Adventures in Airbrushing
Now and again I post about my occasional hobby of model-making. It lets me enjoy the challenge of making stuff without having to have a workshop (although I have a growing collection of modelling tools and gubbins) and I think it's good for me to have an interest that teaches and rewards patience, care and precision. My aim is to be able one day to complete models to the sort of standard I saw at the IPMS Scale Modelworld exhibition I went to last year or as seen in the posts in the 'Ready for Inspection' thread on the Britmodeller.com site.
Something I picked up on very quickly when getting more interested in modelling is that many serious model-making enthusiasts don't use conventional painting techniques for models, preferring instead an airbrush. Certainly, there are a lot of painting techniques that are almost impossible without an airbrush, but even for more straightforward paint jobs it seemed that the quality of finish could be a lot higher. I was tempted to get an airbrush to try for myself, but put off by the worry that if I didn't know what I was doing it would be a waste of money. So, when I saw an advert at Modelworld for an airbrushing course, it seemed the ideal opportunity to try and see if this was for me.
It was a bit of a trip down to the course venue in Lancing, on the Sussex coast, but when I got there I found a busy little industrial unit crammed with airbrush and painting supplies and a small studio set up for the eight of us on the course. The morning was mainly an introduction to airbrushes and ancillary equipment, including a lot of explanation of care and maintenance. Our first efforts were confined to doodling on paper to get the hang of airbrush use - too close, or too much ink, and you get a squashed-spider splatter, but with a bit of practice all of us were able to achieve both reasonably fine lines and broad, even coverage.
After lunch, we tried actual model-painting, via a boxful of parts that had been helpfully primed beforehand. A few swipes back and forth... OMG! Flat, even, smooth paint that shows the finest surface detail underneath! After brush-painting, this was a revelation. We were using water-based acrylic paints, so a quick blast with a hairdryer was enough to dry the first layer ready for another; the trick to airbrushing is to apply several thin layers rather than one thick one. I was sold, and the offer of a discount on any purchases made at the course was enough to tempt most of us. I picked up an Iwata Revolution CR, very similar to the model we'd been using, together with a small compressor, a cleaning kit and some acrylic paints in shades suitable for some of the model work I wanted to try.
The pre-Xmas social whirl and the need to get hold of a small spray extractor meant that I didn't get around to trying anything serious with this until a few weeks ago. My first efforts were on sawn-off lengths of PVC drain pipe I'd picked up from a hardware store, and a bit of practice convinced me that I could at least get even paint cover on a non-flat surface. So, what to start on for an actual model?
At this point I recalled that swisstone had, some while back, given me as a present a box set of five 1:72 models of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's British fighters (four Spitfires and a Hurricane). These were all reasonably straightforward models, and with five of them I had the chance to work out any mistakes and try again with something similar. So I set to work assembling a Spitfire and the Hurricane and then having a go at painting them.
First was the Spitfire. For this one I was trying for a generic paint job rather than to replicate a particular aircraft. After priming with primer from a spray can (Halford's plastic primer works fine!) I went for a base layer of brown before masking it with plastic film as a prelude to spraying over in green. To my pleasant surprise the result wasn't too bad for a first attempt:
Sprayed with Airfix gloss varnish it looked even better:
The basic techniques seemed to be there, so for the next project I thought I'd do the Hurricane, building it as far as possible to resemble the aircraft the kit was meant to be, the BBMF's Hurricane Mk IIc, LF363; at the time the kit was issued, it was painted as 'YB-W' as seen here.
This was a bit more of a challenge. For one thing, the paint job was soft-edged camouflage, a technique that notably requires airbrushing to achieve. In fact, if you look at contemporary pictures it's clear that most WW2 RAF aircraft had a much more hard-edged camouflage scheme, achieved by applying standardised cut-out rubber mats to aircraft, and the BBMF scheme was in that respect not authentic. However, it was good practice to see what I could achieve! I also tried different paints, using the Humbrol acrylics as recommended by Airfix rather than the Lifecolor acrylics that we'd used on the airbrush course, and which I'd painted the Spitfire with.
