Su-27, work in progress

Here you go - it's not perfect in my eyes, lots of little niggles and a couple of problems. I also had some issues with a couple of decals that tore but I covered them up as best I could.

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I'm currently building an ME110-G2 in 1/48 scale and I've applied the decals and washed the thing in raw umber oils diluted in white spirit. I've noticed on your model Phil that the wash appears to give a "dusted" effect but I'm not sure that this desierable as it tends to fade out the colour as far as I can see, you don't get that effect with oils, see below



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The colour is slightly masked by the oil paint (darkened a bit basically) but the panel lines are clearly defined as they were picked out individually to give a "fuzzy" definition to them, I prefer this method for upper surfaces as "preshading" can be obliterated with some paint schemes such as the mottling used by the luftwaffe, but the undersides look really good using this method due to the uninterrupted area of colour.
 
You're right, it has faded out the colour somewhat, but my photos haven't really helped. It's not quite as faded as it looks. There is still a nice satin finish to the paint work. Let's not forget, this is in the desert, so I'm guessing colours would be more faded and there would be plenty of dust/sand around.

But I've had enough of the pro wash - whenever Phil does it he makes it look dead easy - and it works every time. I haven't achieved the desired effect at all yet! I'm going to go down the route of oils.
 
philstanbridge said:
You're right, it has faded out the colour somewhat, but my photos haven't really helped. It's not quite as faded as it looks. There is still a nice satin finish to the paint work. Let's not forget, this is in the desert, so I'm guessing colours would be more faded and there would be plenty of dust/sand around.

But I've had enough of the pro wash - whenever Phil does it he makes it look dead easy - and it works every time. I haven't achieved the desired effect at all yet! I'm going to go down the route of oils.
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If you down the route of oils, make sure you have a layer of acrylic varnish on the paintwork to protect it. being acrylic paint it "should" be ok but you never know. A mixture of 50/50 tamiya acrylic clear/flat varnish should be ok (the me110 is coated in this btw). This will enable the wash to settle in the panel lines but will allow the excess to be wiped off fairly easliy. Dilute the raw umber so its very runny (like milk) and work on say, one wing at a time.
if you have any models already prebuilt and sprayed in acrylic paint, I'd say practice on that first just in case you don't lke the effect, and it'll give you a chance to experimant with different mix ratios of varnish and white spirit.
Lastly for gawds sake do this in a well ventilated area or you'll end up with a headache :D
 
pieman109 said:
If you down the route of oils, make sure you have a layer of acrylic varnish on the paintwork to protect it. being acrylic paint it "should" be ok but you never know. A mixture of 50/50 tamiya acrylic clear/flat varnish should be ok (the me110 is coated in this btw).
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Does Klear suffice in this case? I do have Tamiya Clear as well, but the Spit has 3 layers of Klear already. I've just wiped off the Pro Wash, or most of it. It's horrible stuff to be honest. I might have to sell the pots I have here. I can't get on with it.

I'll get the oil paint tomorrow - what am I looking for? Burnt Umber?
 
philstanbridge said:
Does Klear suffice in this case? I do have Tamiya Clear as well, but the Spit has 3 layers of Klear already. I've just wiped off the Pro Wash, or most of it. It's horrible stuff to be honest. I might have to sell the pots I have here. I can't get on with it.

I'll get the oil paint tomorrow - what am I looking for? Burnt Umber?
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Can I suggest Abteilung Oil paints ? Really nice quality and odourless turps so the wife can't complain about the pong ;)

http://www.netmerchants.co.uk/section.php/942/1/mig_502_abteilung_oils

Burnt Umber and Black are a good starter :)
 
been using windsor and newton for yonks now, works well but don't half pong:p
Skii, any idea where I can get some acrylic paint retarder from? I've started using acrylics and find they dry a bit too quickly for my taste and tend to clog the airbrush when doing fine work (though this could be down to the paint mix being a bit on the thick side.
 
pieman109 said:
been using windsor and newton for yonks now, works well but don't half pong:p
Skii, any idea where I can get some acrylic paint retarder from? I've started using acrylics and find they dry a bit too quickly for my taste and tend to clog the airbrush when doing fine work (though this could be down to the paint mix being a bit on the thick side.
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Hey mate

We were just discussing this very thing recently

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29241&hl=retarder

Either Windsor and Newton or Daler Rowney do their own brands, both available from Hobbycraft or any arts supplier :)
 
I've attempted the burnt umber wash on mine and I can't really see what it is supposed to achieve. Underside is a total mess now, and I can't wipe it off - above is much nicer but i can't really say if it has worked or not?

