weathering decals

professordeath

Eww. The ultra thin base color overcoat works wonders. I just did it for the first time, but with NMF that's not an option. If already on the model I'd try some light colored pastels like white, buff, grey, or similar. I've used buff colored before and it looked good. You can clean these off if you don't like them.

Another thing I've heard people do is spraying a dilute coat of paint in whatever color you like onto the decal sheet. If you're putting them on a grey plane then a light coat of grey would be appropriate. As for what to use for NMF I'd experiment on scrap decals or something. People use buff colored paint to fade armor...it'd probably be the first to try. Please don't just go spraying the decals you're going to use though. I want you to be sure you're going to like the result.

I have used a very thin coat of alclad over an alclad finish, as well as white, do dull down and weather decals.  It takes a very light touch, but does work.  I have even done it with a single action brush.  One of the neat things about Alclad is that it is very thin, and the needle and air pressure can be cranked down to where it would be difficult to get regular paints to work but the alclad still does.

just found a good way to dull down decals. Faber Castell PITT artist pens brush type (shades of grey pack). The lightest shades are very transparent and good for the decals whereas the medium and darker shades are super for panel lines, oil spots/leaks etc.

If they are over a ribbed "fabric" surface, lightly sand them with very fine sanding cloth or paper until you wear away the high points of the decals over the ribs.  Then spray dullcoat over them.  This will give a very realistic effect.

Mix in some buff color or light grey with some clear flat and airbrush it over the decals.

luckily i have quite a few spare decals and some pastels so i have a bit of a practise, thnx. like the noob i am i have already weathered the plane so blending in the decals is going to be a right royal pain.

i have some light gray powder, ill try that on the decals as i dont think aluminium will look right over them. Is it possible to apply the powder to the decals on the sheet, flat coat the sheet to seal it in , and then apply the decals to the model? i have not read of anyone doing this and dont know if it would even work. Anyone tried something similar?

I airbrush a very thin coat of the base color under the decal over the applied decal.  This makes it look faded.  The heavier a coat you put over it, the more faded it looks.  A very thin coat takes away that freshly painted appearance.

Some options that I've used...

• If they span a panel line, I usually cut them along that panel line as well (Paint shouldn't jump across a gap, right?).
• Very light dry-brushing with the colour that is underneath.
• Maybe some light chipping/flaking using whatever method you happened to use on the rest of the surface (silver pencil, dry brushing, sponge etc etc.)
• Dot-filter tones things down nicely.
• light overspray of the base colour.
• And of course, a light overspray of, well, dull-coat of some sort helps blend as well.

I tend to do most of my weathering after decals are on, just to keep things consistent.

It's generally good to put the decals on before most of the weathering is done. What you have to do now is basically repeat most of your weathering steps on the whole model - depending on what you did. Things like dusting, washing, dry-brushing - like I said, that depends. Hope it helps, have a nice day

Paweł