~Dan~

Okay, but I'm afraid I'm a bit old school, I learned with enamels and I'm now switching to Acrylics, so there may be other people here that can give the finer points of how the paints interact. Basically I would lighten the base colour for scale effect... and then go a bit further because the subsequent washes are likely to darken things up. Start with a wash of a darker version of the base colour. Then maybe use some dark red brown. Basically, whatever the thinner of the paint you are using is, use it to flood over areas of the model. And then ad a touch of paint to the areas where it has pooled in edges. You can do it another way which is to just greatly thin the paint and then just flood it on, but I find you have more control over where it goes using the other way. So that will have darkened up the recessed corners. Next I would probably dry-brush on a lighter version of the base colour to pick out the detail. And then I'd brush on darker versions of the base colour on ware areas. (But the way, I'm missing out any distressing techniques for rust and chipping as this is a whole other kettle of fish!) ...okay. I think that what I would probably do at this point is just continue adding steaks and patches using darker and lighter versions of the base colour, and versions of the base mixed with a hint of brown. You can also buff some areas and scratch it using a sharpened matchstick -- you don't want to go through the paint, just mark the mat finish. At this point you should end up with just a painted finish which looks oxidized, faded, slightly stained and worn. You can then do more washes of dirt colours on the upper surfaces. White on the hull in the hull for salt -- unlike normal washes, you aren't aiming to fill panel lines, instead adding streaks and patches on the panels. And then add multi-coloured filters. You can look up washes and filters, they will show you how to do them much better than I could explain. Other than that, you can keep going as much as you like. Just remember that you can't dry-brush as much as you like because you start to get a grainy paint finish, but washes you can keep going with. Your model will tend to get darker as you keep going, so start off with a light mix of the base colour. You don't have to do the whole model at once. You can do it bit by bit, which will help get a less uniform effect which is what you want. As I said, you can also use pastels from the art shop. They tend to give a nice dusty effect which may not be appropriate for a boat! But you can put them on and then wipe them off again with a damp tissue, they will leave some staining. As you can tell, I don't have a system for weathering, I take a freestyle approach for a more random and natural looking effect. I really envy you now, having talked about it, I wish I were the one having a go!

and this one:- http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/screens...2/12308LCVP.jpg See what I mean by salt staining? Personally I'd go about this by using loads of filters and washes. Then maybe end up with some chalks and pastels.

Didn't the Royal Navy frown upon such things as rust? I'm sure somebody will tell us, but I'd think rust would be at a minimum -- maybe the odd streak. I'd go for something that looks like chipping, I would think that landing craft get bashed about. Some grime colours as a wash, and then some salt staining? I found this picture which may help inspire:- http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/screens...h2/12308LCA.jpg

It's okay. You are among friends here. What you get up to in your own time is fine by me. It just makes the world a more colourful place.

Nice paintwork. what airbrush do you use?

Do you have more on this? I haven't really looked into this or checked anything, but in my notes, four aircraft were borrowed by 225 for about two months. As far as I knew they were the standard US P-51-. My notes say the serials were 41-137361, 41-137366, 41-137424, and 41-137428. Were these actually A-36, or were the A-36s in the MTO a separate story? I'd be very interested if somebody has more info on this?

me too. Pass the popcorn.

I have been using white milliput, I've had this packet at least 7 years. It's working fine, so I don't think age will effect it. When it gets really old it goes crusty around the outside, but still not known it to not harden. Sorry.

I revamped some of our company's old web pages today, two of which advertised the service for doing this kind of work. There was a picture on one page of a MkII golf, and a pic of Corsa being done on another... they seemed so old and naff, that I almost dumped the lot. Well, it's not been that long that Vauxhall changed to clear-over-base. And there are still plenty of commercial vehicles which are solid coat... so we won't be throwing away the compound just yet!

Where did you get the photo from? It was probably just edited so it could be used on a European website.

That's not a phrase you hear every day of the week.

Very tidy.

