 JO ATC wrote: |
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I prefer airbrushing over hand brushing. I am able to control the coverage better with well thinned paint through an airbrush than with a hand brush. I tend to leave strokes when I hand brush.
First of all you will need to paint light to dark because dark colors cover lighter colors better than light covering dark.
You have several options. You can order a mask from Gator Mask http://www.gatorsmask.com/bb.html and use their vinyl mask. Paint the model in 5L, when dry mask off the area which stay 5L. Then paint the 5O areas. Do the deck now too. And mask them off leaving the 5L masks in place. Then paint the black. Mask that off and paint the decks. Strip the masks and hand touch up.
You can do something similar by transferring the patterns to masking tape. Shoot the camouflage pattern to 1:350 scale on a photocopier then trace onto tape. Use the masking tape as above.
If you are careful you can mask the edges of each of the areas with some fine line tape by hand, then fill in the field with larger snippets of tape. Then spray away as before.
Either way it is a tedious process.
A can of propellent may be good for a beginner. I started that way. But you are not able to control the pressure and airflow as you can with a compressor. They give good pressure in the beginning and tail off as the product is used or as they get cold from use. They also run out at the most inopportune time. Keeping several on hand helps, but in the long run they are an expensive proposition. I use a second hand scientific pump. I also have a small 1 HP compressor from the home store - for driving a nail gun. Either work well. They're noisy so they live in the garage. If you're getting in to the hobby deeply and are going to work inside you will be looking at big bux to buy a silent compressor.
There are other options for an air source, CO2 tanks or air storage tanks which can be filled at the gas station. Post your question about them on the airbrush forum. You'll get a better range of responses there.