Could any of you guys help me do this
what kind of camo are you planning? if you are doing the simpler BOB type camo it wouldn’t be too hard. A good quality soft brush (as in from an art store or a decent Hobby Lobby brush) and properly thinned paint would work well. Use thin coats and let them dry then stick on a second coat…
my dad used to hand paint all the models he built in the late 60’s and early 70’s and it was hard to tell. (of course he didn’t do the fancier spotted camo of later luftwaffe years)
the bottom scheme would be easiest. You can check to see if they have a tamiya or Model Master spray can with the light undercoat, then about 24 to 48 hours later, mask it and either hand paint, or if they have the upper spray color as well, spray it on.
The middle one probably could be done with a brush as well if you are familiar with dry brushing… it would take awhile but you could hit those same spots repeatedly to make the soft edges with a darker inside on the blotches…
—edit—
go to google.com, type in the Bf-109 type you have, as in Bf-109 E-3, then when the results come up at the top you see a ling that says “images” not only are there a lot of WWII photos in there but model photos too… see if there is a scheme you feel comfortable doing in there… then do it!
Good luck!!!
Jimmy, you can paint the soft mottles using a stippling technique.
Take an old, but still good brush, and chop it down so that you are left with a stump of bristles about 5mm long.
What you then do, is dip the stump in some paint, wipe off the excess until it is practicaly dry, and then gently dab the brush on the model. It takes a bit of practise, but does give quite a good affect. It’s what I used to do in the days before owning an airbrush.
Karl
A lot can also be done with the “poor man’s airbrush”.
Ground down pastel chalks and similar, takes a bit of practice to get gradation and such going.
Similar to dry-brushing except you are transfering chalk powder and can also smudge the colors if so desired.
I’d give the pastels a go too. You can get some nice feathered edges going. They are mainly used for weathering but I don’t see why you couldn’t use them for that application. I’d also suggest trying a few different methods and see what looks good to you.
Once again, I recommend the real poor man’s airbrush, and that’s a Testor’s spray gun, where you snap the spray cap right on top of the can of air (which is included), screw your Model Master (standard size) paint bottle right to it, and there you are. Soft edges can be done with creative masking, by using rolled masking tape to lift the mask off the surface just enough. The whole rig costs less than $15 and you can do more than one plane. Of course, the spray head and filler cap will last until it wears out. Two of my favorite builds, a Tamiya Mosquito B/PR Mk. IV and a single-seat Ac-Min Sturmovik, both of which had multi-color, soft edge camouflage schemes, were done with this, and it looks like I used an expensive airbrush on them. Of course, you can’t beat an airbrush for the German mottling, but to do it manually, also try the women’s makeup applicators, which are tipped with very fine little sponges. The make really good mottling. Practice on paper till you get the right amount of paint and pressure to apply down pat. Hope this helps combined with the other tips.
Tom
As has been said, pastels work well for the mottles. whyt hey’re called the poor man’s airbrush is beyond me, because I have an airbrush and still use pastels extensively.
With the spotted camo you might want try Q-tips. I did it on this Index card and it seem to work fine.
I hope this helps.[:)]
Way back when it was not so common for everybody to own an A/B we used those to create the same effects.
Remember when I bought my first Badger A/B a few decades ago, those things were not as affordable as they are now.
Hey guys, i’ve decided to choose the desert paint scheme. How should i make the shapes rounded
Well, they aren’t rounded. They are still irregular, you just don’t have as many of those spraygun-created short streaks that look sort of like comets or even commas. The E and F model 109s with the desert yellow over RLM 65 had dunkelgrun spots on them and as has been shown in many color photos and films from the period, over certain parts of the desert the camo is almost perfect, though these photos were also played around with in the darkroom at the time to make them look even more perfect.
To the point, the spots on these birds were not circles, they are irregular blotches. I would take my Q-tip, or sponge makeup applicator, dip it in the paint, blot it on paper, and twist it when you touch the surface, without putting too much pressure. And many of these “dots” are ovals, or sort of a fat “L” shape and other shapes. They were more like little blobs.
You can even do this scheme with a hand-held hole puncher, some paper, tape and a can of spray paint. Punch holes in the paper as close together as the scale calls for, and make sure you punch each hole twice or three times a little off from the first hole to make sure it is a bit irregular. Then, use bits of masking tape or cellophane tape rolled up to lift the paper off the surface while keeping it from shifting while you paint. Then, when you spray, the perforated paper with the tape holding it about an eighth of an inch off the model will give you nice, fuzzy green spots on that “yellow” (it’s actually tan) and light blue surface. Be sure to refer to photographs before starting this so you’ll know where the colors begin and end.
Long-winded, but it’s really easy. I’ve done it using a spray gun, air brush and a can over the years. Hole punchers come in handy quite often in painting aircraft. The come in various sizes and can be used to mask wheels and I once used one to make an entire 1/48 Monogram B-24D polka-dotted as an assembly ship.
Tom
I used a scanner and insturctions to blow up the diagrams into a mask and then spray painted over it. It worked really well. If you do brush paint, thin the paint somewhat to elinimate brush strokes.
Tamiya, of course, is not consistent with this, but on many or most of the newer kits they include a full size sheet or sheets with four-views of the model with the camo scheme, and it’s awfully easy to zap a couple of extra xeroxes and simply cut these into the proper masks. Of course, check your references to make sure they got the scheme right for the model you are building, because their research can be faulty. I’ve recently done used these additions to the instruction sheet to mask the Mosquito Mk. IV and the Dewoitine 520 and it made painting a snap. Slipped a little stack of post-it notes under the masks to lift them off the surface and got a perfect level of “fuzz” at the demarcation every time. Maybe they make it a little too easy, since naturally there is a greater sense of accomplishment when you freehand the camo. But I don’t trust the cheapo Paasche I’m stuck with for the moment to give me the right amount of paint at the right moment, so I’m masking those irregular lines carefully.
Tom