It is often hard to detail up something that isn’t very colorful in real life. I learned this in the wheel wells of the Tomcat- it’s all glossy white with very little color. Since I like to detail paint tiny stuff, that was frustrating because I couldn’t go nuts with paints. A dark, oily wash will go a long way in adding some life in there- good plan.
Maybe a little black rectangle with white squiggles (like Gregbale did for his bang seats) to make a data plate on the reduction gearbox?
Latest update: Skyhawk is in the decalling stage. Finish came out as good as I hoped. I sprayed 2 very light coats of Mr. Color “Blue Angels Blue” cut with 50% Mr. Leveling thinner over Mr. Surfacer 1200 that was polished with 12000 grain. It came out smooth and shiny. A coat of Future gave it the perfect sheen. The intake inlets and leading edge slats were painted with Alclad polished aluminum over MM acrylic gloss black, again polished with 12000 grain. Everything on the finish just pops. I’m decaling it with a mix of Yellowhammer and kit decals. I expect to have this one finished off soon!
Dre, I used Tamiya paints on the Dauntless, what would you use as a dirty wash? I tried an “experimental” wash and it was a disaster! I like the data plate idea too! Thanks!
DRE, well, I had the Star Wars Federation Droids put together and used a tan acrylic to paint them. I read if you use an acrylic paint to use an enamel wash and vise versa. So I mixed up just a little bit of a black enamel wash to highlight the detail on the droids. It started to dissolve the paint! Just for giggles (I had nothing to lose at this point), I made an acrylic wash. It did not mess with the paint, but it didn’t seem to do a real good job of highlighting anything. So I figured I’d ask how you did yours. I know, old fart don’t know nothing, but I’m old school and you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks! [:$]
disclaimer- washes are not my strong point when weathering…
What did you use to thin that enamel based wash? Most folks use high-quality mineral spirits for that as other thinners (lacquer, enamel and generic ‘paint thinner’) are too aggressive (as you found out).
You can use a solvent-based wash, but I find that fine-tuning it after application is a lot more difficult to control than a water-based wash. Since the solvents evaporate so fast, they leave “tide marks” around details that are hard (for me) to remove or tidy up. They can be used to great effect, but I haven’t had that much success with that type…
But the acrylic tube paints from Winsor & Newton are very easy to use over enamels and they should be OK over a thoroughly sealed acrylic paint job. Over a coat of Future, they’ll bead up and run right off the paint surface, but a drop or two of dish detergent can break the surface tension so that the wash flows better into the panel lines. The nice thing about using these acrylics is that once dried, they are easily cleaned up with a water dampened cloth or QTip-type ear bud.
If you lay on too much of the water wash, it can (and will) fog or cloud the Future, but can be fixed by sealing in the wash with another coat of Future. Also, this water wash is really fragile, so beware that handling the model so you don’t accidentally wipe off all that hard work. I recommend sealing this kind of wash.
But for ease of use and fixability, I would recommend a water-based wash because if it goes all wrong you can just wipe it off.
Don’t worry about not knowing this stuff- I’m still trying to figure it out myself! For every good wash-n-weather I get, I have about 3 or 4 bad examples.
Thanks DRE…uh, Future to seal before the wash? oooppps. I didn’t seal the paint. [:$] I just went to a washin’! Memo to me…duh!!! Thanks so much for the walk through! I think my next one will turn out better! [:$]
That’s not necessarily a mistake- you can do a wash over an unsealed paint job and Tamiya paints are pretty durable once dry. But… unless you’re using a high-gloss paint to start with, you’d want to do a gloss coat of some kind before decaling to avoid silvering and other nasties that happen to decals. Also, flat paints will trap more of the pigment particles and take on a color change and a dirtier aspect than will gloss paints.
You should do washes and weathering after the decals so that they blend into the finish instead of looking freshly painted-on over the weathering (I learned this the hard way…).
There’s so many things that we learn on this model so that the next will be, hopefully, better.
I won’t clog up the GB thread with the whole thing, but for anyone interested , I did a mini-tutorial on making the striped handles on modern ejection seats in the “Techniques” section.
The next will be better! Exactly! These GB’s I’m doing now are the first kits I’ve sat down and done since I got back into the hobby! They may not be the best, but wait till you see the next ones! [:)]
Now that I think about it, I have some artists oils in little tubes! I still bought stuff to do the hobby, just never started a kit! I have all kinds of stuff I’m finding! And little tubes of artist oils are one of them! Thanks!
Hey, I just noticed this group build. I have been working on an AM TBF-1C 1/48 scale from VT-10 on the USS Enterprise. I started this kit years ago, but it was sitting with the fuselage in two pieces for years. I started working on it again this year. I’ve had to replace some missing parts etc… I have been working on it a few months now and am getting close to finishing it.
Since it is a rainy weekend, I don’t have to work and my neck isn’t bothering me maybe I’ll get some time in on my Tomcat… it’s only been weeks since I sat down to work on it.
