Ok, so I went and picked up the Tamiya Sherman “Dragonfly” kit yesterday. This is my first armor model. So I have a couple quick questions I know you Zen masters of the steel beasts can help me with. The first is probably ultra noobish, but…
So armor is done in mostly flat paints, right? If so, how do you prevent silvering of decals? Do you use gloss paints, apply decals, and then spray a flat clear coat over everything? Is there some other little trick?
Second, the kit calls for Tamiya TS-2 paint, which is a rattle can. Can anyone suggest an acrylic color match so I can use my airbrush? I don’t have anything against rattle cans in general, its just I have this fancy ole airbrush that cost me good money…so I would like to use it as much as possible.
Lastly, what would you do for a “simple” weathering job. I have not done any weathering yet, so I am not looking to go complicated, but want to do something to just bring out a little more detail. How does this sound: Maybe mist some khaki to imitate dust, do a simple rust-like color quick wash, and add just a tad “mud” up in the drive wheels and treads?
There are a couple of ways to get the decals to stick, but they do need to go on a gloss finish. You can put down your base layers with the flat paint, and then cover it with a spray of clear gloss, put the decals on, weather, and then spray again with a dullcote. Or you can use some Future in the area that the decals will go (this is basically a acrylic clear gloss used for floors), and then weather, then dullcote. There are several different methods, and being a new modeler myself, maybe someone else can chime in. But this these are a couple of different ways that I know of.
One of the easiest ways of weathering is to do a wash, which is a highly diluted mixture of paint with thinner (burnt sienna, raw umber, etc…) This is then brushed on the model, and the paint will run into the low points due to capillary action, but make sure you have a gloss coat of clear on first, otherwise the wash may settle into the other parts of the model as well (due to the “toothy” nature of a flat or dull paint. Then you can highlight the raised parts with a lighter color of your base paint, using a brush with the paint almost completely wiped off the brush on a paper towel before hand…may take a couple of different layers, using progressively lighter paint and lighter pressure on the raised parts. Then a dusting with some ground up pastel chalk to give it a dusty appearance. Again, this is what I have in my head and is theory at this point because I am still putting together my first model. I am sure others can add to what I have written. Good luck and have fun!
TS-2? thats Dark Green right? I think tamiya makes dark green 2 in smaller bottles, I dont know how close the color would be other than that you can use is model masters dark green # 1710
For paint, yes flat colors are used unless a gloss color is called for in the instructions. Then, spray a gloss coat so you can put down decals. A simple weather job would probably be a wash (as said already). Then you could do some simple rust spots, dusting, and a little bit of mud like you said. If you want you could also do some exhaust and gun powder stains. Good luck!
I suggest picking up a copy of Shepard Paine’s book, Modeling Tanks and Military Vehicles… Also, look at the other folks builds in here and read about what they did… 99% of the answers to your questions will be in there…
[#ditto] But instead of using Dullcote to seal in decals and weathering, you can use Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear Matte, it comes in a spray can, and can be found at pretty much any hard-ware store. I recommend this because I use it on all my builds.