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Quick and easy way of shading 1/48 scale helicopters - is there one?

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  • Member since
    February 2013
Quick and easy way of shading 1/48 scale helicopters - is there one?
Posted by Raven Morpheus on Wednesday, March 6, 2013 2:10 PM

Hello again.

Although I've yet to actually buy any paint I've been looking around for articles on painting 1/48 scale helicopters, in particular UH-1's, as I'd like to do a fairly decent job of painting the 2 Huey's I now have, soon to be 3 as I'm buying the Italeri UH-1N 1/48 kit, 1 is the Revell kit and the other is an ESCI kit courtesy of rotorwash - he's an absolute diamond.

However I'm struggling to find any articles that I find relevant (probably just my poor google-fu to be honest, and the search function here isn't very good either).

I am more used to painting Games Workshop figures and vehicles (not sure what scale they are, as far as I know they're 25mm scale, not sure what that is in terms of this sort of model kit though - 1/25 perhaps?) and I know the basic principles of shading (with washes or darker base coats) and highlighting (by drybrushing and also painted on highlights) and I did become quite competent at it (when I could be bothered to do all the bells and whistles on a unit) until I stopped a couple of years ago.

I can see roughly how it's done on a 1/35 scale or larger kit as the panel lines and stuff are fairly well defined, but as 1/48 helicopters are so small I'm not really sure how best to approach the shading and highlighting, but mostly the shading.

I plan on doing a base coat of Matt Olive Drab (Humbrol #155) using a spray can (rattle can as many seem to refer to them as) but beyond that and doing other small areas of colour with a brush I'm kind of lost.

Obviously I can't do what I would normally do (with GW models at least) which is apply a dark shade of colour first (usually black on predominantly green models) and then paint over it leaving the dark colour in the recesses, as I'm using a spray can for the base colour, so that won't work.

I also don't particularly like the idea of using a colour wash as it'll leave me touching up areas quite a lot with a paint brush - that will be very time consuming and I don't want the paint too thick and heavy, hence the reason I'm using a spray can for the base colour.

I'd like to avoid using a paint brush as much as possible if I can and I don't own an airbrush (never used one, and don't really want to invest in one at this time).

So, I'd be grateful for any tips and articles that are relevant to painting 1/48 scale helicopters, particularly when it comes to shading techniques?

Many thanks.

And many thanks again to rotorwash (Ray), I am not accustomed to such generosity. YesSmile

  • Member since
    February 2012
Posted by flightdoc on Sunday, March 10, 2013 1:51 PM

E-mail me at whaynes@lowcountry.com.  I'm not sure how to post pictures here, but I'll be happy to pass on a couple of techniques I have used previously on my UH-1M.

                                                                                                                 Walt Haynes

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