painting 1/350 aircraft

If it looks right,  it is right.   

While I am not a strict adherent of the 'Scale Effect' theory,   there are times when small details need a lighter tone to help them stand out.

I'm with Ed on this one - when you get down to the smaller scales, it's more what looks right than what the FS numbers call for, for the simple fact that everything is sooooo frickin' small that it screws up your perspective. And at those scales, 1/350 and 1/700, what few details there are can completely disappear if you use too dark a color. This Big E airwing is Light Ghost Gray, if I remember correctly, although I believe I painted the Hawkeyes with a semi-gloss overcoat as per their appearance in photos:

  

Thanks for the advice. The version I'm building was from the 1974 West coast cruise. if I read averything right, those planes were a lighter color. I'm gonna go with that and see how it looks.I notice in the picture you hve drop tanks on some of the planes. Did you buy the photoetch stuff to add that detail?

npdk9

Thanks for the advice. The version I'm building was from the 1974 West coast cruise. if I read averything right, those planes were a lighter color. I'm gonna go with that and see how it looks.I notice in the picture you hve drop tanks on some of the planes. Did you buy the photoetch stuff to add that detail?

 

I believe in that time period they would be Gull Gray over white.

Noooooo, the drop tanks were plastic, 1/700 scale, and so much fun to glue and align one at a time. Slower setting gel superglue is your friend.

One other thing to consider with your little air wing is the decals - if you go whole hog and do modex numbers for each individual bird, and squadron insignia for the tails ... the four Hawkeyes on my Enterprise build, for example, had 12 decals per aircraft. I topped out at 37 aircraft on the flight deck before deciding enough was enough! 

mfsob

Noooooo, the drop tanks were plastic, 1/700 scale, and so much fun to glue and align one at a time. Slower setting gel superglue is your friend.

One other thing to consider with your little air wing is the decals - if you go whole hog and do modex numbers for each individual bird, and squadron insignia for the tails ... the four Hawkeyes on my Enterprise build, for example, had 12 decals per aircraft. I topped out at 37 aircraft on the flight deck before deciding enough was enough! 

 

Sounds like Eyestrain City!

No I think the correct term would be that he would be nuttier than the Mad Hatter at tea time by the time he was done with those 444 decals on those 37 planes.

Jim Barton

mfsob:

Noooooo, the drop tanks were plastic, 1/700 scale, and so much fun to glue and align one at a time. Slower setting gel superglue is your friend.

One other thing to consider with your little air wing is the decals - if you go whole hog and do modex numbers for each individual bird, and squadron insignia for the tails ... the four Hawkeyes on my Enterprise build, for example, had 12 decals per aircraft. I topped out at 37 aircraft on the flight deck before deciding enough was enough! 

 

 

Sounds like Eyestrain City!

npdk9

I'm building the USS Enterprise CN-65 and I'm working on the air wing. The instructions call for the aircraft to be painted dark gull gray. When I do, it looks too dark. I tried light ghost gray, but I'm just not sure. Help!!!

 

Hello all. You are on the mark with respects to FSNs. I have found doing small scale kits like 1/350 a/c they tend to be a little dark. I know this will sound crazy but I find realy good photos of the subject and than mix my own colors, test it when dry for color hue and then clear coat it to see if it's correct or close to what it should look like when finished. Back in 1987 I I purchased 2 books from [motorbooks international] the first is - SUPER CARRIERS US naval air power today/ ISBN 0-85045-639-8 .  The second is -SEVENTH FLEET SUPER CARRIERS/ ISBN 0-85045-815-3 . Both have exelent  all color pictures fron to back.  Very good A/C pictures of most planes and the sh-3 sea king helo. The other cover the flight deck and its crew and equipment.  I do not know if they are still in print  but well worth the cost. I hope I didn't dron on too much but Love the carriers WW2 to present. Thanks.

I ordinarily do not worry about scale effect- except when we are talking about ship scales.  Scale effect does not show up for viewing distances less than a couple hundred feet.  The only time scale effect would show up on 1:72 scale is if it were so foggy you could hardly see aircraft.  But when we are talking 1:192, 1:350 or even smaller scales, the scale viewing distance is indeed several hundred feet, and lightening and bluing the paint is appropriate.

I know I'm a modeling heretic, but I save a lot of time by not worrying about stuff like this.  I just dip the whole airplane in a bottle of whatever gray paint happens to be on hand, and hang it up on an alligator clip to let it drip and dry.

In 1974 there were'nt any F-18s,S-3s or SH-60s

I've painted way too many 1/700 scale aircraft for my carriers. I have several very thin paint prushes for the task. For the USN these days its overall light ghost gray, the canopy gets gunboat gray,  the landing gear white, the wheels black, steel for the exhaust on jets.

If they look to dark, I give them an overcoat of semi-gloss and it oddly looks OK.