What you say is true to a point. It used to be the case that you could restore the colour of faded paint on a car, but that was in the days before clear coat. polish a car these days and you are just polishing the varnish, you aren't getting anywhere near the faded paint. So the only solution is a respray. So if the aircraft was varnished... As for smoke damage... this is my business partner's area of expertise. But from what I remember, they generally don't bother cleaning plastic as it becomes impregnated, and any of the special chemicals they use for removing tar, also attack plastic and synthetic rubber. But that's not to say it is impossible, its just that odour is one of their major considerations, not just discolourations, and economic viability plays a part too. The other tactic they use is to paint over smoke discolouration... so I'm afraid nothing I have seen in the professional world would indicate that it's very likely. You may get lucky and get fairly good results by washing with detergents, alcohol and vinegar, if you painted/varnished with a good enamel. You could even try polishing with a colour restorer. It won't help with faded paint under varnish, but tar staining will just have impregnated the very surface, it may work. But you may want to think about getting a paint stripper, some after market decals and a new vac formed canopy. In the long run, it may be more fun.

The guy in the middle is checking his fly...

Well, I haven't really been exposed since painting airfix spitfires when I was about 8. When I did, I saw Blue. Most of the time now, I see blue. Sometimes I see a photo on these forums, I see green. So although it is a blue-green, it is mostly blue. I was a graphic designer for 20 years... if I didn't have pretty good colour perception somebody would have told me during that time! As for the actual eggs. I grew up in the country and seen a lot of eggs. Basically, eggs can be all colours. For example, chickens can lay white to dark brown eggs, and there is no difference between them (They don't taste different incase you are interested). From what I understand it is genetic to the chicken, but there is variation depending on what they are pecking at and how much calcium there is in it. There is also variation within a clutch. The only actual duck eggs I remember seeing have been off white -- neither green or blue. But as a general rule of thumb with bird eggs... my impression is that if they are anything other than white/brown, they are blue with a hint of green, or brown with a hint of green. of the two, the latter is more green. So maybe thats your answer. ...talk to me of egg green, And I think of an egg which is heavily speckled with brown...

Absolutely not. There is no such thing as cheating. You do whatever you want to do, and need to do to get the result that you want. Tracing is just another technique among many. ...I once had an art teacher tell me that using a ruler was cheating, show how much teachers know!

an absolute minefield. http://www.lottolab.org/articles/illusionsoflight.asp http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/lum_adelsonCh...adow/index.html ...and this is why you can't trust photos, or what you see 99% of the time.

I was just about to say that you have some natural talent there so should get on fine, but....you have an Engineering teacher? You should find this a doddle if you have an engineering background! I haven't worked on a drawing board for over 10 years, so I don't have a source for detail paper, no doubt the price has come down since you have been able to get such things online.

Yep, I thought it was you. I wasn't sure. Only just ripply, I'm sure it will iron out. Are they polystyrene?

No problem, it's nice to see somebody having a go. I'm sure it's a dying art... everybody uses computers these days! Anyway, I was thinking about this while peeling potatoes, and it occurred to me that if you are going to have a go at this, I may as well pass on some 'good practice' tips just to make it all that much easier. If you are going to do perspective, it's worth getting a drawing board. I'd go to a DIY centre which cuts for you, and get them to cut a peice of Conti board into about 2'x3'. You'd get two out of a 2'x8' sheet. You can hide them away at the back of a wardobe without them taking up too much space. Get a pad of detail paper. A3 would probably do you, but you might want to do A2. What you do is take a square and carefully draw an A3 rectangle on your board and then a border a quarter inch inside that. Then what you do is carfuly tape your detail paper in place and trace out that border as accurately as you can. You then mark your vanishing points at the edge of the board and label them something like 'A' & 'A'. Then draw a notes box in the corner of your paper and note that you used vanishing points 'A' & 'A'. (Over time you may end up with loads of vp's marked on your drawing board). You can then start drawing out the basic shapes. What you notice is that as you go on, you end up with loads of guide lines... So if you end up trying to do your drawing all on one piece of paper, you end up in a right mess. So you start the fusalage one one peice of paper, and when you are reasonably happy with it, overlay another sheet and do the wings... remember to carefully trace that border on the new sheet of paper as this is your registration marks. You can use separate sheets of paper for all the sections like undercarriage and cockpit. You don't have to use full size sheets for all the parts, use smaller bits but put in registration marks. The beauty is that if you mess something up, you can just throw away that bit of paper and not have to start all over again. When all the parts are done, you can tape them down to the bottom sheet in turn, and trace them onto an overlay. So your final drawing actually has no rubbed out guide lines at all, and you keep all your guides. The other beauty when doing something like aircraft is that you can different versions of the same plane by just changing some of the overlays. Another thing you can do is to make extra tracings, cut them out and use them as masks if you want to have a go at shading with an air-brush! I've made it all sound like hard work now haven't I?

