A couple of questions about painting

Hey,

I will try to answer the best I can.

does the clear need to be glossy to apply the decals? yes a glossy finish is best for decals and to seal then in.

All you want to know about Future can be found here http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

Weathering I will let some of the experts direct answers to those questions. Hope I helped a little. Best of luck with your build.

Guido

Hi,

you can sometimes get away without priming, but primer is better at sticking to the model than normal paint and gives your paint a good bond to the surface, better than it would have without the primer being there. Primers are usually a light colour and this helps any flaws in the surface to be seen. The 3rd clear coat is essential to make sure that your decals stick down firmly and snuggly without silvering. A flat coat increases the chances of decal silvering. The reason for the 5th coat being clear is to seal in the decals and give you a chance to remove weathering should you need to. One method for panel lines is to put a wash into them, let it dry and then wipe off any excess. Without a clear coat under this you couldn't wipe off the excess. Check out Swanny's for info on weathering. If you don't put a flat coat on the top of everything then you will have a gloss model and your weathering will come off in your hands everytime the model is handled.

I've not used anythig other than Future on my models, but I guess a glass varnish will do. Futire can indeed be sprayed through an airbrush - you can thin it down to 50/50 with Windex as well, but it can be sprayed straight from the bottle if you're careful. Just take it slow as you spray - no great big thick coats. Clean the airbrush with Windex afterwards. 

When you put on your weathering bear in mind that after the flat coat is put on the model will not look as weathered. The final coat reduces the effect - so you might want to play with that a bit to get the effect you're looking for.

Paul 

The vast majority of military color paints are available only as flat paint. Flat paints by nature are rough surfaces, and if you apply decals over flat paint you will suffer the dreaded "silvering" effect of trapping air bubbles beneath the decal. This looks awful, of course! The first gloss coat it merely to prepare the surface for decals. The second gloss coat is to seal the decal which will protect it during the weathering stage, and also has the benefit of making the decal look "painted on". The final flat coat is to return the military color to it's former flat glory and to seal in the weathering effect. There is always the chance that applying the final flat coat will diminish the effect of weathering, so people sometimes lay the weathering on a bit thick to compensate.

Future can indeed be airbrushed with fantastic results. Clean up is a snap since Future is basically nothing more than a clear acrylic paint. I use Windex with ammonia which is nothing more than 67% water, 30% isopropyl alcohol and 3% ammonia. There are a couple of other chemicals in that mix, but in such small amounts that I'm just going to ignore them. If you get the Future on your hands ordinary soap and water will remove it.

If you get a bottle of Tamiya Flat Base X-21 you can add a bit of that to the Future to acheive a very nice flat coat. See Swanny's Complete Future article for more information on how to do that.

Future can be added to acrylic paints to help them airbrush better, or to make translucent paints. It can also be used to adhere decals (see Swanny's article again). It can be used to make mud puddles or dial gauge faces. Dipping clear styrene into Future helps protect it from  scratches and has the tendency to make the clear styrene appear "thinner", it certainly glosses it up!

There are also rumors that it can be used to make vinyl floors shine! Though no-one I know would think of wasting it like that.