Brush Painting a Model

First, for hand painting I use hubmrol enemal paint (other model enemal brands are also fine) thinned with minerial sprits untill it is roughly twice as thick as milk.

Acrylic paint is horrible for hand painting where a actualy brush stroke is involved.

With enemal paint thinned this much it will give you a good work time. One example is the bottom hull of tanks, i sometimes stroke as far over as an inch over wet paint to smooth out ridges of paint left on the edge of the brush stroke.

The direction i paint is the direction that will give me the longest strokes, but this is not a must.

Here is a example of good and bad brush stroke directions.
<<<< >>>> = good / <<<<  <<<< = good / <<<< ^^^^ = bad.

The whole goal of all this is to make the paint perfectly smooth and flat. When done right, a layer of dull coat will even out the paint texture to give you a very near AB finish. Raised ridges of paint will be highly visable.

I assemble the model as much as i can BUT i leave off all small parts that stick out on a otherwise large surface area, such as a handle. This is because these parts will collect a lot of excess paint and leave a "wake" like form a ship of lack of paint.

If you know this then pay no attention. You will want to apply several thin layers of paint rather then one thick one that will fill in details. I apply 2 to 4 layers. The first one will look terrible but this is normal, each layer will be a more solid color untill it is done.

FlyBoy68 wrote:

When one Brush Paint's a Model do you Paint in one flowing direction with the "Grain'' of the model

Main thing to do is to paint so that your brush strokes are not as noticable.  One noted shipbuilder who always brush paints his models, actually paints the hull in vertical strokes, figuring that any brush strokes would be perceived as weathering which would typically be mostly vertical on a ship hull.

FlyBoy68 wrote:

...,and do not overlap?

You want some overlap for even coverage but only on the provebial wet edge.  Once the paint starts drying, you don't want to go over it again.  This rule dovetails nicely into the short vertical strokes technique on the ship's hull, which would be easier to do than if one were to paint long horizontal strokes.

FlyBoy68 wrote:

...and should the Model be assembled First,or somewhat assembled?

I think the same rules apply as with airbrushing which would be to assemble as much as possible before painting.