The first coat went on over the primer and I immediately noticed an issue: the paint wasn't smooth, but dried to a very fine speckled finish. I'm not sure if I hadn't thinned it enough, or maybe needed to use a lower pressure, but the resulting finish, whilst not quite the 'orange peel' dreaded by spray painters, was nothing like the near perfect flat finish the Lifecolor paints had produced. However, it was still reasonable-looking, so I moved on to the next stage. The approach I used was to use paper masks that were stuck to the model with a slight stand-off, using those little thin foam pads you can buy for mounting photos.
For accuracy, I cut out the masks from a scan of the painting instructions, carefully enlarged to match the model scale. I also had to flip it, as Airfix had managed to print the top view as a mirror-image compared with the side view! In fact, there were two mirror-image versions of the standard camo pattern, achieved by just flipping the rubber mats used for masking, but whoever drew the diagram in the instructions managed to do a top view of one version and a side view of the other.
After painting, I then added the remaining small components (undercarriage, exhausts, propeller etc) that required separate hand-painting by brush) and applied gloss varnish spray before adding decals. Again, I was experimenting here, using Humbrol Decalfix rather than water, as it's meant to soften decals and help them fit better to surface detail. It also makes decals very soft and you may note that all the following photos are from one side, because the lesson from this stage was that even after an hour a decal is very easy to damage. Oops...
The final details included the canopy, which was a right pain to paint because the Hurricane had the old-fashioned greenhouse style with little panels. I had to mask these and paint the frame between. I also added the radio antenna strung between the tail and the mast behind the cockpit. This would have been pretty thin in real life, and I need a 1/72 scale counterpart! attimes_bracing donated a hair, which was fixed in place with superglue and daubed with a cotton-wool bud dipped in ink.
The result is... well, not too bad. The paint texture is still visible even under several layers of gloss varnish, and the soft-edged camo is even softer than on the BBMF aircraft. Also, the recommended Humbrol paint shades are rather dark - this is a known issue with model making, and it's often suggested that paints should be lightened a little to counteract the effect of reduced scale. Finally, there are various cosmetic blemishes that reinforce the point that extreme care is needed when trying to achieve a good finish.
I think the lesson here is to try out paints on spares or bits of pipe first and make sure you have a combination of paint, amount of thinner and airbrush pressure that works - then stick with that!
That's enough WW2 stuff for now. I think my next project will be the 1:48 BAe Hawk in Red Arrows colour scheme that I got a while back, after which I may feel up to finishing off and painting the 1:48 TSR2 I've been working at on-and-off for the last year or so.
This entry was originally posted at http://major-clanger.dreamwidth.org/33631.html, where there are
comments.
Something I picked up on very quickly when getting more interested in modelling is that many serious model-making enthusiasts don't use conventional painting techniques for models, preferring instead an airbrush. Certainly, there are a lot of painting techniques that are almost impossible without an airbrush, but even for more straightforward paint jobs it seemed that the quality of finish could be a lot higher. I was tempted to get an airbrush to try for myself, but put off by the worry that if I didn't know what I was doing it would be a waste of money. So, when I saw an advert at Modelworld for an airbrushing course, it seemed the ideal opportunity to try and see if this was for me.
It was a bit of a trip down to the course venue in Lancing, on the Sussex coast, but when I got there I found a busy little industrial unit crammed with airbrush and painting supplies and a small studio set up for the eight of us on the course. The morning was mainly an introduction to airbrushes and ancillary equipment, including a lot of explanation of care and maintenance. Our first efforts were confined to doodling on paper to get the hang of airbrush use - too close, or too much ink, and you get a squashed-spider splatter, but with a bit of practice all of us were able to achieve both reasonably fine lines and broad, even coverage.
After lunch, we tried actual model-painting, via a boxful of parts that had been helpfully primed beforehand. A few swipes back and forth... OMG! Flat, even, smooth paint that shows the finest surface detail underneath! After brush-painting, this was a revelation. We were using water-based acrylic paints, so a quick blast with a hairdryer was enough to dry the first layer ready for another; the trick to airbrushing is to apply several thin layers rather than one thick one. I was sold, and the offer of a discount on any purchases made at the course was enough to tempt most of us. I picked up an Iwata Revolution CR, very similar to the model we'd been using, together with a small compressor, a cleaning kit and some acrylic paints in shades suitable for some of the model work I wanted to try.
The pre-Xmas social whirl and the need to get hold of a small spray extractor meant that I didn't get around to trying anything serious with this until a few weeks ago. My first efforts were on sawn-off lengths of PVC drain pipe I'd picked up from a hardware store, and a bit of practice convinced me that I could at least get even paint cover on a non-flat surface. So, what to start on for an actual model?
