Base coat

[Welsh Bloke]

Hi all,

 

I'm about to use an airbrush for the first time on a 1:48 Spit mk 1 using thinned Tamiya acrylics. At the moment it's covered in white primer from a rattle can. I know sky is the first colour that should go down as it's the lightest but would you recommend a base coat first and if so what colour would you choose?

 

Thanks,

 

WB

[Troy Smith]

13 minutes ago, Welsh Bloke said:

Hi all,

 

I'm about to use an airbrush for the first time on a 1:48 Spit mk 1 using thinned Tamiya acrylics. At the moment it's covered in white primer from a rattle can. I know sky is the first colour that should go down as it's the lightest but would you recommend a base coat first and if so what colour would you choose?

 

Thanks,

 

WB

No, white will be fine.

 

Don't know if you are bothered, the only Tamiya colour available unmixed for a BoB Spitfire Mk.I is XF-81 Dark Green, for a reasonable match for Sky and Dark Earth using Tamiya, you will need to mix the colours.   I have seen then posted on here from time to time.

 

As you have a white base coat, you could have a go at preshading. 

 

 

[Simon Cornes]

Totally agree Troy. I normally use Halfords White Plastic Primer as its simple and effective in my experience. You may have fun with thinning the colour coats though. They need to be thin enough but not too thin so probably best to spray onto some scrap paper or even an old kit just to see how it goes on. You are aiming for a smooth shiny dense colour but that might require more than one coat and try to avoid paint pooling anywhere. By the time you get into the Dark Green you'll know a lot of the answers to your questions! I hope you have plenty of Tamiya masking tape for when you're ready to blast on the dark earth and the I found that blue tack sausages work well for delineating the edges of the areas to sprayed dark green, with masking tape on the sausages, Of course you could spray the green on freehand but it might be an idea to reduce the pressure and the volume of paint until you can get control of the spray pattern?  

Best of luck anyway!

[Welsh Bloke]

Thanks very much both.