in the Techniques section of this site that gives some good info. The link is:
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/default.aspx?c=a&id=287
Thanks alot for your idea, yeah I have never tried that and therefore do not know if that will work for me, Im still too noobie to really know the best way for intrument panels, but i think that your idea will work really well
Wish I could claim it as my idea, because it does work pretty well. It takes a light touch and some practice. I’ve done it a couple of times, once it worked really well and the other time was junk. Play with something that doesn’t matter first!
Just to offer another tip for ya; for those tiny dials and buttons use a pencil tip dipped in the appropreate color and dab the tiny buttons and small details. A retractable mechanical pencil works really well; .5mm for 1/48th and .3mm for 1/72nd scale.
Good tip Greg! Thanks my friend. [;)]
Mike
and hey, when you get done drybrushing, take a very fine paint brush, dip into your favorite clear gloss coat or future floor polish, and apply to the dials of the instrument panel. i picked this up from an article somewhere and tried it. it adds that extra little umph to the detail. later.
Don’t forget to apply a black wash around the dials before you dry bruch the white onto the dial faces, as this, combined with the dry brushing helps ‘pop’ the detail out.
If you are worried about painting the dial faces, you can always apply the black wash to them, as, being thinner than normal paint it will run into the edges of the instrument bezel. Much easier.
Karl
You can also try some ultrafine tip colored pens. I just used one to “paint” the buckles on the seat belts, and to add some silver to the switches on the side panels of the cockpit. I’d already screwed up the acutal instrument panel on this plane, but I may try this on the next one to fill in the dials, and then drybrush after the ink dries to add highlights.