Panel weathering (sf and non)

badlandsghost · Post by **badlandsghost** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:13 am

I'm not even sure the best way to describe this but here goes, please bear with me, LOL.

The basic effect is an aircraft done in a basic (usually grey) 1 or 2 color scheme, but the panel lines always show a lighting toward the edge, and darker towared the center. Basically adding to the whole camo effect and adding a lot more "real" feeling. Anyone familiar with military "low-visibility" markings/paint will probibly know what I'm talking about, but any insight about the cause, and realistic ideas to replicate would be appreciated.

Heres (I hope) a couple of pics of what I'm talking about.
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/A ... tom-07.jpg http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/A ... dge/14.jpg
I would imagine you could just use a light rubbing with a lighter charcoal around each panel, but that seems rather labor-intensive. same ting with trying to airbrush the lines, but i think I'td end up looking better..,

What do you folks think?

thanks,
J

Thanks,
J

Kekker · Post by **Kekker** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 5:03 pm

From that shot, I'd say it was repair people spraying over chipped paint at the panel seams. You could do that with a very fine airbrush line (I've seen this done on models in magazines). navy planes on carriers seem to have a lot of this, which really stands out.

One thing I've done is to get pastel chalks in colors near the color of the panel. I used it to subtly change the colors of individual panels. But like you said - you could do it a little darker in the middle, a little lighter at the edge.

Of course, there are those who take the opposite approach - they spray all of the panel lines with black to provide a contrast that way. They do it before the main colors go on. Sometimes the effect is way too subtle for the effort, and seems to disappear.

But as they say - try what you want on an old model first, and see what YOU like!

Kev

Joseph Osborn · Post by **Joseph Osborn** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 10:38 pm

If you haven't already, you should go to http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php and browse the painting forums. These folks are super-serious about this kind of painting, and you can pick up all kinds of tips for pre-shading and post-shading panel lines.

badlandsghost · Post by **badlandsghost** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 8:05 am

Kekker wrote:From that shot, I'd say it was repair people spraying over chipped paint at the panel seams. You could do that with a very fine airbrush line (I've seen this done on models in magazines). navy planes on carriers seem to have a lot of this, which really stands out.

Actually the Navy stuff was my original inspiration, for one of 2 x-wings I'm making my first real scratchbuilds out of. Ones going to be an all black stealth-x, and the other will be a later x-j.

Kekker wrote:One thing I've done is to get pastel chalks in colors near the color of the panel. I used it to subtly change the colors of individual panels. But like you said - you could do it a little darker in the middle, a little lighter at the edge.

Of course, there are those who take the opposite approach - they spray all of the panel lines with black to provide a contrast that way. They do it before the main colors go on. Sometimes the effect is way too subtle for the effort, and seems to disappear.

But as they say - try what you want on an old model first, and see what YOU like!

Kev

Actually, I've just been trying something similar to the former on the AMT b-wing, I did the main body in primer white, the capsule area in a very close eggshell/ivory, and various panels in a couple of shades/glosses of white and light grey, and then worked around the panel lines in pastels to kind of tie it all together. So far it looks pretty good, IMHO.
As to the latter, I agree, it sounds like a lot of work for marginal returns, especially on smaller kits.



Joseph Osborn wrote:If you haven't already, you should go to
http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php and browse the painting forums. These folks are
super-serious about this kind of painting, and you can pick up all kinds of tips for pre-shading and
post-shading panel lines.

OK, let me preface this with:

and a Mencia-esque "De De De". I ran across a link to
that site, (hence the photo examples) and I guess wandered straight into the gallery/walkarounds.
The forum section apparently was trying out a stealth suit at the time, LOL. I'll definatly check it
out.

Thanks guys,
J