Would love to see pics of your hand/brush-painted models

Yeah those gamers are a different breed... just think Big Bang Theory and that fear will disappear though,and you can go look in that store for Vallejo. One of the remaining LHS's here has all the Vallejo stuff, but I seriously have no luck with the stuff. I will stick to my Humbrols for hand brushing whenever possible.

I've always heard good things about that Vallejo brand but I've never used them before.  If I could find them locally, I woulnd't mind picking up a bottle of the stuff to try out.  There's a role-playing gaming store in my neighborhood that I've never set foot in.  I wonder if they would carry it since I've heard that a lot of people use Vallejo paints for figures.

The last time I set foot in a gamers' store was about 9 or 10 years ago.  I've never seen so many black trench coats in one place.  It seemed like everyone there thought they were in the Matrix movie.  Kinda scared me out a bit.

Eric

Very purdy Wingnut! I have never had much good experience with Vallejo, but you obviously have them mastered...

Brushed with Vallejo Model Color.  Best brushing paint I've ever used.  

On Armor I have stayed with hand brushing longer, but have not done much of it for my main paint jobs in recent years... older to newer

I have more hand painted armor builds, but have not yet photographed them, so will need to do so in order to post them here...

Since I bought my airbrush 25 years ago, I have hand brushed only 5 aircraft models that I have built. 4 of those are "monotone" helicopters. Only one of those was recently, two old ones still exists, one I left behind overseas, and the sole fixed wing aircraft I never photographed, and no longer have.

This Cobra was hand brushed with Testors square bottle Acrylics and their little horrid white handle brushes from one of their paint sets while I was overseas.

This Formula 1 racer was also painted in the same manner while I was over there

Handbrushed with Polly S in the late 80s

Hand brushed with Pactra Enamel in the late 80s

Hand brushed with MM Enamels a couple years ago (my last hand brushed model)

These are some wonderful examples posted here.  I am in awe of the finishes y'all achieve.  I feel so inadequate.

Here we go: Academy 1/72

Nice job! Great smooth paint job on that bird.

Here are some of my hand painted models...

Aircraft:

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.

Enjoy!

Here is my AMT 1/48 F7F-2.  Paint came out pretty good decals not so much.

All outstanding; couldn't believe any were hand painted.

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.

Cheers...

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.  

Eric

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!

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.

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.

Bravo, indeed!

Eric

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!

I never tried airbrushing, don't even have one...

These look great! I'll have to try and post some of mine.

I've got no skill at a flawless handbrushed finish, but it can be fun to try.

I saw no reason to even try and paint these 1/350 minis with an airbrush.

I'd say these are a pretty good example of what not to do with handbrushing.

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.

Eric

Very Nice !!

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....

MM enamels all over this one...

Humbrol enamels all around...

Humbrol enamels...

Mix of MM and Humbrol enamels...