The more I see the excellent pictures and work on some of these bikes and continue to work on mine…I wonder to my self…how much of the bikes does everyone airbrush?
I mean there are parts on the bikes that are so tiney and complex and sometimes they sit close to one another and have different colors that I wonder do people actually airbrush those parts too? Examples are the 2 tone color chain and the links; where the clip-ons sit, along with brake levers; the top portion of the shock assembly; the bottom portion of the forks; and then the engine and its components. Do you guys AB all these parts and if so how? or if you don’t, and you use paintbrush, what are your techniques for such excellent work?
Mine won’t go through as those you call excellent. Maybe that’s because I don’t airbrush that much! But what I tend to do… and this is the downright simplest and easiest option for me. The only things I airbrush and/or rattlecan is the body cowlings itself and the exhausts. The cowling for obvious reasons and the exhausts because you simply can’t get the stain effects by handpainting. Very often I do tend to give the base colour for the front disks from can or a/b as well, then handpaint the rest. I know Joel does his with a/b and masking, if I recall correctly.
Same with the one examples you used. The chain I paint in it’s base colour and just drybrush the outsides of the links on the appropriate colour. The rest, such as forks and the handlebar detail… occasionally masking, but most often patience, steady hand and re-runs! Don’t expect to get a strainght line first time around on the places you don’t mask - and get get upset with it!! Just let it dry, take the other colour, straighten it out a bit more, then repeat in reverse, and again, and again… so many times as needed! [;)] Most often not all that many, don’t worry!
I’ve built one bike and alot of cars, and I do both types the same way. Try and paint all the surfaces that have lots of coverage with a rattle can (in your case an air brush) and then mask off if there’s multiple colors on that part with large areas, and then just use brushes and toothpicks to paint the smaller detail parts.
I only build motorcycles and I try to spray paint as much as possible. I only use an airbrush but do use the paint from the rattle cans, which I decant into my airbrush. I do a fair amount of masking with plumbers thread tape (non adhesive), circle stencils and Tamiya masking tape. I do very fine details like the rivets on the chain, engine bolts etc with a fine pointed brush. Below is a picture of a Ducati, which is nearly all, painted with an airbrush.
Andrew, and to all the others…since you do so much airbrushing and masking…what do you use for masking the areas from one another? I know I read that some use masking tape…but how can you mask such little tight areas with tape? I beleive there are liquid masks…are those good to use?
I use plumbers Teflon tape, which is non-adhesive and is great for masking parts e.g. the front fork. I spray the main colour on the fork and then wrap the Teflon tape round the stanchions leaving only the lower sections exposed for painting. Liquid tapes or masking fluids are good too and some can be dissolved in water. I have a range of small masking tapes 0.4mm to 2mm (available from Hobby Link Japan) that are quite useful. I also use draftsman’s circle stencils quite a bit where I use the stencil as a mask and then spray the parts with the airbrush using low pressure and a very fine spray.
Check the photo below and you will see the parts where I have used the white Teflon tape (you can see the little “tails” of the tape). No adhesives and no risk of the tape pulling off the paint. I use Teflon tape fopr about 80% of my masking needs
yes, seriously, looks a lot better than my real one. i model tanks, i like them nice and weathered and my inspiration comes from my rat-bike F3. [:D]
this looks really strange to me without the shiny ground up rim on the brake rotors where the pads make contact. did you omit them on purpose for an “unused” look?
Hi you are quite right about the disc’s being the wrong colour!
They do indeed need to be more silver than metalic grey. The discs are PE parts and I struggled to get the paint to adhere to the surface and in despiration I spayed a lacquer grey and left it at that. My real Ducati’s front disc’s are more of a Chrome colour with some slight discouration where the brake pads touch the rotors but it is difficult to replicate on a model so now I just go for the “new” look
