Freehand technique question

Ross - I've had that happen to me.. usually I put the nagging thought to the side and finish the camo.  9 times out of ten when taken as a whole, the camo doesn't look diffuse on the edges.  If I see an edge that DOES look more 'loose' than the rest, I spray the undercoat color from the opposite direction that I sprayed the camo coat on and slowly at LOW pressurestart moving back to the demarcation line one stroke at a time until the 'diffusness' looks more sharp.  This would be with a very thin mixture like you mentioned above.

What scale are you spraying on?  Believe it or not, the FW-190 I recently did in 1/72 looked like it had a tighter camo pattern than the 1/32 version of the same aircraft I did months before it.  I think it is a matter of perspective.

-=edit=-

I just remembered this.. I was working on a Typhoon that saw action in North Africa lasyt year, and finally put it aside in disgust... the (my first attempt) camo was way too loose for my liking.. the other day I was cleaning out my closet and found it and I was amazed at how tight the camo actually looked!  Maybe try a paint donkey and camo it up and give it at least a week or so and go back and look at it.  Your eye might be a little less critical at that point.

Thanks, Tom—I was just practising on a scrap of yellow painted plastic, so there was no scale involved. I do know what you mean, though, about critical eye and the way the human mind interprets what it sees. But I didn't think that was it, partially because in my former career, I was strongly trained and conditioned against that sort of thing. Observational science types have to be fanatically rigorous about seeing what is there, not what they think is there.

But what you said about LOW pressure, and what I was seeing on the plastic, made me revisit the whole process…SUCCESS! I dropped the pressure even more, but diluted the paint slightly less, and painted a line as tight as those I've looked at in the articles and remember doing. I suspect my pressure gauge on the regulator is not quite what it should be. Not really surprising, considering how old it is.

Thanks for the help and encouragement! This (with a few other things I won't mention) was really getting me bummed out.

Ross - great!  glad it worked out for ya... there are the two schools of thought, low pressure, high flow... high pressure, low flow... I use either/or depending on the circumstance, sometimes I have to flub it up one way to realize the other would work for the particular situation...

Happy painting!!!