So, I’m slowly wrapping my brain around fading and weathering. It seems to me that you have to decide how weathered you want the item to be before you even begin to paint. The thing I’m trying to think through now is the overall effect of the sun on paint. It seems the paint color must be close to that appearance from the start. It’s very hard to lighten a dark color. That means you don’t use the recommended dark yellow on German vehicles. What color do you folks use instead of dark yellow if you want to depict a vehicle that’s been in the sun and weather for a year or so? Also, what about the dark red and green of the camo schemes? What colors do you use for those to represent fading?
I do it either of two ways. One is to airbrush on a very, very light coat of white on top surfaces (top of fuselage, top of wings and stab, top surfaces of vehicles. The other method I sometimes use, is less scary. After painting I mix in a little white to lighten the paint, then put down a light coat of that on upper surfaces. This only works with solid colors, though. If it is camouflage I have to resort to the white (or very light gray overcoat. Either method represents the UV bleaching of older paints. Late in 20 th century folks were able to develop paints for military which are quite uv resistant, but for early Vietnam and earlier stuff the paint chalked/bleached rapidly for anything that spent much time in the sun.
Oh, I should have mentioned I do the “fading” coating AFTER decaling, since the national emblems, markings, and such faded from sunlight also.
Even modern US CARC paints in use currently still bleach out over the years. On the NATO Tri color schemes you can lighten each color before application of you can do an overall light “bleaching/fading” tint afterwards for lack of a better term. Very light colors such as Tamiya Deck Tan or Buff, highly thinned, and airbrushed on like Don mentions above with white can be used to give an excellent fade effect. Take into consideration the service life of the subject you are trying to depict. A USAFE F-111 that spent much of its life in a hardened shelter in England, will not look the same as a Vietnam War F-111 that sat out in an open shelter in Thailand. Same aircraft, same colors, different climate effects.
So, no one simply starts with a different color when they paint a German tank, for example? All of you apply the Dark Yellow when that color is called for and then work on “fading” it with filters, washes, and other coatings? Why not just use a color that looks like a faded Dark Yellow to start with? If you guys don’t do this, there must be a reason. What am I missing?
You have to fade the base color later on to show the contrast between the two. And vary the contrast as well. To lighten dark green colors, a hint of yellow really helps to fade it and not make it so obvious.
Not every inch of a tank is faded equally. Some areas are faded more and others are hardly faded. That’s why you can achieve a much more realistic look by using filters and washes.
And horizontal surfaces should show more fading than vertical or angled surfaces. Yes you could start out with an overall lightened color, but even if all you do is a pin wash and very lightly dry brushed high lights, it will still get altered from what you originally painted on. Add in any terrain weathering such as dust, dirt, and mud, then it is altered even further. Some folks like to lighten their original base colors because they know subsequent weathering steps will alter and darken that color in their portions of the process.
Some will also lighten their base colour beforehand, to take into consideration scale effect. Some will also do it to make the subsequent camou colours to ‘pop’ .
regards,
Jack
I wonder what is the scale effect for white…? 
Thanks, everyone, for your comments. I get it that fading won’t be uniform, and it’s clear that folks are quite able to start with the full color and end up with something that looks very faded and weathered. It amazes me what some of you guys can do. It seems to me that it’s easier to darken areas that wouldn’t fade as much than to lighten areas that would. But once you know the technique to lightening, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I think I’ll experiment some and see what I can come up with. But don’t look for anything soon.
and there you have it. Play around with some of the ideas here and see what works best for you. Take an old model and use it as a crash test dummy for this. One area can have technique A while another can have technique B. seeing them side by side will let you decide which you may prefer.
I am not a big proponent of scale effect on anything other than ships. Consider the idea of a scale viewing distance. Say you ordinarily view a model from about two feet. With a 1:48 scale aircraft, that makes the scale viewing distance about a hundred feet. If haze were enough to affect color at that distance it would be enough to soften edges too, but we don’t model that effect.
On the other hand, a 1:350 ship has a scale viewing distance of about 700 feet- almost a quarter mile. It doesn’t take too much haze to affect color at that distance. I DO agree with lightening colors due to sun bleach, but not for scale effect. BTW, for a white ship the effect of haze is to shift slightly in the blue direction (scattered sunlight scatters blue more than red).
I am with you on that, Don.
I think that it is different for very small scale subjects than it is for the 1/72 and larger models.
I don’t think I ever heard “but, of course I ran into that Blue SUV(or Phantom), there was that HUGE chunk of air/haze blocking my view of it”
Anne took some photos of a local gate guard Phantom, with me standing in front of it. I am going to build it with “1/1 colors” because the tiny photo in my camera’s preview window looks like the same colors as when I look at the real Phantom.
One guy constantly says that “artists use scale effect” when painting landscapes,but, ummm,when was the last time someone modeled a 1/48 scale Barn, Barnyard, and surronding woods?
The bible on the effects of the atmosphere on vision is Middleton’s “Vision Through the Atmosphere.” With computerized interlibrary loans these days, almost any library could pick up a copy for you.
At times like this I really miss the old Ship Camouflage Discussion forum. There were extensive discussions of the differences in colors at different distances, and other things related to scale effect.
The discussion that stands out the most is the one that talked about the RN’s findings that Pink battleships would blend better than gray blobs on the water’s horizon from a large distance.
Hence the “Mounbatten Pink” scheme?
I wonder if the navy has considered using lighting to change their ship color schemes as needed. If pink works better sometimes and a disruptive pattern works better at others, why not use high powered lighting that can do different colors?
yes, Stik,Lord Mountbatten had two pink colors named after him.
There were about 5 Allied Ship pinks in total, If I remember it right, a Lt and a Dk Mountbatten Pink, a US version of each one (slightly different than the original UK colors),and another Pink that I dont remember the name of. Pink has been used on aircraft and on tanks, also.
Rex
BarrettDuke - wouldn’t it be a little like waving a big banner saying “I’m here, look at me”? High energy emissions usually make you stand out, you know.
Have a nice day
Paweł