Thats pretty damn good seeing as you don't seem to have used any of the tricks! General perspective is pretty simple, and there is plenty of reference on the subject. The trick to doing something as complex as a car or airplane is to break it down into simple shapes and then transpose these into your scale grid. I'm sorry I haven't got a scanner at home to show you, but basically, THE best way to do it would be to have plans of the plane. Make a copy of the plans and break up outline of the fuselage into basic shapes, it may be a basic tube, or more likely three tubes, and a cone at each end. Then scale these in. Just tackle one simple geometric shape at a time to build up the basic shape, then use basic geometric shapes to fill in the detail, then start smoothing it in. It is almost like carving out of a block of wood. The thing is... once you start down the route of technical drawing... you really need to see it through, the point at which you can start 'winging it' comes fairly near the end. And what you want to do is actually quite advanced. ...I looked through 10 pages of youtube videos and found nothing other than the basics. They teach you how to draw a 'city block' in 3D, but that's all squares and rectangles. There isn't anything I found that would prepare you for a complex shape like a bubble cockpit. So what you do is this. You get the overall dimensions of the bubble and you 'cube' it. Draw this cube onto your drawing in place. Then you grid this out from your plan. (it helps if you at least have a centre line). It's like when you were a kid and you scaled up a drawing by putting a grid over it and copying each square to a bigger square on a bigger grid. Only you are copying to a grid that is in perspective. This is really hard to explain without pictures. But hopefully someone else will know where to find some!

Yesterday I read a tip about thin plastic being used to separate Sainsbury's cheese slices... I have looked for this thread everywhere, I have even used the search facility, but I can't find it to reply. So I'll repost it here in scratch building where it belongs. Anyway, We tried cheddar with crack back pepper, and cheddar with jalapeño and garlic. Not bad in a ham sandwich! The plastic sheets are really thin, but there is some slight rippled texture to them, I think it is where they have been run through some kind of machine with rollers. I think this can probably be solved by ironing them on a hard surface like a kitchen work-top between two pieces of shiny paper. --- and this is what I wanted to add to that original post! Thanks to however it was who passed on this tip. This stuff will come in very useful and has a tasty side effect.

The wire inside old mobile phone charger cables is the thinnest I have found so far. Florists use wire in several grades which you can buy on the roll. I mention this because I know how the Japanese like flowers and indoor gardening. Anywhere that does bonsai trees will definitely do some kind of wire, if you can find a garden centre that sells wholesale to florists, you might be able to find some of the thinner stuff they use.

Whoops. Looks like I misunderstood the question. I just thinned Humbrol Enamel with Humbrol thinners and cleaned the air-brush with the thinners, nail varnish remover or 'Standard' cellulose thinners if I have any knocking about.

Well... I have to admit I can't really see it either! I work with three layers of magnifying glasses strapped to my head, but even then, I don't really know what it's going to look like until I see the photos on the computer screen. Anyway, I have decided I'm not happy with the kit's seat frame. I did try making one out of plastic rod but I failed miserably to bend the ends despite making up a jig. I have since seen somebody else do it on a 1/72 P-40N, I have no idea how they did it but I'm going to have another go and if I fail, I'll use floristry wire instead. I have also found out after further dry-fitting, that the hydraulic pump handle (red) is about half a millimetre too close to the side wall. It don't sound like much, but essentially, it don't fit, so it has to come off. I have since found some more photos of this area so it's an excuse for some extra detail. If it sounds like I'm looking for excuses not to move onto the exterior detail, you are right. I'm still deciding if I can justify buying all the gear for making home-made etched brass.