Hey guys,
Just a question on weathering wildcats or any navy blue scheme… Just painted a wildcat in the standard light grey over blue grey and am now at a loss on how to add faded paint around hatches…fading from the sun and salt air and stuff like that
Something like that… My blue grey coat is alot darker than in the pic though (taken from a video game ofcourse).
Is it doable to brush on the chipping? Some pointers please as i am usually busy on NMF planes…[:$]
Richard
What I like to do is to mix up a lightened version of the base coat and thin it down really well. Then I turn my air pressure down so I can really control where my spray goes. I’ll add the color to the inside of panels or the whole surface exposed to the sun. Then I mix up an even lighter shade and apply this inside my previous spray. I do this two or three times.
As for paint chipping, I really recommend that you get a Prismacolor colored pencil. That makes the best paint chips. I have silver for chipping, and I use white, red, and yellow for other details like cockpit stuff.
IMHO you went about it backwards. That is applying the fading after finishing the model. If you were planning to do a faded bird, you should have planned ahead before you started painting.
Typically I mix and thin my paints before application to give the color a faded looking shade. Or as I paint I add the appropriate lightening color and add in the faded effects as I go. I’ll also try to mask and paint the markings on as those too fade and fading decals by overspraying is tough. I know that Draw Decals will made decals with that faded appearance if you desire, makes it easier than painting or applying a fading effect with paint later.
One also needs to plan ahead and consider how one applies the paint, here I applied a faded with white olive drab over a NMF very thinly. Even the yellow RES CUE was applied thinly using a stencil. The sun’s heat and UV light has beat the paint pretty bad, oxidizing it and allowing it to dry out and wear away.
I start my projects like the real aircraft. NMF as the base since the aircraft are just that, metal underneath. So when I want to chip and scratch to expose metal it is done in the same way as the real aircraft. Dabbing on silver over a paint scheme becomes more evident with the increase in scale of the model. Paint chipping is the removal of paint not applying it as a overcoat or after thought.
You can also sand away paint to give it a worn look. A polishing stick is my tool of choice for this. I even rub the decals with it to remove their glossy luster, scratch and chip them. Remember these were painted on markings on the real aircraft, so they are subject to the same effects as the rest of the aircraft’s finish.
!(http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t320/hawkeyes_bucket/Modeling Tools/scuffnscratch.jpg)
Your other option to get a faded look is through the use of pastels to dust the model to get the desired effect. The trick then is to seal the effect so it doesn’t disappear with handling and time.
RadMax8,
Thanks for the advice[Y] I kinda got impatient after i posted my first post and went ahead in a similar fashion as you are describing just now by lightening my base color paint and trying to highlight inside the panels. The fading is much to my liking now
As for the chipping… Couldn’ t i use a very fine brush with heavily thinned down white or very light blue paint? I would love to hear how each individual modeler would get his or her results…
Thanks again to RadMax
Richard