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Paint underside first or last?


Gardner95x

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I normally go 'bottoms up' - ie underside first - as camo patterns 'usually' seem more complex on upper surfaces - so I get the easy stuff done first.  Additionally under surfaces are usually lighter in colour - so it is easier to paint dark over light.

 

I can hear all the bomber crews already telling me their lancs / wellingtons / halifaxes were black underneath...  

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By art rules it is correct to apply paint from lighter tones to more dark because the covering ability of light paint can be insufficient for what completely to close more dark color light. If the covering ability is insufficient then more dark color to appear through light. It is also justified also from the historical point of view when the German planes at first were completely painted in light RLM 76,  and then already dark RLM were put:

20170904_185606.jpg


 But, we don't do the real plane!
Therefore sometimes it is possible and to use cunning having facilitated itself life, especially when there aren't enough opportunities of an air brush and experiment on her use! When in the 90th I did this plane, there were not enough opportunities of an air brush (it was the airbrush made in the USSR

Sxema_eton.gif

 

http://www.unrealtech.ru/wiki/Этон_(аэрограф)

 

of single action with a nozzle of 0,4 mm of the line width allowing to achieve in my then unexperienced hands only of strips 3 mm and more). I at first have put RLM-74, have closed his thin strips plasticine and then have put RLM-76:

20170904_185547.jpg


Thus there is no what accurate criterion color to put to the first, everything depends on experience and skills of the modeller.... and from a model camouflage!

 

B.R.

Serge

Edited by Aardvark
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Best rule of thumb to remember go from light colors to dark colors. Bottoms are usually the lightest color. With the exception of some nightfighters and early war british black/white bottomed aircraft. Its easier to cover a lighter color with a darker not so much the other way. Trying to cover a darker paint with a lighter color isnt easy. Unless you are going with a razor sharp demarcation then you might get away with any thing in a random order 😜 

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Brush painting in the traditional manner, I apply the lightest colour first.  However, having applied the uppersurface colours I often find it best to use a stroke of the lower surface colour to define a sharp demarcation between top and bottom.  The answer is therefore to use the lighter underside colour both first and last.

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I'm not too troubled by coverage, but I am lazy. I tend to paint the smallest surface areas first then mask them off. On typical RAF single engine WW2 types that means painting the bottom first. If painting a Battle of Britain era Bf109 that was mostly covered with RLM65, I'd paint the greens first, unless it was mottled and that required two sittings of green!

 

I just do whatever requires the least masking or preparations to be honest!

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