Painting a Checkerboard pattern

[slookabill]

Does anyone know how to mask to paint a checkboard pattern? I'm not sure how to best go about it.

[EVApodman]

Your best bet is a decal set you can find at Microscale.

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?

Enter checker in SEARCH and it will list all the different kinds they have.

[Laughing Coffin]

https://hlj.com/product/PITIT3002

https://hlj.com/product/PITIT3004

Use template to cut squares in checkboard pattern of various sizes, mask carefully, paint.
That's my plan anyway...

[TazMan2000]

On a flat surface you can go with decals.

Another way is to paint your parts in the lighter colour, then cover the entire place you want to paint checkerboard with low tac tape. Take a pencil and make evenly spaced lines over your model and then gomth other direction. Once it looks right, start cutting the tape at the lines with a hobby knife ensuring you only score the tape and not the model. Carefully peel away the alternating squares and then paint your second coat.

On a flat surface this will be fairly easy, but on pieces with many curves it will take a lot more care. Aircraft painters do the same thing, and because of the complex curves of some aircraft, the checkered sections do not look square at most angles. But this will enhance the curves of the aircraft. Because it is a pattern, the eye will pick up discrepancies in width and length, so if your measured lines are differently spaced it will distort the aircraft's true shape. Checkerboards are a bane of aircraft painters so you can imagine the smaller the checkerboard, the more frustrating it is when you paint miniatures.

TazMan2000

[DaveVan]

Decal is best if you can use that on what you are doing. Any graphics program can produce a pattern the EXACT size you need......print out the dark color and apply to the lighter color.

[slookabill]

Sadly the checkerboard goes across several flat surfaces, front part of a Z-95(https://starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index. ... unter.html), Mostly going to be in front of the cockpit, but before the final nose cone area... wish that hlj stencil option was larger and available easier here to the US...

The whole paint scheme is going to be similar to what Wedge Antillies described for his X-wing in the book The Bacta War, black and checkered green and gold, someone's rendering here

[naoto]

If only "toon physics" and the like was real -- then it'll be a simple matter of opening up that can of checkerboard paint.

It would be cool if it was possible to create paint (say, with naonmachines) that would have capabilities of cuttlefish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-cxg8mF_Lw

[Zubie]

Sadly the checkerboard goes across several flat surfaces, front part of a Z-95(https://starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index. ... unter.html), Mostly going to be in front of the cockpit, but before the final nose cone area... wish that hlj stencil option was larger and available easier here to the US...

The whole paint scheme is going to be similar to what Wedge Antillies described for his X-wing in the book The Bacta War, black and checkered green and gold, someone's rendering here

I really don't have much experience with checkerboards ('cause I avoid them ) Still, looking at the X wing rendering, maybe a technique that card modelers use to figure out curves from physical models could come in handy here.

I assume that you have the physical model already and you are not just in planning stages. You can take masking tape and cover the section you want the checkerboard to go, allowing for a little extra. I would suggest do it in sections if possible (like just the top, then the bottom), and go over it with a bit of pencil to highlight details and corners and the end of the markings. List off carefully to not stretch it, and then use these sections as a template for a paper pattern. Once on paper you can carefully measure and draw pattern that works with these surfaces since it it is in effect like a tapering trapezoidal solid. Take care to make sure the pattern will match up properly section to section (i.e. where they meet you don't get similar squares adjacent). From this paper pattern you can then work out a good mask either with tape or other medium, or even scan it to work up a photoshopped decal from those home decal sets (pre-test on paper first of course)..

[Kylwell]

There is a rather tedious and mask intensive way to mask checkerboard. It's done 2 stages using precision cut tape both as a spacer and mask. I'll see if I can dig up the tutorial.

[Kylwell]

This is the method I'm talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8aRkpccKfE just done on a tinier scale.

[TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan]

FWIW, Hasegawa makes a clear masking sheet with 1mm gridlines called their Try Tool Application Sheet. I have it with white gridlines for dark surfaces and black gridlines for lighter surfaces.
http://www.hasegawa-model.co.jp/product/tf916/
I've never had the occasion to use it much. It was useful for masking a canopy which had extremely slight detail that was difficult to realize under regular masking tape. Anyhow, in the image below you can see how it is used to do a checkerboard pattern on an engine cowling.

These are currently backordered at HLJ.