"No airbrush for armor" Topic

Good Day,

I don't own an airbrush, so I was wondering what is the easiest way to paint armor with brushes?

Thanks,
Steve

What scale?

Sorry, 28mm

I worked in a hobby shop for many years selling, among other things, airbrushes for modeling. Our radio controlled boat guy was not concerned with anything but speed. He used to tell customers who ask what he did about painting his boats: "If it is small enough I dip it, if the part is too big to fit in the can, I use a roller".

With care, you can get good results with a brush. A good in between method you might consider is using spray paint. By using masks to control the spray, it is very much like using a simple spray gun.

Undercoat with black or the darkest version of your base color. Then drybrush with an off white. The cover with an ink or wash of you base color, repeating until you have the color you want. Then highlight with a lighter shade of your base color.

Thanks guys. Ok, my next question is what were the most common colors used for camouflage? I'm using Vallejo, so any pointers would be appreciated.

Whatcha paintin?

With careful blending stipling and dry brushing you can get half decent results

I'm painting a Stug III, and a Hetzer.

I've used tallarn sand as a base coat (GW) , flat brown and military green (vallejo) with mixing, blending and stipling you can create a decent finish, just start with your base colour and gradually add small amounts of the flat brown or military green and build up from there. Just remember to slowly pull the colours in on each layer, so each layer gets thinner in width and gives the illusion of the spray fading out on the outside edges, building up to the deeper colour in the centre of the camouflage pattern. Finish off with a gentle drybrush of your base colour just to blend it all together.

Are you talking about painting the whole thing or just worried about doing the camo without an airbrush?

Many of the camo patterns were harded edged and applied with a brush, not a spray gun irl.

The only armour I ever painted with an airbrush was 1/35th scale models, the rest I just paint with brushes. As above, washes and drybrushing in multiple layers all work fine.

If you want to simulate sprayed camo, then make a stippling brush. Cut a a normal brush head down to around half its normal length and stab the colour on with it. Do this lightly to start with and/or practice on a bit of scrap first.

My usual (German 1943+) tank technique is:

Black undercoat
Very light spray mist of white from about 2' up to catch the highlights (or a white dampbrush over the highights).
Go over the whole thing in dunkelgelb. Vallejo middlestone is a decent match.
Inkwash the whole thing with Windsor & Newton peat brown ink.
Heavy drybrush of dunkelgelb again.
Apply brown/green camo.
Possibly re-ink some of the panel lines etc on the camo'd bits.
Apply decals
Apply mud to lower parts
Drybrush all over with pale tan
Pick out any highlights separately (tools, MG barrels etc)
Do the tracks – black base, mud brown all over, inkwash, highlight metal bits with metal.

Excellent!! Thank you all for the info and tips!! I know I sound like a complete noob, but up to now all my work has been pre-mechanized warfare. Namely, the American Civil War.
I'm very excited to have found this site, and the information and support has been tremendous!! Thanks to all.
Steve