Putting side skirts (Schurzen) on a Dragon Brumbar: they’re metal and very thin, so they should be scale. I’ve never used them before, and I’m not sure how to approach painting them. I use a simplified modulation technique (glorified way of describing altering the shade of the color). Normally I’d paint upper surfaces on the top hull lighter than the lower areas (it varies) and vice versa with lower hull. In general, try to imagine what areas might be shadowed or areas that would be lighter than the norm. However, not sure if these skirts would benefit from anything like that (mud and dust excepted natch). Would it be a good idea to paint them straight up and then apply filters and other embellishments and forget shading?
!http://th93.photobucket.com/albums/l71/Saddletramp69/SMILEYS/th_imo.gifIf you’re gonna paint a camo scheme, about the only way to go is with the filters.
!http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b232/gluetank/Decorated%20images/th_T1-4-copy.jpg
You can shade them, sure! From lighter on top, to darker on bottom. There’s no “shadows” to really deal with but there’s definitely the way that light reaches the top of an object first.
Sure, I would shade them very subtly. And the do all the other jazz…
This thread begs another question. How were the inside of schurzen painted?
Sorry, but in my sometimes not-so-humble-opinion, the trouble with doing that in anything other than a shadow box is that your light source is never constant… Adding shadows towards the lower ends, is desireable to make a 2-object 3-D and to show where the light source is relative to the object, and the shape of that object, as well as the angle of it…
Frankly, I find those paint schemes to be a drawback (and irritating to the eye at times) at model shows… In figure-painting, it’s quite acceptable, even necessary because the “light source” is never strong enough to adequately show the various shadows and highlights of uniforms and faces, therefore the additonal shading/highlighting is a “necessary evil”… 1/35th and larger scale armor and soft-skin vehicles are big enough to let the artificial/natural room/outdoor light do the addtional shadowing/highlighting, however…
Graduated shades down the sides of skirt-armor, “slab-sided” hulls, truck bodies, and the like are pretty obvious once the light angle/intensity changes… It looks like stripes… If you’re doing a 2-D painting, it’s a technique you must learn, but on a 3-D model, it’s simply not necessary, nor is it all that “realistic” IMHO, since neither the factory nor crew applied the paint in such a manner…
Another thing you’ll have to consider if you use that kind of logic in painting graduating shades of artificial shadow down the sides, is the terrain color… Light-colored terrain, like say, Normandy Beach, Tarawa, or the desert of North African or Iraqi sand, or the and snow will actually reflect light back up at the lower areas, with the greyish-yellow sand of the Siani Desert presenting yet another problem of reflectivity…
Now… All that considered, I’ll say that it looks great on the pages of Fine Scale Modeler, where the lighting is controlled and sourced for optimum effect, but if your goal is make a model look realistic under ALL lighting conditions, rather that just in photographs, your best bet is to let nature take it’s course… Now I know some one will post a picture for “See, Haammer?” moment, but again… That’s a 3-D model you’re showing me in a 2-D manner , Pard… Doesn’t change m’ mind…
But that’s just my opinion… However, I do judge the diorama category at shows…[whstl]
Off the vehicle and most likely the same as the outside… Armor skirts weren’t permenantly/semi- permanently attached, ie, welded or riveted on… They were hung on the frames and quite easily removed by taking off some bolts and lifting them off the frame… They had to be in order to change roadwheels, return rollers, and to bust/ replace track… They were rather flimsy as armor goes (well, the frames were) and were often bent/misaligned, knocked off completely, or even purposely left behing if a crew had to do a hasty displacement (of course, with the crew intent on coming back later to retreive them) while peforming maintenence on the tracks, roadwheels and idler/drive sprocket…
I think there’s a place for shading in painting armor but I think Herr Hammer ist richtig concerning Shurzen. It’s one thing to fake a shadow on a really obvious place, but I think it probably would look like some kind of pattern on a surface like that. I have Wilder’s Modulation DVD and it’s a kick to watch. But I think what we’re seeing is a very good modeler at work more than a revolution in painting small tanks. The idea of breaking up the surface color with filters and washes etc and the use of pigments is talked about in modeling books I have published several years back. Not really sure how much new is here. I doubt the photographers at FSM could make my Bummbar look like quality work, but there’s no doubt that just as a professional food photographers could make Taco Bell burrito look good, one of FSM’s photo gurus could turn a good model into something really special. (Actually, I used to have a fair hand with computer graphics. Bet I could master the dumb version of Photoshop faster than I could learn to build good models. I’ll keep that in mind when I enter a couple of kits in the Ostfront Group Build. I was thinking of a Stalin tank and a Pzkw 38(t) for contrast. And maybe HMS Belfast which helped annihilate Scharnhorst on the Murmansk run in 1943. Wonder if I should shade the area underneath the 8" guns?)
Eric
I am with Hammer full stop. The first article i ever read on painting and weathering armour was in the July 89 FSM and was by Tony Greenland. He goes on about painting the undersides darker than the upper. But i never really got it. Real vehicles ain’t painted like that, so i don’t get why some paint model like it.
But then i am the same with painting to scale. Just don’t get why.
I don’t pre/post shade skirts. I paint them the base color inside and out then mount them on the vehicle. Paint a cammo scheme on them along with the vehicle then weather them. I’ll put scratches and chips on them and replicate wear on the edges. That’s about it, but I’m no expert. I don’t scale my paint colors either, I let weathering take care of that. Maybe that’s why I’ll never be an expert.[:)]
I guess that makes two of us. But then i wounder how many of these so called experts have seen a real AFV, and i don’t mean in a museum.
