Next time you find yourself getting obsessive about a paint job check this picture out.
imgur.com/r/WWIIplanes/c4TUEuu
imgur.comPosted Aug 14, 2014, 6:29 AM UTC
4418
imgur.comI remember I was surprised at how poorly painted the stripes looked on one of the planes they were boarding in the first episode of Band of Brothers, and was then impressed when I found out that they actually went out of their way to make it look authentic.
12
I'm confused, is that Microsol he's painting on there?
10
Liquid mask perhaps?
3
Actually, this makes it worse. Putting masking tape down in straight lines is relatively easy compared to making the stripes look hand-applied without appearing to be your own sloppy work.
9
This is the thing.
I am on a Japanese thing at the moment and most of their paint jobs were 'terrible': squiggles sprayed on fairly randomly, only loosely covering the bare metal or grey base, and often varying on the one aircraft from tight loops to broad waves. On top of this, paint was applied without primer and was of poor quality, and quickly wore off in many cases.
Reproducing this without it looking like your airbrush skills are minimal is really hard. the only solution seems to be to either make a speculative scheme, or to carefully select the plane you are going to imitate.
9
Sounds like a challenge! I guess if your painting for the bits of the model that are not meant to look hand painted are spot on, then you might exaggerate a little the painting, or make it more raised or something to increase the effect. I'm going to try this on the next model I make.
2
I agree with the tape just because you probably can't paint small enough for it to look right. Still if you tape then use a brush to apply the paint it does look more realistic than an airbrush. If you do a crappy job and make the paint uneven with the brush it's also easy to weather with a little sandpaper.
2
Funny fact: most of the invasion stripes were painted without masks and sometimes using mops (some airfield had to use wall paint)
7
Try doing that on a modern jet with RAM coatings :P
1
https://www.atthefront.com/khaki.html
This is also some really good reading concerning "khaki" and the khaki-nazis.
TL;DR: Don't obsess about the correct hue of RLM04, build your vision and have fun while doing it.
3
"I'm not a terrible painter, I'm making it look authentic."
2
The B-26 deserves a paint job that looks as good as it's design.
1
Implying that the Marauder is an ugly aircraft? :(
1
Implying the opposite.
1
TIL for perfect paint jobs I need to buy a 1/48 scale paint brush.
There's an old guy that works at my LHS and he says in order to make things realistic you have to use a brush that's close to the scale of the original brush used to paint. I know you're joking but using a scale appropriate brush does yield much better results.
That's interesting. I wouldn't have thought anyone would actually do that. Pretty cool.