I’ve had a problem with white decals looking unrealistic on armor. On my build of the Tamiya King Tiger Ardennes for instance i built tank #204…and the white in the 204 decal looks way too white on a weathered tank.
I just couldn’t get it to look right, even after washes and charcoal pastels the white was too bright.
Now I’m building the new Tamiya Matilda and as you may now there are large white and red decal demarcations for this tank.
I’m thinking of painting these rectangles (red and white) instead of using the decals. Honestly the decals look too white and unrealistic against a weathered vehicle at any level of weathering.
When I built the Tamiya Famo with 116 Trailer I painted the red and white on the trailer fenders instead of using the relatively poor fitting decals…painting to look much more realistic.
As long as you get the decals on and sealed before begining the weathering process, that has not been a problem in my experience. The trick is to have them go thru all the same weathering as the rest of the vehicle.
Yes indeed. This is how a Centurion I am currently working on looks like before weathering. As soon as I applied those decals I thought, ‘boy they llok bright’[^o)]
but it will tone down like these when done…
But one reason white is used on vehcile markings is just this: it is usually still visible on dark vehicles even under a coat of dust.
My post is just presuming that I’m a very experienced model builder so all common sense things are already covered. Decals down before weathering? Of course. sealed with rest of the model? Of course.
The Sherman looks good. A light base coat as mentioned may help. The problem is the white will take weathering different than the paint even if its weathered the same and its all sealed the same, as the decals are usually brilliant white.
I always opt to paint if its a shape…obviously if its a US star or a number of any kind, one can’t really paint it on like you could a rectangle.
What are you doing, weathering-wise, that leaves the white too vibrant? I mean yeah, white does take weathering differently, but I’ve found on aircraft and armor that building up the weathering in layers, you see the markings dull out and dirty up and blend over time. On the Sherman I drybrushed, washed with a raw umber filter, came back and did stains and streaks, followed by more streaks with transparent white oils, then a dusting of the lower hull with highly thinned Tamiya buff, followed by pigments. But honestly, I start getting satisfactory wear on the white markings after just the raw umber and streaking:
I’ve also used thinner oil washes to knock down the contrast on white aircraft markings, such as ID letters and invasion stripes. Far more subtle, but same idea.
I use oil washes of raw umber, and then ivory black (which is a very flat black Grumbacher) thinned in odorless mineral spirits. Sometimes very sparring use of pastels ground down and brushed on. Then Mig rust when required. Then dry-brushing as always.
I haven’t in the past but more recently have experimented with airbrushing very thin coats of Tamiya flat earth or buff.I haven’t perfected this as yet.
I think that white is more forgiving on an aircraft than on a tank as a plane will never get as dirty. However I plan to buld the Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire IX and the decals are all very bright not just the white.This is a concern when trying to achieve reality.
I think the key is to do it in successive coats as mentioned, and let coats dry overnight particularly when oil washing with a brush. On my Ardennes King Tiger my successive oil washes removed the previous ones over the decal…or at least you could see it removed over the decal area as opposed to the tank camo area…drove me nuts.
