Hi everyone! I am an absolute beginner who loves modeling, and here are my first two kits I have been working on. I am pretty proud of these! I do not have airbrushes (and won’t be able to obtain them for quite some time), so I have to hand-paint everything. I think painting is my weak area, so any tips for that would be greatly appreciated!
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Cool looking Soviet plane…and your figure certainly looks better than my first figure. It was years before I had an airbrush so I remember it well…baby steps get you there in due time. Keep it up!
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Looking very good Comrade. Bi-planes are challenging builds and you did a good job with it. Your figures are also well done and add a sense of scale to your aircraft.
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Nice work! You’re on your way to a rewarding hobby.
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Beauty of a Chaika! What kit is that? Did it come with the figures?
For a beginner, brush painting, I think you’ve done a really nice job. It’s evident in your figures that your brush control is very good, and I think your color selections for the VVS green are spot on.
If you’d like a tip or two, look into getting or making a wet palette, and thin your paints a bit more. It takes some time and practice to get the feel for it but you’re well on your way already.
Secondly, maybe look into washes - the gaming-oriented ones are very handy, and easy to use, especially for figures. Grab a spray can of satin varnish (now that the weather’s warming up) to protect your nice paint job first of course.
Vallejo’s Game “flesh wash” will bring those dudes right to life in moments. A grime/dirt wash, like Citadel Nuln Oil, will help bring out details and darken shadows on the plane. If you use a spray varnish first, you can use a q-tip with water to clean up the excess wash.
Keep at it! You’ve got a good thing going.
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Thank you ! Yes they are so difficult- you can see the lower wing where it is very uneven because I glued one of the supporting (beams?) wrong and it wouldn’t line up properly 
Thank you so much! I’ll definitely look into washes - I’ve been trying to compensate a bit for those using water + paint but I think an actual one would do me some good. I have been doing art for a while (I draw/paint portraits) so I have a bit of understanding of paint/shading but I found it hard transferring those skulls onto 3D models. Thanks for your advice and post : D
Edit: it’s the ICM I-153 Chaika model! A very nice kit and I got it on eBay for $20
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Looks like it was a fun experience. First kits always leave an indelible impression. 
That’s a really open ended question. Instead I am going to flip the question around and ask what are two things would you like to learn more about?
A few random examples that are frequently asked. Maybe they’ll spark a couple of ideas.
- how to make brush strokes less apparent
- recommendations for gluing fuselages together
- how to brush paint a straight line
- recommended order of operations for doing XYZ
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Thanks for the ideas!
Gluing parts together is something I think I might need help on. My glue is pretty thick and dries pretty fast - so I found it hard to glue smaller parts. As well as just brush painting skills. I am definitely jealous of the airbrushed models, so making my paints thinner and less matte would be pretty nice.
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I’ve had this one on my wishlist for a while. Think I might grab a copy, after seeing yours. Thanks!
You might want to look for a bottle of Tamiya Extra-Thin cement next time you’re at the hobby shop. Comes in a little square bottle with a green lid. It’s water-thin and comes with a tiny brush applicator. It works awesome: you can basically fit the parts together and then touch the seam with the brush and watch the glue wick into the joint.
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Nicely done first effort!
I’ll second some of the tips others have offered.
One is fundamental to brush-painting, and that is the thin your paints well. Properly thinned, you can lay down coats as thin as if they were sprayed.
For water-based acrylics, I recommend a wet palette as well. If you’ve never used one before, it’s just an air-tight container that holds a sponge, and a piece of permeable paper that serves as the actual palette. I made one from a take-out container, a kitchen sponge, and packaging paper, before I bought a commercially available one (I got the RedGrass Games wet palette, Everlasting Wet Palette Painter Lite for miniature painting Redgrasscreative). A wet palette will keep your paints thinned to a good consistency, lets you mix colors easily, when you get to that point, and also lets you keep paints from one session to the next.
For non-water-based acrylics, like Tamiya’s X/XF line, and for enamels, a ceramic palette is a good idea to use.
For figures, especially in 1/48 or smaller scales, you might like to try using a wash to pick out details, especially on faces, till you get comfortable painting more detail. Also, in those scales, remember that you really can’t see much detail, anyway, since you’re viewing the figure from a scale distance of tens of feet away. What I do is to:
- paint the basic colors, such as exposed flesh, uniforms and clothing, equipment
- on a face, paint the eyes as thin lines. As the modeler Shep Paine once described it, people outdoors tend to squint, so avoid the pop-eyed look
- use a wash of a color like burnt umber or burnt siena to pick up the molded or cast detail. A wash will provide a bit of a shading effect and make the figures look a little more realistic.
- drybrushing highlight shades-lighter shades of the base color-will also enhance the look of the finished figure
- Practice, practice, practice. Don’t feel bad with early efforts, and don’t be afraid to strip a figure and start over if you’re not happy with your results. Every figure painter does it.
Hopefully those things will help you as you proceed with new projects!
Best regards,
Brad
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Thank you so much for your wisdom! I am planning on making more figures in the future - and this is very helpful!
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