Pre-shading

Hi!

Pre shading does not need to be perfect. In fact, if you were to make perfect symmetrical lines for preshading, it would make the kit toy like when painted. It is supposed to represent dirt and wear at the seams. In reality It is not perfect width lines of shadow and neither should you pre shading be. Relax with it and have fun. Don't wort about perection. No used aircraft or armor are perfect. Just remember to paint over it with light coats building up the color or you will loose the preshading you did.

I never liked the look of most preshading.

If you want to make thinner lines move the airbrush closer to the kit

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I do pre-shading all the times.  Yes, you want to thin the paint so your pre-shading job will be visible.  I mix paint with thinner as much as 50/50.  Do a run at a time then take a step back to look at it.  It is so easy to overspray that results in loosing the pre shading work.

I do armors only... black paint on primer grey.

Hope this helps... 

Nice example there Deafpanzer!

Mike

I don't preshade. I don't find it controllable enough. Way too easy to under or over-cover with the top colors.

Instead, for armor, I paint the whole thing black, black-green (i.e. Tamiya NATO Black), dark brown, etc, then go in with the main color and just go lazy around the edges, leaving hints of shadow and depth.

Depending on the vehicle, I may lighten the main color and spray that more center-panel. Didn't feel like it on the T-34, though!

For aircraft, I use a technique I call the three-layer blend. Same effect as pre-shading, far more controllable.

Step 1: Paint your base color:

Step 2: Lighten base color with white, light gray, light tan, whatever blows your skirt up. I usually lighten by as much as 50%. Spray this in the center of panels, staying away from panel lines. It's a lot easier to AVOID panel lines than it is to follow them perfectly. You can also NOT lighten some panels, or lighten with different colors to add randomness, etc. Either way, it'll look nasty at this phase:

Step 3: Go back to your original base color. Thin the heck out of it. 75% thinner to 25% paint. Spray this on in light coats until the base and lightened areas start to blend. 

Here's halfway through:

You can stop here if you want the contrast to be stark. I kept blending:

Final results under clear coats, wash, weathering, etc:

Doogs, what do you do for the area where other colours are added. For example, on the Spit, where yuou added the dark brown, did you do the same for the areas that had that colour, or did you just weather. I would imagine your original method would be lost under subsequent colours.

Bish - I do the three layers for each major color...so on the Spit  the Azure, Middlestone and Dark Earth all got the treatment. On the Fw 190 I'm mucking around with now, the RLM 74/75/76 got blended, but not the RLM 04 or the mottling (though I've got some ideas on how I want to handle that differently next time around).

Thanks Doogs, i did think you would havew done that. I have thought about pre shadeing, but don't like the idea because i don't think it suits darker schemes and multiple colours. The pre shadeing could get lost to easily. But i am always looking for new ideas and yours looks and sounds like its worth giving a try.

It's fairly foolproof, too, because the blending step is very controllable. 

The only thing I'd caution...make sure you're using paint that reduces well. IMO Tamiya and Gunze are the best out there for this kind of work. Model Master enamels do a decent job. Not sure how well Vallejo would do since I've always had problems with it separating when reduced too far. And the only other paint I've tried it with - White Ensign - is terrible at reducing. Or at least was when I tried it. May have to give them another go, though, since their 4BO Green seemed to work out pretty well on my T-34.

By reduceing i assume you mean thinning. I mainly use xtracolour enamels and i have thinned it heavily in the past to over spray armour. So i think it will be ok for this.

Bish

By reduceing i assume you mean thinning. I mainly use xtracolour enamels and i have thinned it heavily in the past to over spray armour. So i think it will be ok for this.

Yeah, same thing. 

With Tamiya I've taken it as far as probably 90% thinner with no problems. With Vallejo, I start getting separation issues once the paint hits plastic at anything much past about 2:1. White Ensign, when I tried some shading on my La-5 build last year, basically acted like sand in a cup of water past a certain point. Nearly ruined my Iwata and was a PITA to clean out.

Thanks for the heads up. I will try it out on an old kit, see how far i can go with the xtracolour.

Thankyou for all the wonder techniques!

I want to know how to pre-shade so much because I'm building my first 1:48 plane, Tamiya 1:48 A6M2 Zero, it will be painted entirely in XF-12 J.N grey, which is a very light colour.

What colour should I pre-shade with? I don't think I am 'advanced' enough in this hobby to try doogs way of preshading, Niether is my paint very dark.

I reckon I will try deafpanzers method.

the real red baron

Thankyou for all the wonder techniques!

I want to know how to pre-shade so much because I'm building my first 1:48 plane, Tamiya 1:48 A6M2 Zero, it will be painted entirely in XF-12 J.N grey, which is a very light colour.

What colour should I pre-shade with? I don't think I am 'advanced' enough in this hobby to try doogs way of preshading, Niether is my paint very dark.

I reckon I will try deafpanzers method.

I've seen those very light grays pre-shaded with brown, green, and gray shades to great effect. Honestly, under JN Grey, I wouldn't go darker than something like Ocean Gray. IMO pre-shading is a lot harder to use effectively the closer you get to yellow or white because of the amount of paint you need to cover what's below.

Honestly...my method's more involved...but I stick to it now because I find a lot easier than either pre-shading and trying to nail the paint just so, or post-shading over decals and finished paint without screwing up.

Nor would I let the light color kill the deal. I have plans to use it under the light gray underside of an early-war Wildcat here soon, and just recently did the RLM 76 grauviolet sides/underside of a Fw 190. Just add white, unless you're literally dealing with white or off-white, then you can actually darken the base color with a few drops of darker gray.

Doogs that Spit looks awesome. Very involved.

I'm starting to understand your method doogs. Did you come up with that method yourself? If so, your a genius!

You paint the model in XF-12, then paint the middle of the panels white, then paint the main colour on agian (but really thin).

red, not quite if i have read it right. The second layer is the base colour but heavily lightened with what ever is best to lighten that colour. Then the third phase the base colour again, but very thin. I am deffinatly going to try this out.

Though another method you could try is a wash. I have had great results useing pro modeller wash after all the painting and decalling are done. Very simple to use and very easy to clean up if you go to far.