AdrianUK
Can I ask how you dry brush,, I have tried it and my results are no way near as good as what I see in these pics, do u use plain white or silver and do you use washes over the top?
It's too much typing to go into every detail of dry-brushing here, but there's gobs of information in here about it, especially in the Techniques and the Painting & Airbrushing Forums.. /search/SearchResults.aspx?q=Dry+Brushing+AND+sectionid%3a13&o=Relevance
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But here's a general overview...
Dry-brushing is as much art as science, but when it comes to the actual mechanics of it, it's fairly simple.. You want to rid the brush of as much paint as possible, first of all.. Do that by dipping your brush (a flat is best for this technique), and wipe it back and forth on a piece of cloth or paper towel until the paint is almost gone..
Then you lightly drag it across the model, catching only the raised details.. Do it little by little, don't try to get it done in one pass.. If the paint streaks, then you have too much paint on the brush. If it's not grabbing the detail, too little...
As for colors, use progressively lighter shades of the BASE color... Not silver or white... (For NMF finishes though, it's a little different.. I use darker shades of silver for that...) Once you've painted the base color, add a little white to it (be conservative), then start the dry-brushing..
With each color change, apply less pressure on the brush, until you're just barely hitting the raised details.. Then, just when you think that ONE more pass will do it, STOP.. It can't be "undone"...
Washes are a bit different.. First, you want it collect in the recessed areas of the surface... Make sure that you use a different kind of paint as well.. If you painted the model with enamels, then wash with acrylics (or Tempera, which is my personal fav since you can wipe it off even after it's dry), and vice versa with an acrylic-finished model (You can use oils as well). I perfer a "Pin-Wash" (pin-point wash), loading the brush with the wash and letting capillary action pull the paint into the recesses..
Also (though it seems obvious, but believe me, people have done it) make sure that the dry-brushing is done AFTER the wash, not before... Once your done with dry-brushing, you can start to apply pastels for stains, faded areas, etc, if you choose to do so.... But that's another thread..
Wahes add depth and pop-out the detail, the dry-brushing highlights it.. Used together, along with other weathering techniques, it's the difference between a good looking model and a so-so one.... But generally, you need to use both for the bestt results..
It takes parctice though, so find a paint-hulk or hangar-queen and practice on it until you feel comfortable and acheive the results you want... And don't forget about those parts numbers on the sprues... Practice on them too.. Once you can highlight them without leaving paint anywhere on the tab but the numbers, you probably got it..