adding grey to final varnish coat

[Allan]

one bloke at Britmodeller recommends this--adding a drop of grey to your final varnish coat, flat I imagine, to tone things down

well, whaddaya think?

Allan in Canberra

[Mossie]

It could work.  I had an accident with a model recentley, I was applying a final coat of Klear and didn't think to empty out my brush pot from the previous paint work.  A tint of grey got into the Klear and kind of made a mess of the paintwork I'd done, however it could work if applied properly.

As a bonus, the grey sucked into the panel lines and worked very well to bring them out, I'll probably try this on future models.

[PR19_Kit]

Not on airliner model! 

I'm less than enthusiastic about that, but then I think that pre-shading is the Devil's own invention too..........

[Dizzyfugu]

I am also not a fan of this solution as a general measure. It might work well on military vehicles, where you might want a certain overall coat of dust. But on aircraft it could IMHO look too dirty, and you have to watch out what tone you add to the clear varnish. If it's off what ever you have on the kit, it might look pretty odd. Personally, I'd rather prep all the surface in advance and add the (pure) clear coat as final step. It just offers more control.

[matrixone]

I have never added anything to flat or gloss clears to tone things down but I do something that is very similar, I will use some tinted thinner and lightly airbrush that over the model so the decals will blend in with the paint job and not look so much like decals.
For example, on a model painted in Luftwaffe mid war 74/75/76 grays I will tint some thinner with a tiny amount of RLM 76 and 'fog on' the tinted thinner until its just barely visable.
Its not always the best idea to add the coat of tinted thinner at the very end of the build, on a propeller driven aircraft that has exhaust stains or mud splatters from operating from a dirt airstrip its best to apply those weathering effects AFTER the tinted thinner is sprayed on.



Matrixone

[lancer]

Not on airliner model! 

I'm less than enthusiastic about that, but then I think that pre-shading is the Devil's own invention too..........

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks that...

[matrixone]

Preshading is the best thing since sliced bread....if done correctly.

Sadly many examples of preshading I have seen are done so heavy it almost looks like some sort of bizarre camouflage pattern.
You can't really blame the modelers though, they are feeding off the glowing compliments they see being given to models that have the too dark preshading done on them and think they need to do that to their models too. I see this on HS quite often, it amazes me that a site that freaks out about the accuracy on any new model kit but at the same time praises finished models that have the preshading or other weathering effects so overdone they don't look too much like the full size aircraft seen in photographs in the reference books. Most weathering effects including preshading are best kept subtle...less is more.


Matrixone