Lt. Jim Wilkin’s CORSAIR - Dying on every hill, or ANOTHER go at DYI decals.

[Woody V]

3 hours ago, Citadelgrad said:

 Trying to remember how i did mine on the T bolt.   Iirc, i shot the area white, put the whole mask on where i wanted it, then peeled the blue parts, shot the blue, then put the blue back on and left the whole mask on while i painted the camo. I had one area where you could see the white but i easily touched it up. 

The main reason I used the inset mask was because my sausage fingers struggle getting the blue mask back on correctly as seen in the first picture and it sounds like you undercoated the whole insignia with white. I know a lot of guys do this, but I don't understand why unless you're using MRP insignia blue which doesn't cover well. Both Mr. Color and AK Real color Insignia Blue are quite opaque. 

[Citadelgrad]

10 hours ago, Woody V said:

The main reason I used the inset mask was because my sausage fingers struggle getting the blue mask back on correctly as seen in the first picture and it sounds like you undercoated the whole insignia with white. I know a lot of guys do this, but I don't understand why unless you're using MRP insignia blue which doesn't cover well. Both Mr. Color and AK Real color Insignia Blue are quite opaque. 

Well, dont ask me to understand my own process, im a chimp with a decent budget.  
 

but i was using MRP paints, i blame you for that, and ill never go back. 

[Woody V]

I got so tied up with all this obsessing over paint that I had to step away from this for a while. I decided to go with the white base coat idea, but I couldn't get it to chip. Seems the white is too thick so I'm ditching the idea. Luckily, I didn't do the fuselage, just the wings and stabs so it could have been worse.

 

Kind of running out of steam on this build, with my enthusiasm waning but I hope that once I get back into it my mojo will return. What was fun has now turned into a job.

 

[scvrobeson]

Sometimes it's best to just take a break from a build and come back to it later.  I'm sure there's something else to work on until the mojo returns

 

 

 

Matt 

[Woody V]

2 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

Sometimes it's best to just take a break from a build and come back to it later.  I'm sure there's something else to work on until the mojo returns

Matt 

 

That's exactly what I've been doing. Taking photographs and fixing one of broken models. 

I'll be back once I clear my mind.... or what's left of it. 

[Woody V]

Finally back on this after some time on other projects… I have too many hobbies and then my stroke kind of took the wind out my sails. Regardless, on with the show.

 

I’m glad I spent a lot of time experimenting with hairspray chipping lacquer. A quick recap of what I learned:

1. Don’t apply hairspray wet, four light coats work for me.

2. Don’t apply the paint too wet or overcoat everything with straight thinner. I spray hairspray with my airbrush and found by experimenting, that lacquer thinner dissolves hairspray aggressively, so be mindful of how wet you put down your color coat.

3. Rubbing with a water soaked brush will eventually cut through the color coat, but has a tendency to pull up smooth edged chunks. Once I break through I dry the area and use a dampened cocktail stick to carefully create an uneven edge, working from the edge inward.

4. Chipping flat surfaces is best done with a cocktail stick.

 

You don’t have to hurry the chipping. This is my test mule, the chips on the leading edge were done about two hours after I painted it. The small scratches were done weeks later with a cocktail stick.

 

I’ve decided to paint the outer wings and stabs off the fuselage so this is what I have so far.

Base colors, mottling and a water color wash to highlight the rivets and panel line. Brown pastel chalk weathering.

 

Chipping. My plan is to keep the chipping to a minimum and concentrate on dirtying everything up.

 

Bottoms of outboard wings. I’ve found it easier if I lay down a color coat first, then mottle followed by extremely thinned color coat to blend everything together.

 

Fabric after the masking was removed.

 

Painting finished. I didn’t fade the fabric on the bottom of the wings figuring they would be out of direct sunlight.

I’m not going to do any weathering on the tops of the outer wings until I have them attached to the inner wings in order to get a consistent look on both halves. This is the first time I've gone to this extreme with my airbrushing. I have a very difficult time doing things like blackening panel lines but just sucked it up and went for it. Then after I had the panel lines blended in I turned the air pressure down to 6psi and carefully filled in the areas between the lines. May not seem like a big deal to you advanced guys but I'm getting the hang of it now and happy with the results.