At this point I recalled that swisstone had, some while back, given me as a present a box set of five 1:72 models of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's British fighters (four Spitfires and a Hurricane). These were all reasonably straightforward models, and with five of them I had the chance to work out any mistakes and try again with something similar. So I set to work assembling a Spitfire and the Hurricane and then having a go at painting them.
First was the Spitfire. For this one I was trying for a generic paint job rather than to replicate a particular aircraft. After priming with primer from a spray can (Halford's plastic primer works fine!) I went for a base layer of brown before masking it with plastic film as a prelude to spraying over in green. To my pleasant surprise the result wasn't too bad for a first attempt:
Sprayed with Airfix gloss varnish it looked even better:
The basic techniques seemed to be there, so for the next project I thought I'd do the Hurricane, building it as far as possible to resemble the aircraft the kit was meant to be, the BBMF's Hurricane Mk IIc, LF363; at the time the kit was issued, it was painted as 'YB-W' as seen here.
This was a bit more of a challenge. For one thing, the paint job was soft-edged camouflage, a technique that notably requires airbrushing to achieve. In fact, if you look at contemporary pictures it's clear that most WW2 RAF aircraft had a much more hard-edged camouflage scheme, achieved by applying standardised cut-out rubber mats to aircraft, and the BBMF scheme was in that respect not authentic. However, it was good practice to see what I could achieve! I also tried different paints, using the Humbrol acrylics as recommended by Airfix rather than the Lifecolor acrylics that we'd used on the airbrush course, and which I'd painted the Spitfire with.
The first coat went on over the primer and I immediately noticed an issue: the paint wasn't smooth, but dried to a very fine speckled finish. I'm not sure if I hadn't thinned it enough, or maybe needed to use a lower pressure, but the resulting finish, whilst not quite the 'orange peel' dreaded by spray painters, was nothing like the near perfect flat finish the Lifecolor paints had produced. However, it was still reasonable-looking, so I moved on to the next stage. The approach I used was to use paper masks that were stuck to the model with a slight stand-off, using those little thin foam pads you can buy for mounting photos.
For accuracy, I cut out the masks from a scan of the painting instructions, carefully enlarged to match the model scale. I also had to flip it, as Airfix had managed to print the top view as a mirror-image compared with the side view! In fact, there were two mirror-image versions of the standard camo pattern, achieved by just flipping the rubber mats used for masking, but whoever drew the diagram in the instructions managed to do a top view of one version and a side view of the other.
After painting, I then added the remaining small components (undercarriage, exhausts, propeller etc) that required separate hand-painting by brush) and applied gloss varnish spray before adding decals. Again, I was experimenting here, using Humbrol Decalfix rather than water, as it's meant to soften decals and help them fit better to surface detail. It also makes decals very soft and you may note that all the following photos are from one side, because the lesson from this stage was that even after an hour a decal is very easy to damage. Oops...
The final details included the canopy, which was a right pain to paint because the Hurricane had the old-fashioned greenhouse style with little panels. I had to mask these and paint the frame between. I also added the radio antenna strung between the tail and the mast behind the cockpit. This would have been pretty thin in real life, and I need a 1/72 scale counterpart! attimes_bracing donated a hair, which was fixed in place with superglue and daubed with a cotton-wool bud dipped in ink.
The result is... well, not too bad. The paint texture is still visible even under several layers of gloss varnish, and the soft-edged camo is even softer than on the BBMF aircraft. Also, the recommended Humbrol paint shades are rather dark - this is a known issue with model making, and it's often suggested that paints should be lightened a little to counteract the effect of reduced scale. Finally, there are various cosmetic blemishes that reinforce the point that extreme care is needed when trying to achieve a good finish.
I think the lesson here is to try out paints on spares or bits of pipe first and make sure you have a combination of paint, amount of thinner and airbrush pressure that works - then stick with that!
That's enough WW2 stuff for now. I think my next project will be the 1:48 BAe Hawk in Red Arrows colour scheme that I got a while back, after which I may feel up to finishing off and painting the 1:48 TSR2 I've been working at on-and-off for the last year or so.
This entry was originally posted at http://major-clanger.dreamwidth.org/33631.html, where there are
comments.