Weathering black aircraft

[piggypod1]

As i am fairly new to weathering ( I usually model in pristine condition) could someone give any advice to an old timer about how to weather and age black painted aircraft, ie RAF bombers and Mossie nightfighters, i do not own an airbrush as i like the ralaxing effect of applying paint by brush, any help is gratefully recieved, Phil

[gengriz]

FWIW I am another hairy stick user and tend to use several methods. Oily washes (white spirit diluted enamel) applied with a very thin brush to flow the wash into an engraved panel line are my preferred main method, generally using light grey over black. I also have a silver/grey artists pen, that can be very effective for highlighting detail and drawing lines (you can run it across raised panel lines to highlight them). Dry brushing silver or light grey is also reasonably effective for highlights and I have recently added finger applied chalky pastels to my more favourite cotton bud applied "grated" pencil lead for exhaust stains as well.

As with all weathering, take it very slowly so as not to overdo it. If you are using a wet wash, let it dry before you decide if its enough.

FredT

[JamesPerrin]

The another thing is too not use pure black as your main colour. Aim for 'off black' but adding a small amount white to the mix. Adding different amount for different areas eg fabric covered control surfaces. It will help break up the erm... blackness.

[malepo]

well there are always three approaches before and after the main color and both together.

You dont have to use an airbrush to work with preshading or postshading. I assume the plane is overall olive drab, then shade some panels grey, others dark grey, others blue or dark blue, green, redbrown and so on - no real light colors and all colors at the dark, green and red/brown side, until it looks like a patchwork. on top of that brush some very dark blue coats, a dark blue, darken than the blue of the brit roundels - midnight blue. Very light coats, at brushing this would mean very thinned. You may be need three or five layers or more. Just do it as long as you can see some different shades under it, but only very subtile - a matter of taste. The blue has to be translucent and together with all that green and red tones under it it will turn into a almost black shade.

Then get a very thinned black and start washing the plane. This you also can repeat.
Esp. with washings think of switching between different media based colors, i.e. the first thicker wash with a water based one, then a very light enamel one and perhaps a light water based again.

The main principle always is work with very thinned coats. For those techniques it's better to need 15 layers/repeats than only one cause that way you can control the subtile level. This does not differ from airbrushing I'd say.

When satisfied with the outcome so far get a flat over all and then you could work with pastels.

Black planes normaly have lighter shades along the panel lines, as the dust there looks more light brown-grey

Hope this makes any sense to you

[piggypod1]

Thanks guys, this is all very usefull advice amd all taken onboard, thanks !, Phil