 

Next I’m moving on to the fuselage.

 

Thanks for watching.

[LSP_Kevin]

Nicely done, Woody!

 

Kev

[Brett M]

Nice! Great variation in the colors. 

[Woody V]

After way too much procrastination I’m finally pushing ahead with the painting. All my base colors down and yes, I did use my home brew masks because my spastic hands won’t cooperate. Maybe too neat like this but once all the weathering is on it’ll look different…. I hope.

 

 

Notice that I used all the gear doors for the in flight version as masks, temporarily held in place with Microscale Liquitape.

 

Then I used the Scotchbrite method to add mottling. I used black, brown and white on the blues and by the time it was done I can barely see the demarcation between the the two blues. When the build gets to this stage it’s hard to imagine all the pieces and assemblies hiding under what can be seen.

 

Starting on the bottom white mottled with brown and dark gray and panel lines in black and blended in using a very thinned Insignia white mist coats sprayed at 7psi with a .2mm Iwata HP-SB+.

 

I had never intended to highlight the panel lines but the outer wings turned out okay so I’m going to have to follow through using the same approach overall. The outer wings have been slipped on to check the continuity of the weathering. I had to add some shading to the inner wing fold joint.

 

This is where things are going to get tricky. I used the paint masks to hold the demarcation between the white and Intermediate Blue to overpaint the white. Now I’ll have to overpaint the Intermediate Blue to blend in the mottling and fade the panel lines to match the density of the lines in the white which should be interesting since I’ll be working blind because the masks will be hiding the adjacent colors. BTW, the darkened panel lines on the white aren’t this contrasty on the model.

 

That’s where I am as of today. This whole painting venture is uncharted territory for me so I hope it turns out.

 

Thanks for watching.

[themongoose]

I really like your idea of laying down the initial base coat and then adding the mottling. Going to try that on my next build 

[MikeMaben]

Interesting process Woody 

[Woody V]

20 hours ago, themongoose said:

I really like your idea of laying down the initial base coat and then adding the mottling. Going to try that on my next build 

Thanks. I think it works well doing it that way. You just need enough base coat to cover and if it's not perfect it doesn't matter. I use a VERY thinned paint to blend in the mottling and since you don't have to bring up the base color you can concentrate on blending the mottling.

[Woody V]

For the blending stage I made new masks drawn with Adobe Illustrator and used the servo tape method to stick the masks to the model. In case you’re interested I posted a how-to on the servo tape trick here.

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/93224-soft-edge-camo-masking-technique/#comment-1345046

 

 

Masks in place. For the Intermediate Blue I only had to be concerned with the blue/white demarcation because the Sea Blue/Intermediate Blue demarcation will be controlled when I do the Sea Blue.

 

I used a VERY thinned Intermediate Blue to blend in the mottling. This color covers like crazy and it’s easy to obliterate the mottling but I’m happy with the way the panel line in both colors turned out. All my apprehension evaporated at this point, and I was actually having fun!

 

Since everything was going reasonably well I couldn’t stop, but I really should have because this session was getting into the 6th hour and I was running out of gas. Regardless, I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out.

 

I only messed up on one place where I didn’t get the Sea Blue/Intermediate Blue demarcation right and by the time it was fixed one pre shaded panel line got covered, but its on the left side and mostly covered by the national insignia so I’m just going to let it go as-is. All things considered I very pleased with the finished paint job.

 

I still have to do the outer wings, and I’m going to have to strip and repaint the stabilizers because they won’t match the rest of the fuselage paint technique. Once I get that all finished I can move on to weathering.

 

Thanks for watching.

[monthebiff]

Looking absolutely superb Woody, well worth all of the extra effort you have put in.

 

Regards. Andy 

[LSP_Kevin]

Well, isn't that the bee's knees!

 

Kev