Is there anyone out there who know how make realistic streaks along the wings and fuslage. I don´t know whether to use airbrush, chalk-based wash or oil-based wash. I can´t seem to get that “realistic look”. I´ve tried using airbrush but can´t get the lines straight enough. I´ve tried masking but then I end up with too hard edges. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
What kind of streaks are you talking about?
if you are talking exhaust streak there is a good article on weatherin on www.swannysmodels.com under tools and tips that should help ya!
The techniques for any streaks would probably be similar, but you’d have to vary them depending on what you’re trying to replicate. I agree with Tom about Swanny’s site tons of great info there. Thanks Swanny!!
at www.swannysmodels.com you can go to Tools & Tips, and there’s a section in there called Basics of Weathering.
[V] thanks jdavid haha… I was thinking he needed to go to swannys website and must have typed it that way instead of swannysmodels… funny thing about fingers, they always do what you tell them to without interpreting it…
You edited yours, so I edited mine too [tup]
these kinda streaks???
Vertically on the fuselage and horizonally on the wings or the exhaust and guns smoke soot???
Jeff
The ones on the wings and fuslage, (not gun smoke and exhaust). I want to simulate dirt going along the wings and streaks caused by rain etc. down the fuselage. Any suggestions? (beautiful work on the Spitfire by the way)
either one are in Swannys guide at www.swannysmodels.com, click on tolls and tips, then weathering…
Good luck!
—edit—
the panel lines are highlighted with a wash, the streaks down the side of the fuselage (oil leaks, dirt etc) are usually done with pastels… there are different methods though…
Thanks, I´ll keep trying, gotta get it right somtime…
Continuing with the theme of Spifires for weathering examples… [:D] (btw, Woodbeck, that’s a nice Spit you have there. The slight angle of the rudder is a nice touch)
The streaking on the wing was done using a very light black wash, lightly pulling the brush back along the wings. I also used some pastel dust, black and some browns, applied with a Q-Tip, again scrubbing back along the wings. Everything was then sealed with a coat of clear.
The main thing with weathering, particularly aircraft, is to go light and work from there. You can always add more weathering, but it is difficult to undo excessive weathering.
Another technique that can come in handy is dry-brushing, whereby you dip an old brush into a bit of paint, wipe most of it off, in then kind of scrub with varing degrees of pressure. For this, you want to use an old brush, perhaps even cutting the bristles short. You can achieve a subtle effect with light pressure or bigger effects with more pressure. For the photo above, I dry brushed silver on the wing root where the pilot’s and ground crew’s boots have worn away the paint. This is a heavier effect than what I would normally use, but when looking at Spitfire photos, I would often see that this paint would be severely worn, even when the rest of the kite looked pretty good. You can drybrush on you wings an fuselage as well, not only making streaks but even just to kind of break the up the colors just a bit.
Like everything else about this hobby, there is no on “right” way of doing things. Experimant and have fun!
Andy
Thanks Andy! That really gave me some ideas, just what I was looking for…
Nice spit also Abarne 
If you enlarge my pic youll see on the closest wing light Tamiya smoke streaking the entire wing front to back… its light as I didnt wanna weather the heck outta it. I thinned the Tamiya smoke severely and ab’d it very quickly front to back. The exhaust and gun soot is done the exact same way but built up with many many many layers on top of the existing streaking. I opted for vertical streaks on the fuselage.
Jeff