I use this technique extensively, and I’ll try to explain why I disagree with this statement, as well as Hammer’s argument, impassioned and well-argued as it may be, Before I do, I’ll say this; there is no “correct” way to paint your schurzen–or your model, for that matter–it’s all a matter of personal taste–but he technique called “Chromatic Scale Effect” has a sound basis for its existence and use.
Hammer said:
Actually, they’re not. the differences in scale are too small to really matter. In fact, if you’ve ever used a pin wash of applied washes to creases or around details, you’re basically conceding this fact; washes not only serve to alter the base shade, but to deposit fake “shadows” around minute details. Adding this effect through judicious painting is just talking the step one further.
Together with Bish’s opening statement in quotes here, these statements miss the point. It’s not about painting it the way the crew or the factory did; hell, we do that when we spray the paint on. What it’s about is simulating the way that light hits an object and the way that that light refracts off of a surface in 1’35 scale which is significantly different than in “real life”.
Refraction is one of the things that scientists tell us helps us to judge scale, or size. Remember the early time period there in movies where they started doing “CGI” effects? A lot of the cheaper horror movies that I remember had these CGI monsters that just didn’t look “real”. And the reason was because it is extremely difficult to simulate the way that light refracts off an object and make it look convincing and real. Because the “scale effect” of the lighting is wrong. Remember even further back when they “superimposed” people on screen, as in the Saturday morning kid’s show “Land of the Lost”? Yuck! They didn’t really look like they were in the actual shot, because the lighting wasn’t consistent and accurate.
This is what we are trying to do in CSE painting. To trick the eye into “seeing” a simulation of light on a small object as if it were as large as it is in real life. This is really about what falls into the realm of the term “Art”, where an artist tries to convey an impression to the viewer. It’s not about strict “realism”, so to judge it using that paradigm is almost a contradiction in terms. It’s about taking an artistic vision of painting and applying it correctly. CSE’s goal is to impart an illusion of the way that light hits a large vehicle,and to shrink that impression down to scale. If it “looks like stripes” you’re doing it wrong! [;)] Many a worthy technique has been misrepresented and recieved criticism because of poor execution by an inexperienced modeler. Just look at the “anti-drybrushing” fad that hit a few years ago…
As I said before, if you apply washes in creases and panel lines, around hatches, etc, you are basically conceding this point. If you’ve ever lightened your base coat before painting, you are doing the same thing. Ditto that for dry0brushing. It’s all about light-modulation. Imparting this effect through pre-shading, post-shading, and graduated lightening from top-down through an actual dedicated painting process is just doing it one step further.
In my opinion, models which make no recognition of this scientific phenomenon look “flat”. And that can mean anything from modelers who don’t pin wash, to those whose models look too dark because they don’t lighten the base coats. (A lot of young modeler’s entries appear this way because they only apply a coat of paint and that’s it; they’re “finished”.) Don’t forget-when paint chips are mixed, they are done so for actual-size vehicles, so the paint is going to be too dark for a 1’35 model.Ironically, this only really applies to “flat” paints, as glossy paints refract light in a different manner.
–and this is a great point. but in the same breath, without an actual base to the model, it would be unnecessary to apply this concept to a static model without a base.
And that’s really the last word. It’s a PERSONAL choice how to paint and finish your models. Same as “extreme weathering” vs the “clean” school. You don’t have to use CSE. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a valid and very effective painting technique when done correctly.[:)]
satch_ip,
I am reading an article in the German magazine ModellFan, October edition 2010 and there is a great article in there about a StuG III depicted with skirts.
The author, Thomas Anderson, does the inside in Red Primer ( in fact it is Leather Brown ) and it looks very convincing indeed.
About the painting, personally I would always start with a good soap wash and a strong primer, there is nothing as irritating as when the paint does not adhere to the surface.
Very Best Regards
Johan
I’m still not sure how to handle Schurzen. As noted, I think shading has a role in painting models. My guru is Gary Edmundson and he does a lot of it without evoking Caravaggio the way Wilder does. (Wilder’s a little impish there, but his point is a real one.) I certainly understand the point about bad execution trumping any general guideline. I’d even throw some sand toward modeling precedent - I’m not sure whether heavy weathering is good modeling but I believe it to be very good history. When it comes to mud and/or dust more may be better. That said Schurzen are more or less flat. They are, in effect, two dimensional. (Can’t imagine what I’d pinwash on them.) This contrasts greatly with the rest of the model which not only has three dimension but is full of bends & twists in which shadows would lay and where the elements would treat more or less kindly. So does this fact impact technique? (I was advised to make the shade go from lighter to darker from top to bottom. I’ll give it a shot - nothing to lose with my Brummbar. On Wilder’s Modulation DVD as I recall he advises darker to lighter for the lower hull, I would think because of the shadow effect of the fenders.)
The problem I have with modulation (I take it this is close to CVE) is with practice rather than theory. I just haven’t mastered the airbrush to the level where I can lay down a very large number of light coats to achieve the variation in shade required before heavily thinned paint starts to run or the airbrush clogs. That’s driver error and can only right itself with time (assuming it ever does.) I do try to lighten the mix for scale effect and still haven’t done it enough in retrospect on any of my armor kits. So back to the salt mines.
Thanks for the tip on primer on the inside. I bought some Pollyscale red chromite and got scared off using it for preshadowing in favor of brown because a couple of modelers on Armorama warned about using a reddish color under yellow. Now there’s a place to use it.
Eric