W.I.P. pics of new projects....

[matrixone]

As can be seen here some detail painting has been done on the K-84, some of the paint chipping is on it but more will come after the decals and flat clear coat, my goal is to have the paint chipping look like it has been done over a period of time.



Matrixone

[DogfighterZen]

That weathering is looking the business!   The chipping is done with a brush, right? Obviously,i don't know a thing about weathering...

[ChernayaAkula]

That is gorgeous! 

[matrixone]

Thanks guys!

Dogfighter Zen,
The chipping you see here was done mostly with a paint brush but a little of the worn paint effect was done with the airbrush.
Later after all markings and the flat clear coat is on I will use a silver artists pencil to add even more paint chips.


Matrixone

[Army of One]

Spanking lovely Ki84.......can't wait to see it finished.......love the jet collection.....

[DogfighterZen]

Thanks guys!

Dogfighter Zen,
The chipping you see here was done mostly with a paint brush but a little of the worn paint effect was done with the airbrush.
Later after all markings and the flat clear coat is on I will use a silver artists pencil to add even more paint chips.


Matrixone

Thank you!

[Allan]

any thoughts on why the prop silvering seemed to only take place on the sides nearer the pilot?

[matrixone]

Allan,
If you look at photographs of well used Axis aircraft the rear of the propeller blades near the tips bare metal could be seen starting to show through, this is due to sand, dirt, or sometimes even small rocks being stirred up and striking the propeller blades. Because of the angle of attack on the propeller blades the rear of the blades would tend to receive more wear than the front.
In the PTO Corsairs based on some of the islands also had the same type of wear on their propeller blades.

Matrixone

[matrixone]

More in-progress pictures...

The pre-shading and white highlights have been covered by the final coat of RLM 76 on the Ho 229 undersurfaces.


The Ki-84 now has its decals on, after they dry another day I can start weathering them.


Matrixone

[Allan]

Matrixone,
the yellow on the trailing edges: sprayed and which manufacturer of the paint?
and are they red lights on the trailing edges?....brush painted? Xtracryix?

[matrixone]

Allan,
Only the leading edges of the wings were masked and painted yellow the trailing edge is Aeromaster decals, the red on the tips are just regular red enamel paint from one of the little square bottles from Testors.

If I were to build this model again I would have masked the yellow trailing edge of the wings...getting the Aeromaster decals to settle in took many applications of decal setting solution to get them to conform to the surface.

I aged the squadron markings so they would better match the finish on the rest of the airframe and help avoid the 'decal' look to the markings.

The national markings were left untouched, it would appear the Japanese kept the national markings in good condition even if the rest of the airframe looked a bit tired. On captured or scrapped machines the markings could look badly worn and faded but on operational aircraft the rising sun markings looked like they were either protected from being weathered or retouched when needed.

Matrixone

[Army of One]

That Ki84 looks super with the decals on.......more lovely work........

[matrixone]

Thanks Army of One!

Really looking forward to spraying on the flat clear coat on the Ki-84, its difficult to judge if the paint chipping is good enough when the surface of the model is so glossy.

I am in the middle of painting several models, one of them is the Huma Ju EF 128 and I just painted the upper surface camouflage pattern. Xtracolor enamel paints were used for this and as you can see the paint has a high gloss to it and will take a couple days to fully dry. No masking was done on this job, the camo pattern was all freehand airbrushed.


Matrixone

[Allan]

sterling work as we have come to expect from you, Matrixone.. very deft airbrushing to be sure....just a couple of observations about painting our models...it seems to me that gloss paint might just perhaps be the way to go in terms of smoothly allowing the paint to exit from the nozzle of our airbush (attending to a small 190D this morning in the garage has convinced me that Xtracolor enamels spray wonderfully)

and as for nozzle size I'm more and more leaning to the view that even 0.3 might be too small for constant trouble-free airbrushing and that 0.5 might be the nozzle size promised land..your thoughts?

from your most oleaginous disciple,
Allan

[matrixone]

Thank you Allan!

I think you are correct, gloss paints do seem to airbrush better especially when attempting fine lines or small mottling. My preferred paint is Model Master enamels, their line of RLM colors are mostly semi-gloss and are easy to work with for spraying fine detail.

Xtracolor enamels would IMHO be the best choice for learning how to spray details with, in fact the special camouflage pattern I have in mind for my Me P.1101 will be done with Xtracolor paints...watch this thread in a few days and I will post some pictures of it.
With Xtracolor paints I use a 50/50 paint and thinner ratio and I would not recommend thinning them more than this...what is really critical is lowering the P.S.I. to match the thinness of the paint, the thinner the paint the lower the P.S.I. If the paint spreads lower the P.S.I. and if your mottles look grainy bump up the P.S.I. slightly.
What I do is remove the airbrush end cap when spraying fine detail, there are two reasons I do this...one is to improve the airflow when holding the airbrush so close to the models surface and two is it makes it ultra easy to use a paint brush wet with thinner to clean off paint build up on the tip of the needle.

No matter what paints are used you should expect paint to build up on the tip of the needle, this is not a real problem and I keep a paint brush and a small pot of thinner nearby to use for wiping paint off build up on the needle. Be sure to keep an old model or unused model part close by to do a quick test spray on before returning to painting your model.


Matrixone