I mixed the burnt umber with turps and mixed it in until milky - but maybe it was too thick? I watered it down with more turps and then it was very runny. At one point it was so runny however that it would run off the wings. Is there a drying time etc? Do you wipe off with a dry towel or wet towel or what?

ps the Klear seems to have worked a treat. Definitely can see a couple of tiny parts on the underside where the Klear missed, and the acrylic has gone straight off to the plastic.

It's not a problem, still looks good. Just curious.
 
Ok mate, it appears firstly that the initial mix was far too thick, you should be looking at about 10% umber paint and 90% white spirit, thoroughly mixed and runny. You didn't try it at 50/50 did you? that was the ratio of the acrylic varnish btw.
Next, paint the entire wing surface with the wash so you can still see the wing detail barely showing through the layer of wash. Wait 10-15 minutes or until goes a sort of matt apearance. Then wipe off in the direction of airflow (front to back). Now what you have to do is use a "clean" area of the cloth after about two wipes, this because of the nature of the wash you'll just end up spreading the wash around as opposed to removing it. Just keep going and the wing surface will get lighter and lighter, then its really down to your personal taste as to when to stop. If you're having difficulty removing the was, then its probably dried off a bit too much, just moisten a cloth in white spirit (and its just moistened as well, you can't see or feel the white spirit on the cloth, this is important) and remove the required wash with that, but don't overdo it or you cause steaks to appear in the wash surface.
Hope this helps. :)

Some pics of the offending article would be real useful as well mate
 
Thanks mate. Okay it's not as disasterous as initially thought - white spirit has removed most of it. But I think it will take some practice to get the desired effect. To be fair I didn't leave it for 15 minutes to dry - I left it for more like a couple of minutes, so I've obviously wiped off what was still wet. I take it you use a dry tissue to remove the wash and not a tissue soaked in white spirits?

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Ok mate, it appears your result isn't too bad at all, in fact its an improvement over what it looked like before I reckon. I personally use a yellow duster of all things but a fluff free cloth thats reasonably soft will do the trick, the sort of cloths used for cleaning glasses are ideal. I use it dry while wiping the wash off, what you've done is remove virtually all the wash 'cos you didn't allow long enough for it settle and go matt in appearance, I know it'll look like it won't come off, but trust me it will, and the advantage is its a gradual process when removing the wash which means you can stop anytime you like and get a finish that you like, but a general rule of thumb is "less is more" so try to keep the effect subtle
 
"Thanks mate. Okay it's not as disasterous as initially thought - white spirit has removed most of it. But I think it will take some practice to get the desired effect. To be fair I didn't leave it for 15 minutes to dry - I left it for more like a couple of minutes, so I've obviously wiped off what was still wet. I take it you use a dry tissue to remove the wash and not a tissue soaked in white spirits?"

On a different note mate, what airbrush are you using? I seem to remember that you got hold of an H&S double action Evolution? If so, I reckon you could get a finer demarcation line (feathered edge) between any two colours you're spraying, I assume you're using acrylics as most ppl do nowadays and even I'm slowly going over to them. If so, what sort of dilution ratios are you using and are you using matt paints? I ask this 'cos I've started using the "gloss" range from tamiya and I'm now mixing up my colours which means firstly I can get them to look how I want them to, they're a gloss finish so decals go on the surface with no "silvering" at all, having much finer paint granules smaller amounts of paint pass through the nozzle without clogging, and its easy to matt the surface down afterwards rather than trying to make it glossier.
I've got hold of the all available primary tamiya colours, black, white, red, blue, yellow (though this a matt finish) and green and I can mix up some fairly accurate colours with those, and afterall, the colours darken anyway when washed with oil paint. I'm finding that when these are diluted quite heavily, say 30/70 paint /thinners, I can get in really close and have control to spray a very line, so keeping the scale effect feathered edge.
 
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