Treehugger Autor
Q: Might it be a good idea to draw on some lines for the camo pattern with a pencil, or will the pencil shine through the camo paint? Anyone tried that?

Treehugger Autor
I think I can reply to my own question here.
I think one might as well use a single camo color to outline the pattern for all colors, and then because the paint is thinned out, the initial pattern will easily be covered with more layers I think. I wish I thought of this earlier. 🙂

gorby
I think the camo looks quite good. I've never been able to spray narrow or sharply defined lines that I see others doing so I can't help with that. I have tried using pencil but found I had to go well over the line to hide it completely as the edges of the spray aren't as solid/opaque. I only tried it once, I would do it again. When I need to have sharp edges on camo i usually use either Blu-Tac, masking fluid or brush painting if I'm feeling lazy (which is quite often 😳 ).

Treehugger Autor
Does blue-tac leave any fatty residue behind after being removed after a few days? I have a lot of blue-tac around iirc.

gorby
I've never had any problems with oily residue.

gorby
I just thought, some modellers consider White-Tac to be less oily than Blu-Tac. I've never had a problem with the blue one but if you are concerned it may be better to try the white version.

Treehugger Autor
Fixed. Well worth the effort just correcting the mistakes. Very carefully airbrushing on more paint to correct the camo pattern, making sure I don't widen the spray too much by keeping the paint flow low. 33% thinner mixed worked, but with some tip try for Vallejo Air. Maybe a little more thinner mix would work even better, but not a big issue with 33% thinner mix and 67% Vallejo Air paint.

An other model of mine, sort of looked like a panda after the first round of airbrushign on a camo pattern, too large shapes. Fixed by changing the pattern to look less than blobs and more like stripes.

Btw, that tube thingy behind the turret was re-made with a piece of metal cylinder early on, because I wasn't able to clean up the plastic parts, looks much nicer this way.

Oh, wait I see a couple of errors with the camo on the turret. Sigh. Must fix that.

[img1]

CaptGPF
I suck at fine lines- so for sharp lines, I use masking tape I cut to the pattern I want - it's time consuming, but gets me the desired results.. I do this for Russian jets that seem to have well defined lines (Ianyone correct me if I am wrong on this)

For camo that blends, I either use camo goo (similar to Gorby's Blue Tec), or I use Max Afterburner's trick of creating paper masks and leaving them 1mm off the surface so it blends with the other color. This is a must for US camo schemes.

I personally haven't had a flood experience with Blue Tac - it does leave an oily residue the longer you keep it on a surface (try it on a piece of paper for a week). The el-cheap white ones from China are worse - they really stick to the surface - so I tend to use the good, or paper masks.

The downside with good is that it doesn't retain it's shape very well over time - so in warmer weather, it will just "melt" leaving you with flatter lines that don't retain the original pattern. It's great for on the fly masking and painting, but when you are stretched for time and want to mask days ahead of painting, the paper mask works better.

These are my experience - your mileage may vary. 😀