eh? what exactly is dry brushing?

Dry brushing primer.

When you "dry brush, " you lay minute amounts of lightened base color over the model by dragging a brush with very little paint on it over the model. The paint will get caught on the high points and give that a high light.

To do this well, use a wide, flat brush. Lighten the base color with an appropriately lightening agent such as yellow for gree. Try to avoid white as this is too stark. Barely touch the tip to the paint and drag it across a rag. When you can't see any significant paint, lightly drag the brush across the model.  You'll be surprised how much paint is left in the brush. repeat with successively lighter paint and less pressure. Drag the brush top to bottom on vertical surfaces but horizontal surfaces are not so critical for a direction.

Simply put, dry brushing is a technique used by many to highlight raised details.  In the subjects you model, drybrushing would highlight raised instrument panel detail, as well as side panel detail in the cockpit areas of WWII aircraft, but you can highlight just about anything...machine gun barrels, walkways, etc.

I use an old #2 round brush that I cut about 1/4 inch from the handle, so it splays out a bit... Dip the brush into a small amount of paint, and wipe the brush nearly clean on a rag, etc, so that only a very small amount remains on the bristles.  I usually use quick light strokes so as not to over-do the drybrushing.  I'm sure that there are tons of others with better explanations that I have.  Hope this helps.

ewc2003 wrote:

...and wipe the brush nearly clean on a rag, etc, so that only a very small amount remains on the bristles.  ...

Good advice from the two posters before me. 

My only addition would be to stress the above point that both make; even when wiped over a cloth there will still be a lot of paint on the brush, you're not really aiming to paint the edges of the raised detail just to 'dust' them with the colour on the brush. So wipe the brush clean.

So, practice first - and often - you'll see when you're doing it right as the effect can be quite impressive.  A mix of dark wash for the recesses and dry-brushing for the highlights can really show off the detail in a kit.

I don't know how big is your email box but I have a very interesting document that shows different techniques to be used when modeling armors.  It is about 25 mb though.  Tell me if you want it.

Yann,

Sounds like an intersting file.  You could post it to one of the free upload sites and then just post the link here so people could grab it.

Well, it's already on a free download site:  Here is the link:

http://betah.co.il/BooksCatalog.aspx?category=Armored%20Vehicles

For the file I'm talking about, look for the Modeling tanks in the Workshop section.