Painting Camouflage

I just eyball it for the most part, I'm not that concerned with making each mark perfect, as long as it looks close and good to me I don't care. The only people who see em , most can't tell you what kind of plane it is, let alone whether each line of paint is exact.

I usually mask with tape, for a feathered look I dont burnish down the leading edge. around odd angles and wierd shapes I just lay small pieces till I form what I want then gently lift the leading edge before painting.
For slotches I cut several shapes into a 3x5 index card and hold it off the model by hand and spray so the paint flows through whichever shaped slotch I wish to put down, move to another spot, spray through a different hole and repeat.

I'm guessing you're getting too much overspray? Reduce the pressure and get the nozzle as up close and personal to the surface as you cna get. Outline really tightly first. When you back off a bit to fill in, always point your nozzle into the area you're filling.

It's a good idea to take a scrap model or a even a toy plane and practice on that. Worst case, a piece of sheel stock or white cardboard until you get a good feel for the ab and the idea of the pattern you're trying to replicate.

if the scheme is softly blended (as in the colors kind of overlap) then you dont need to mask. For me, I just looked at the drawing in my instruction sheet and drew on the camo scheme with a pencil. Make the line a little bit away from the edge you want to create or the pencil marks wont be covered by the paint.

If you are having problems with blu-tac messing up your paint, I am guessing that either the original paint has not cured before the blu-tac was applied, or you are getting too much of the new paint onto the blu-tac, and the solvent is attacking the blu-tac.

I use blu-tac (actually the white version, not the light blue) with Tamiya flat acrylics. When the blu-tac is removed, it does leave a very small amount behind, but dabbing the surface with a lump of blu-tac removes it all. I remove the blu-tac a couple of minutes after applying the paint, rather than waiting for it to fully dry.

Cheers

Thanks guys....after all that I just had a decalling disaster, looks I can use my Gloster Meteor to practice my camo pattern, again, again and again!

hey nomis, dont feel bad my friend, i have about 3 scrap kits that are airbrush fodder. ill be so tedious with the model trying to make a completed project only to screw something up along the way and just put it in the airbrush fodder pile. i had a p-40 that probably had atleast 12 or so coats of paint on it before i chunked it. it was quite fun though! cammo is my passion so i practice the fine line all the time to try and hone my skills for the "real" project im gonna start in the future. along the way, i have tailored the following steps for my personal use and find that it works well from barely noticeable demarkation lines to the obvious demarkation lines.
1. i thin tamiya acrylics down to around 60% thinner 40% paint using the old eyeball technique.
2. crank the psi down to around 12lbs. ( i have a iwata hp-c and a omni 5000 brush)
3. hold the brush at a slight angle pointing inward of the pattern your filling in and ever so slightly begin "drawing" the demarkation line spaying with my crown cap about 1/8 of an inch from the surface.
4. after i have about an 1/4 of an inch thick line of paint all the way around the patch of cammo im spraying, i back off to around 2" from the surface and fill in the middle of the patch ever so slightly building the color to the desired shade.
5. if i slip up somewhere, i put in the base color and touch up until im satisfied with the look.

hope this helps, later.

Hey thanks for advice and sympathy Saltydog.

I ended up with quite a feathered edge, I figured that I needed to thin the paint and drop the air pressure. I will give the paint to thinner ratio that you suggest a go. I have just brought a Passche VL ab, seems to be capable of doing the job and is really easy to clean.

Worse come to worse I have a 1/24 scale hurricane in my stock pile, so my feathery edges may just pass for OK at that scale.

Cheers

Simon

For a long time, all I did was use tape to mask the camo patterns until I was able to free hand. I think it would be good to find some skilled modeler and actually watch him do some freehand spraying. It helps a lot.