Technique for painting raised letters on model stand

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

Hello everyone, what techniques is best to paint the raised letters on a name plaque/stand? I used wax paper and painted it then pressed the name plate on it. Although it did an average job, I’d like to get it better. Thanks

Danny

2

Hi Danny,

I would have thought dry brushing would be the best method.

Alternatively, perhaps use a masking medium like Maskol and fill up the voids around the letters, then airbrush them - if the letters are quite large though, this may use up a lot of Maskol fluid.

Regards,

3

Try painting them with a fine tipped brush.

4

A technique I once used was to paint the entire stand the color I wanted the letters. I then painted the entire stand the color I wanted the stand to be. I then carefully used a sanding stick to remove the top layer of paint off the letters revealing the color underneath. Not the best solution but it worked for the particular build I was working on.

5

I’m not sure they even make them anymore, but I did the raised detail on an old AMT Bird of Prey using a paint pen. Don’t press too hard, but it lets you get decent coverage on the raised detail without bleeding paint over the base color. It came out very well.

As someone already mentioned, dry brushing is next best. My alternative now is light strokes with a fine brush with very little paint on it; not quite drybrushing, but oh so close.

Doug

6

Thanks guys. I’ll try the dry brushing and see how well I can do it.

Danny

7

Another alternative is to mount the model on a wood base with a couple of lamp finials and have a local trophy shop engrave a brass plate with the info on it. I had one made up for the upcoming submarine warfare group build and it was right around $15.00. I put a pic of it up in the GB thread. Not dirt cheap, but very reasonable, and gives a little more professional look to a build.

8

For smaller designs, I have crosscut a piece of wood, say 1 x 2, with a fine blade in table saw. Then, I slap paint on the end and use it as a stamping tool.

9

Another way is to use acrylic paint the colour you want the lettering to ba and pain the entire base. After it dries completely, repaint using an enamal paint, to what ever colour you want the back ground to be. After that carefully use a Q-tip and some minerial spirits to wipe the back groud colour off of the lettering. The enamal thinner should not affect the acrylic paint at all.