SPA Modeler

SigEp Ziggy wrote:Looks Great Stu! Hard to believe it's hand painted. My I ask how you did it, I mean thinned multi-coats or straight from the bottle, kind of brushes used? I would love to know as I have stalled most of my builds as it is time to paint all of them.

Thanks very much!

Not a problem - give me a mo to write up some notes and I'll get back to you!

Brush painting tips.

Most of what I do is aimed at trying to eliminate brush marks – I hate them – they are the bane of my life.

Use a soft brush, the softest you can get – I like Humbrol’s own Evoco as they’re natural hair. I also don’t follow the old ‘’Get large flat brush, load it up and paint in the direction of the airflow’’ school of thought. I do 99.9% of my painting with a small (no.4) round tipped brush. I use small amounts of paint at a time and I work it in all directions – sometimes lightly flicking it over the painted surface to remove air-bubbles.

As far as paint goes – These days I either use Hataka blue line, which are great out right out of the bottle, or Humbrol Enamels. For Metallics over large areas I always use Enamels. You do need to thin them, but I normally just add the thinners directly into the tin – one of the advantages of brush painting! I stir it with a cocktail stick until completely mixed and then to check it I pull the stick out and hold it over the tin. If it drips or globs into the tin it's too thick. What you want is it thin enough that it'll run of the end of the stick in a nice continuous flow.

The only exception to that is I don't tend to mess with metal paint very much unless it's REALLY thick.

Hope that helps - fell free to drop me a line if you need more advice!

Coming soon over the skies of Albania...

Very nice! I should get back to the Phantom so I can shoot you down.

You should finish it anyway!!!!

Stuart wrote:Coming soon over the skies of Albania...

Oh cool, the art show a mount of the NVAF ace Le Hai. Looking forward to an Albanian scheme on that one Stuart.

NICE!! And I love that camo scheme!!

Thanks Gents - Alas this'll be NMF!

Still gonna be looking forward to it Stu.