Hi. I’m doing my first plastic kit in about 20 years and am trying some new (frustrating?) techniques. I’m planning on using a sludge wash on my A-1J to accenuate the panel lines. I’m doing a paint scheme with a black underside and I’m not sure if I should give it a grey wash to highlight the panel lines. Can’t figure out if this would look good or destroy it. I really don’t want to do it just to find out if it works (I’m already fixing enough mistakes), so any advice/opinions would be great. Thanks
P.S. What about pastels to lighten/weather the underside? Any thoughts? And thanks for all the info so far, this is a great place.
To make a panel line wash visible, I would suggest painting the belly a SLIGHTLY lightened black. As you mix, keep some pure black handy to compare the difference. Once you can see a difference, and your mix isn’t obviously “gray,” the wash will show.
Hope this helps.
This picture of an F-117 illustrates what Pix was talking about above. The black of the a/c is much lighter than the pure black of the background, and what few panel lines you can see are darker than the skin of the plane.
Unless I was striving for ultra-realism, I’m not sure that I would bother with black on black. But, if you do it, I’d be interested in seeing how it comes out. So, please post some pictures when you can.
The bellies of the a/c of the 22nd SOS were painted flat black and the natural sludge was from the red clay dust/mud that seeped thru the PSP on lthe flight line. The runway was concrete but the red dirt/mud was every where most of the time.[2c]
Perforated Steel Planking (PSP) used for hard stands for parking aircraft. 22nd SOS (ZORRO)'s NKP, flew A-1H’s, A-1E’s (Blue Room), T-28D’s and did night intradition missions, therefore black bellies…[oX)][2c]
