"Painting minis with a brush" Topic

Hello!

So, I'm about ready to paint some 1/285 scale planes and I don't have an airbrush. I'm not sure I really want to invest $300 USD in an airbrush and a compressor when I'm JUST going to be painting small mini's and gaming with them.

From the forums here, I've read that the 2 biggest tips are to "thin" the (multiple) coats to avoid brush strokes and to lighten the colors as a darker coats will diminish the details on the mini's.

Any other tips for you hand painters?

Mind sharing some pictures of your hand painted airplanes?

Thanks

I don't have (and never have had) an airbrush either. Just don't see the need.

As for how to paint 'em using a hand brush – just the same as any other miniatures. I only have a problem with "brush strokes" on large items such as vehicles in the larger scales (28mm+) and then only when the surface being painted on is plastic.

You don't need an airbrush to paint 1/300th scale aircraft.

I find that for smaller scale planes a white undercoat works better than a black one though.

For some inspiration, here is a nice 1/144th Bf 109G painted by my pal Nick.

He does nice work in 1/300th scale too, but I'm struggling to find decent photos. Sky blue canopies work very well.

I didn't use an airbrush on these. Paints are Vallejo or Humbrol acrylics. I always paint over a white undercoat. No shading as I wanted a clean look. I think shading makes small planes look like they are cast in wrought iron not precision built in ali. These are Raiden 1/285 scale models. Decals are Doms Decals for the 109s and I-94 for the Spitfire and Hurricane.

Those are some nice planes!

Timmo…thank you

Mind sharing what your steps are?

Also, what stands are those and how did you get them to "bank"??

Again, thanks!

You don't need an airbrush to paint 1/300 aircraft. The only time I've had problems with brush strokes was with paint that was too thick on large surfaces (HE-111 or B-17 sized wings, for example).

The painting process. Very minimal clean up needed with Raiden. Wash, dry and give a light dusting of white etch primer. (I mount the model on a small stick that sits into the hole under the Raiden models.) Then I undercoat with Vallejo surface primer. I'm not convinced the Vallejo grips bare metal that well hence the etch primer first. But I do use very thin light coats of both.

I paint the underside. Two thin coats. The watch word with these models is keep the paint delicate. Don't try to cover in one go. I then gloss varnish the underside and glue on the magnet (see your other thread!). The lighter camo colour of the top surface is painted, again with two coats. Plexiglass is painted light grey and one simple highlight is a near white light grey. Paint in things like the yellow nose then do the darker camo colours. In other words paint the whole model from light to dark. I've not done any with black undersides so that might be an exception.

When painting things like spotty German camo use very thin paint and dab it on. Don't go too mad though. I've a feeling I use masking tape on some colours but not the camo. but it's years since I did these so I can't recall exactly. Finally do the glazing bars. Gloss varnish, decal gloss again then matt varnish.

On my P-51Ds I buffed up the metal and gloss varnished, added decals and glossed again. That dealt with most of the plane in one go. Easy. I keep meaning to do some overall glossy blue Hellcats – one day.

There's a long article in one of the Battlegames magazines that I wrote about these models. I think it was issue 17.

Thanks Timmo

Ignore the post I made looking for you :p

You're welcome. Shout if you need anything else. If you are doing Spits and Hurricanes the camo isn't random there were specific A and B schemes. Again if you are doing RAF BoB 1940 I can recommend a book that is the bible on the subject.

Vallejo German RLM colour matches are generally very good except I think the dark German green on the day bomber camo needs to be tad darker.

There a few planes here to whet your appetite.

link

I especially love this one.

link

all brush painted, Humbrol enamels I believe.

They are nice although the B24 shows why you must apply decals to a gloss surface to avoid them silvering.