Painting
I wasn’t really sure how I was going to achieve the effects I finally
ended up with so I experimented with salt and hairspray. I actually
decided on using only the salt technique which at first looks
confusing, but is actually pretty easy to accomplish. It’s also easy
to over-do as I found out!
The first step consisted of laying down a primer coat. In this case,
I used Mission Models Grey Primer. I laid down very thin coats so
as to not block up any details since five or six different colours
were going to be sprayed. A very light run of 4000 grit cloth was
given to all the surfaces to remove any rough spots and the model
was then blown over with compressed air.
The second step was to apply the metallic coat. I used AK Xtreme
metal Dark Aluminium for this because I didn’t want the final bare
metal effects to look too obvious, and it is a very durable paint
that resists washes and abuses. The trick to all of this is to keep
all the effects as subtle as possible. I varied the tones a little by
spraying some are with AK steel and plain Aluminium.I let this dry for a few minutes and sprayed a fine mist of water
onto the metallic areas. I found out that the water beaded up in
some areas only. I solved this by adding a drop or two of dish
soap to the sprayer and repeated the process. This worked
perfectly and I took some salt from a salt grinder and sprinkled it
over the moistened areas. I let this dry thoroughly before the next
paint step.
The third step involved spraying the model with yellow Chromate
paint. The salt masks out the yellow leaving the metallic paint
underneath untouched. It’s okay to overspray because those will
receive the salt treatment, too.The paint was allowed to dry overnight and the salt was rubbed
and rinsed off. The coarseness of the salt actually scratches the
paint a little as it’s rubbed off and this is not a bad thing. The
fourth step is basically a repeat of the third. Salt was again spread
onto the surfaces and this time, a little pre-shading was applied.
Next, the blues were sprayed on. Because I wanted the plane to
look beaten up and worn I used a mixture of Mission Models
Paints Intermediate Blue, Blue Grey, White and Sea Blue,
modulating the tones by adding white or Sea Blue. I also sprayed
Sea Blue patches along panel lines according to references I
found.