I've started the black basing. (For those unfamiliar with the technique there's a really good 8 minute video on YouTube by the fine modeler Matt McDougal whose callsign is Doog. Search "Black Basing" and it's there.) The idea is to avoid pre and post shading altogether and create a random tonal variation. Natural light will cause tonal variation on even a new item - any military artifact in service will show wear very quickly and that amplifies tonal variation. Instead of priming in gray and using black paint to preshade - which provides a "shadow" along the panel lines (a tonal variation - but one that is very symmetrical - very different from the random variation my eyes see) you prime in black and cover the model with very thin squiggles and lines. That's called the mottling phase. Mottling requires "painting small" - you get in very close (less than an inch) and spray thinned paint at very low psi. The color chosen will depend upon the base coat color - a simple mottle would be a lightened version of the base color. More colors cause different tonal variations. Doog does one thing differently than I do. He uses the "acrylic lacquer" paints like Gunze or MRP. There's no question that for this task they're better. However, I use only water based products whenever possible so I don't.
Primed by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
For the first time I tried Mission Model paints a new US made water based acrylic. (Armor super star & graphic artist Mike Rinaldi helped in development and designed the bottles. The bottles, btw, are very good: dropper and ball bearing inside: just like High Flow.) I've used Golden High Flow for a couple of years and think they're splendid. I did want to try Mission Model paints because they had very good renditions of olive drab (including ANA 41 - the very dark OD used on almost all US AC in WWII). A good olive drab is a very hard color to mix on your own. MM paints come with proprietary thinner and a polyurethene conditioner: that may sound like Greek to many, but it's similar to the polymer thinning mediums used for High Flow. Mission doesn't want you to thin their paints as much as many do - I'd thin High Flow at least 50:50 for mottling. With MM I settled for a ration of ten parts paint; three parts thinner and three parts conditioner. I also added a couple of parts of Windsor Newton fluid retarder. WN is very good stuff - just don't use too much or the paint won't dry. The Mission Model conditioner is also a retarder, but I reinforced it because "painting small" will cause tip clog, and you don't want tip dry too. (When mottling you'll want to wipe the tip clean with a paintbrush every few minutes - no problem.) High Flow has ample retarder built in. (I should note that I've been using a Japanese made Creos Platinum airbrush - made in the Iwata factory for Gunze. It is terrific for detail work and has made my Harder Steenbeck obsolete. Unfortunately the nozzle used a very small and requires a special wrench to remove. But it is precise. When you remove the needle, there's almost zero paint on it above the tip - the sign of a well made brush. The basic Creos is $85 and well worth it in my view. I use a .2mm needle.) I did have a little trouble with splatter at first (not hard to do at 1 inch), but when I dropped to the psi down to about 10, things began to work very well. I used two shades lightened OD (cut with yellow - not white - as recommended by US armor guru Steve Zalogda), and lesser mottling with a medium green and white. Here's the result:
Mottle by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
MottDet by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
After mottling, you apply a highly thinned base coat. (Doog calls this stage "blending.") With High Flow I would have used 60% thinning medium. (Doog recommends 70% thinner with Gunze or MRP). I watched Will Pattison on YT do a two hour review on Mission Model paints and he tried an abbreviated form of black basing. He also noted, correctly, that MM are best applied in thin layers, layers which are quite translucent at low psi. This is very important because if the base coat comes down too heavily, the mottling will be erased. If you've every sprayed preshaded lines out of visibility you know the problem. (Should note that because of the techniques used, black basing requires very little paint. That means fine detail remains very visible.) For this job I used my standard Iwata Eclipse and spray from a normal distance at about 15 psi. It took several coats to build up which is good. I stop applying base coat before it looks done because the acrylics will darken when they dry. You can always add more if needed. But the whole idea is have a lot of tonal variation. I am very happy with the Mission OD ANA 41. It's very dark, and that's accurate. (It's also very matte - that's one difference from the eggshell satin of High Flow.) I came upon an interesting factoid. When looking at C47 pics, it struck me that very often the fabric rear vertical tail appears a different color. According to USAAF color expert Dana Bell, most C47s had this piece constructed in several different factories so it was often done in a different shade of OD. To replicate this, I applied OD ANA 319 - the olive drab that the USAAF was going to use in early 1943 but rarely did because of the switch to natural metal finish a couple of months later. ANA 319 is interesting - as I understand Zalogda, who certainly knows olive drab, this shade is almost identical to that used on American armor and vehicles. It's distinctly lighter. Should note that I haven't done anything to avoid a slight yellow shift from the lighting here. I suppose I'll have to beg my wife to use her iPhone to photograph the finished build. Here what we've got now:
Blend by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
BlendFus by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
Haven't done the bottom yet, but that's faster. It doesn't look good now, but it's not supposed to. We're thinking a very hard working transport flying in New Guinea a place hard on man, beast and machines. There's a lot of weathering to come: salt fading, oils, panel lines, exhaust/fluids. I may put on a filter to lighten it even more.
Eric