The main reason to get into airbrushing is to do all the things a paintbrush can't. I persisted with brushes for many years and though you can do a decent job, there are certain effects that just aren't possible. Camouflage edges are always going to be hard lines. The first mistake with airbrushing, though, is to assume that soft thin edges are easy. I've been going at it for two years and have only ever got the right result once and entirely by accident. The edges are always either too wide or too hard.
But before I get into that, I want to talk about my first major mistake. My first serious attempt at a high quality job was a complete abortion. I built the Hasegawa F4E Wild Weasel. I ended up stripping it at least three times with Mr Muscle. The problem was surface powdering which I first thought was the paint reacting to the primer. My means of correcting it was to paint over it which just made it worse.
It turns out that it's everything to do with the pressure. I was spraying at maximum pressure, when really most jobs need to be around 20psi. The paint was drying before it hit the surface. I still have problems with this which leads to an orange peel effect which is now a matter of achieving the right paint consistency.
At first I used rather a lot of paint, pouring the paint directly from the bottle without thinning. Tamiya paints will allow it. The rule, though, is to always thin the paints. If it's meant to be sprayed straight from the bottle it will say so. Tamiya paints will need about one part in five just to get started.
My main main problem was impatience. Thinner paints take longer to complete an area and it has to be done in stages whereas I preferred to do it in one action. Cutting those corners as I alluded to in the previous post. But there are no shortcuts in this game if you want to get it right.
But that also spoke to my misapprehension about airbrushes. I was looking at it as a means to fill an area with paint - sort of like MS Paint. But it's not that. An airbrush is so much more. It's a blending tool and once you start down the road of pre and post shading you never look at it the same way again. Still, though, you have to go through these trials of discovery. Now I'm getting into the serious leagues.
Pre-shading is a tricky business. It involves painting along the panel lines with a dark colour, usually black, with the intention of over spraying the colour coat but still showing residual line blurring. It doesn't have to be every line and it doesn't have to be particularly accurate - which is just as well given how wobbly my lines are. With practice you get better and as with anything else, you do a better job by taking your time over it and not being in a hurry. The persistent lesson with virtually everything has been to slow it down and be more patient.
My first few trials with pre-shading failed completely. I didn't allow enough drying time between sweeps and kept adding new layers, failing to appreciate that coats thicken as they dry - so the final coat would end up erasing the panel highlights completely. Overcoming that takes some self-discipline.
Where I've found it quite difficult is with white coats. White is a nightmare to work with and I always end up using a lot of it. The answer, it seems is not to use a hard black panel highlight and instead use a middle grey so you don't need as many coats. Do this for all lighter colours. Many of the problems later come from the white coat being too thick.
My first and most successful attempt at this was a recent refurb job of an F15. Big fighter jets really do lend themselves to this kind of style and the F15 is a nice canvass to work with - as is the Tomcat which is why just about every serious aircraft modeller has made one. The F14 lends itself to more advanced techniques such as marbling and off-colour panels which I will go into later down the line. I have one in the stash for the near future.
Curiously this panelling technique also works well on armoured vehicles. Especially things like the M5 Stuart and the welded hull Sherman. Black edges with a lighter olive overspray will set it off nicely. I prefer to keep it subtle for realism. I'm of the view that overdoing it just to show off that you can do it makes for a cartoonish model and they look especially silly with figurines. See Bradford Exchange kitsch.
There's also the question of scale. Take the Phantom for instance. They do get pretty battered in real like, but if you replicate every bit of weathering, you end up with model that's just too busy and looks a mess - especially if you add all of the smaller decals which don't really add anything and are not really visible on the real thing. For me it's less about absolute accuracy as producing a convincing representation where sometimes less really is more.
Where the airbrush comes into its own is with weathering effects. One of the first things I tried with armoured vehicles was an extra thin brown misting overspray around the running gear and skirts. Together with a cement colour wash, you can turn just about any vehicle into a professional looking build.
The difference between aircraft and armour though is chalk and cheese. Vehicles are mainly about having fun with mess, getting creative with weathering and rust, whereas aircraft are far less forgiving. That's where accuracy matters. Bad weathering will ruin a well painted aircraft. The way to approach it is to treat the entire painting process as the weathering process, rather than dolling it up then dirtying it. When you change your mindset to that philosphy you do see dramatically different results - particularly with vehicles.
As mentioned above, aircraft camouflage is trickier. doing in single colour aircraft like an F15E is relatively straightforward but two and three colour schemes like the RAF green/grey and the Vietnam USAF scheme are a bit more involved. The trick seems to be rolled our sausages of blu-tac but there's still an art to it and it may require selective masking in order to get the right edges. Only practice and experimentation can teach you what you need to know. I have done one or two entirely free hand, which works well on larger models but doesn't quite give you the edge definition. It looks good though if you're after a heavily weathered and aged look.
As it happens, you can get away with aa lot of mistakes in the main scheme if everything else is tight. I recently did a Lightning in the RAF green/grey and though there were variances in the camouflage edges, it didn't matter because the missiles, canopy, landing gear and decals were bang on. Only the model inspector types would ever take issue with it. In most cases, if the canopy is right and the cockpit detail passes muster, you can get away with flaws in the main scheme. Though I don't advise cutting corners or letting things go, you are allowed a certain artistic licence.
As to combining the pre-shading with camouflage, that's a whole other story and a a more advanced level of painting I will do a dedicated post on. It's combination of all of the above. It helps if you have a model that's sympathetic to your aims which is why the SU-27 is a modelling favourite.
As an aside, if you're doing a bare metal scheme such as a Mustang or Superfortress, it's always worth investing in the more expensive metal colour specialist paints. The generic aluminium paints in the Tamiya/Humbrol range are grainy and won't give you a satisfying finish. I'm currently playing with the Vallejo metal colours and they really are superb - especially when getting into more advanced painting of exhaust nozzles and mismatched panels.
What they don't tell you about airbrushes is that they're an absolute f***ing nightmare. They are great when they're behaving but when they're not you can spend entire days in a rage trying to get them working. You can strip them and clean them an still have problems. The general rule is to strip and clean then strip and clean again. If then you still have a problem then a new nib will probably sort it - particularly if you're getting back bubbles in the paint cup.
If you're new to airbrushing you've probably bought an entry level brush to start with. You may think that spending a lot of money on a better one will yield improvements. This is only partly true. I'm of the view that when you know how to use them, there is not a lot of difference between a decent branded airbrush and a generic cheap Chinese import. I always have the latter as a backup. The one thing that buying an expensive airbrush does for you is remove the question of the brush from the equations as to why your models suck. That alone is worth it.
Most problems are usually down to a blockage somewhere. If problems persist, it might be down to the airbrush cleaner. I have in the past used Vallejo airbrush cleaner but it's so tame I wonder if it's got any active chemical in it at all. I now use the Spraycraft aerosol which gets paint off just about everything.
One of the things I've learned is that sometimes it's just going too wrong to salvage. You can try correcting but you'll regret it if you persist. Don't be afraid to simply start over. For this I cover the model in Mr Muscle Oven foam and put it in a plastic bag for a few hours. You then rinse under a tap and if needs be agitate the surface with an old toothbrush. It will strip it right down to the primer. In some cases the paint will then go on even better than before - especially if the primer originally dried a little glossy.
There's a lot more to say on this subject but I just wanted to do a basic introduction and outline a few of the first lessons. Most of this you will have to dicover for yourself but it helps to have the warning. everything I learned was through trial and error at great expense. But then if you're worried about the expense, find a different hobby. There isn't a cheap or quick way to do it. That, I suppose, is the first and most important lesson. It's a commitment.
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