Another camo ?

Being in the military myself and understanding how and why camo works is a good starting point.
you want to use a light green or loome color for your base followed with some brown, next some larger bodies of green but the black or darker colors you want to use on high spots, this makes those areas look much more shallow than they really are.
the greens (darker ) should be used to suggest height or the lack there of?
it all really depends on what type of pattern you plan to use but the principals have never really changed over the years.

The only good way to camo up is to just do it ( my honest opinion ), just get a thought of what you want to accomplish with the pattern then just start painting, you'll like it!

I was only kidding about play dough. I got some silly putty though.
Chris- Not quite that adventurous yet. To good of a kit to do that to.To bad i don't have anything screwed up laying around though or I would give it a whirl.

be adventurous! FREE_HAND!!!

Play dough [:0]

LQ don't do it! Heard really bad things from a guy who tried it. Play dough breaks up too easy, sticks to every thing, is hard to get out of crevasses and will leave oily deposits on existing matt camo colours. Not to mention that the darker colours can bleed out of some when you spray near it.

Blu-Tack is not that expensive, and you can use it again a few times.

Try silly putty!

Glenn

Looks like I have the same set as you Peter, got the black one just have not used it yet. Forgot I had it.

Rob- Don't think we have any silly putty but the kids have lots of play dough, guess that would'nt work as good though.

Blu-Tak like Peter says, if you have some Silly Putty kicking around the house, that works too.

I have the deluxe set (my wife reallly spoils me-she bought itfor me) and it has 6 nozzles. One of the guys I talked to at my club on Saturday only has 4 with his. He uses the grey in lieu of the black.

If you haven't already watched the video that comes with the airbrush, do so.

PS fat fingers got in the way. The tan is .30mm and the black and grey are .40mm

Thanks Peter, explained it pretty good. I have the same airbrush so it helped that much more. I don't have the black tip though. This is going to be my first try at trying to get detailed results with it also. With the help from here it should be alot less harmful though. Thanks.

Lizard,

Outlining is good to get your pattern - but it won't help you with the overspray

See that - Petbat was hooking you up while I was typing

LQ

It really all depends on your airbrush skill. Do you have a dual action brush? Single action brushes need fine needles and tips for outline work, and usually you need to buy these separately.

I have run pencil outlines as a guide on a camo jobs and it worked okay, but I have had an occasional overspray problem with the airbrush (too little air I think). I use an Aztek A4709 which comes with different nozzles. I use the finest (Tan .40) but after talking to a couple of guys in my club, the recommend the next size up (Black .50) as they say they had the same overspray probs with the Tan nozzle. To date, I have used masks just to be on the safe side.

The simplest mask is Blu-tack and paper. You place a thin 'sausage' of Blu-tack as the edge of the camo. Push a bit more in behind it, over the area not to be painted and then push a piece of roughly shaped paper into that to stop overspray. Spraying up to the Blu-tack will give you a hard line (don't spray too much paint or you will end up with a pronounced 'lip' between colours); Weathering will soften the edge a bit (this is why you don't want the lip of paint - the lip will show up horribly if you dry brush a different colour over it)

For a softer line, shape the paper to the camo design and using Blu-tack again, push the paper onto the model. Leave the edge of the paper to hang over the blu-tack,a few mil above the model surface, and as long as you spray flush to the paper (not at an angle under the edge) you will get a soft demarcation line.

For straight edges, like on the Swedish S-Tank, use Masking Tape as Dwight recommends. I get proper Painters tape (it's green or blue over here and is about 3 times the price of cheap masking tape) as this is low tack, but will not stick to the model if you leave it on for more than 24 hours. A problem that standard Masking Tape can create. Always remember, you get what you pay for...the cheapie shops sell tape for almost nothing, but expect it to bleed paint, fall off, react with the paint, etc.

That would probally be a good thing to try it out first on something else.

Chris,

That will be a good idea but I think it would help a lot if you try it out first on a piece of plastic sheet or something. In this case you can preview the finished job and can easily switch to another pattern if necessary.

I have heard and read that there are a lot of good masking materials there in the US. You can use them to your advantage. I only use ordinary masking tape here. It's not the best material for masking but I have no choice.

Good luck.