My Revellogram P-39 is all primed and ready for painting. I also received the replacement clear parts I had to get from Revell after I buggered them all up. (My daughter and I were painting her Powder Puff Derby car and I didn’t realize that I left the clear sprue out. All that nice gloss red overspray landed right on the clear sprue. But back to our story…)
I sort of feel like hand-brushing this plane. I believe that hand-brushing is truly an art form but before I dive into it, I’d like to see or read about other people’s work as a means of inspiration. I’ve hand-brushed a few glossy sea blue Corsairs and the results were simply phenomenal but I’ve never really hand-brushed flat paint on an entire model before. If you have, how did it turn out? I’m going to be using Model Master enamels. Should I thin them a tad before embarking on this? Yes I could use my airbrush but, for me, there’s just a different sense of satisfaction if I could paint it by hand.
Thanks to all,
Eric
PS. I used Tamiya fine grey primer out of the rattle can. Oh my gosh! Talk about an utterly flawless finish!!! Smoother than silk!
I do usually like to use an all-over primer before I start hand-brushing to. The trick is all in how thin the paint is. I find the matt colours easier to deal with than gloss, but that could just be a personal thing anyway. And notice that these machines are either all-over colours, or hard-edged camo, I still prefer the airbrush for feathered edges.
Recently hand-brushed, all 1/72 scale…
MM Enamel for the underside gray, also used it as all-over primer. Then I hand-brushed Vallejo acrylics for the topside colours…
Definitely going to have to agree with Blueline on that one! Very nice indeed. Typically I tend to hand brush the smaller parts (landing gear, cockpit items, etc) but I’ve never painted an entire model using flats. I wasn’t sure what their leveling characteristics were compared to the glosses. Whenever I’ve hand-brushed glosses on, I thin them just a tad and the brush strokes pretty much disappear once everything has cured.
I just remember being a kid 25 years ago and hand-brushing everything. I still have some of those old models and the brush strokes are so obvious to me now. It’s funny how back then, I never even noticed such things. Maybe I’m suffering from some sort of PTSD when it comes to hand-brushing flat paint in my youth.
Even handpainting flats is indeed an art. Handpainting a GLOSSY finish (cars, civil aircraft, etc) is for the MASTER artist. I certainly cannot do it- I know very few who can!
Castel…all I can say is WOW!!! I am speechless. I don’t know my German vehicles but that second picture from the top, the weathering is utterly amazing! Can’t think of anything else to say right now because of how stunned I am at the kind of work one can do using a brush rather than an airbrush.
I’ve posted this picture before but this was a quasi-recent build where I hand-painted the glossy sea blue on my Corsair. I love how it turned out. It leveled out better than I could have ever hoped and I think it turned out great in spite of myself. I’m just hoping that I have the same sort of luck with flat paints.
Echolmberg, that is one sweet Corsair! I used a Tamiya spraybomb on my 1/72 scale Corsair to get those same results. You are a true brush master if you did that with a brush!
Thank you, Duke, but I’d like to change that to say that I am a true LUCK master! LOL! I don’t know if skill had anything to do with it. I never give myself that much credit. You know how it is: Some days you can’t paint your way out of a paper bag and some days you can do no wrong. When I painted that Corsair, I was just having a lucky night and that was all.
I just used Model Master Gloss Sea Blue which I had thinned with a few drops of mineral spirits. Heck, I couldn’t even tell if it altered the viscosity in any way but I figured a little something was better than nothing. I used a half inch brush with lots and lots of praying. I think that helped a bit, too.
Thanks for your kind comments echolmberg, I am glad you like them. I guess it is easier with tanks as you can dust and dirt them up so that the brushlines are not that visible, making shiny gloss surfaces…well, I have never tried.
And some armor. Note: all this armor is in 1/72 scale:
That’s only a few hand painted models I have. There are tons more where those came from, especially since I’ve only been using an airbrush for the last ten years.
i think MMA maybe PolyScale 
