Painting question...

I've seen hundreds of killer paint jobs, repaints and so on, on this forum. Is there a tutorial on these techniques to be found anywhere? I want to at least figure out how these things are done and give them a go myself.

Let's just say you people have inspired me. Anyone can put a model together, but few can do it will enough to Oooo and Aaaah over.

I don't think there's really any tutorials where painting is one of those things that everyone does differently. Usually it works best to ask someone who has done a paintjob that you like how they did it.

Well, as an example, the weathering on most folks' Falcons, be they kit or MR repaint. I don't want to tackle something that ambitious now, but want to start small.

Q-G,
"Weathering" itself can be a pretty broad topic.
I've been doing models/props for a long time, and with most projects, I'll combine several techniques depending on the finish I want.
Just to name a few, there are washes, pre-shading, post-shading, misting, dry brushing, and dry pigment (or pastel) weathering.
Gaining experience with painting/weathering is one of those skills that comes from practice. You can look up any of those topics on Google or Yahoo, or go to some modeling boards to do research, but if you don't try them out, it's sometimes tricky to figure out what some of the terms mean.

If you pick up an inexpensive model kit or two and try some of the techniques, you'll get a much better idea which one of them will give you the desired results.

If you have specific questions, I (and others I'm sure) would be happy to try to answer them for you.

That was my plan, the inexpensive kit thing. If it helps me along, I don't mind cutting my teeth on the cheap kits. I can't see spending money on some of the better kits offered out there when I can't paint them well enough to do them justice. I also don't want to pay someone to put one together for me, as there is something to be said about the feeling of satisfaction of putting one together myself.

That said, what do you all recommend for paints, Tamiya and the like? I imagine the Testors are the bottom of the starting block.

As far as paints go, it's more about the application than the brand name. The ol' "square bottle" Testors paints are probably not the best on the market, but I've used Testors Model Master and Acryl lines in many projects with good results.
I don't know if people will line up to stone me for saying this. . . but I've never been a huge fan of Tamiya paints. I feel their consistency is just too "thick." At least for brush painting. I've never tried to airbrush with them.

For airbrushing, and brush painting, I really like Floquil and Polly S. (I believe they are made by Testors also.) The Floquil colors are enamels, and Polly S are acrylics. I've used them extensively for several 1:1 Boba Fett helmets. They airbrush great, even with no thinning, and they're pretty pigment heavy, so it's easy to brush them on too.
Another great airbrush line is Vallejo. They're designed specifically for airbrush use, and the color range is really wide.

If you're looking for inexpensive kits to experiment with, I'd say look at some small tank/AFV kits. Pretty much every hobby shop on the planet carries tanks. Or you may still be able to find some of the rereleases of the AMT/ERTL Star Wars kits to practice "sci-fi" weathering. The X-Wing or Snowspeeder are good to try different methods.

Go grab one or two of those bigger X-wing models and give this link a try.
It will help you in the right direction with some weathering techniques.
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/aw_wx.htm

Thank you, gentlemen. With Heroes on hiatus, I have a whole hour once a week now to do nada...hmmph. What better time to dabble in something that could be fun?

There's a couple of books I used to have, they've been re-released with color and hard cover now tho. One was "How to Build Military Vehicles" and the other was "How to Build Dioramas" even tho they focus on military vehicles, it still covers all of the weathering techniques.

Go down to your local k-mart or walmart and look for 21st century model kits. Great detail and they run between 10 and 12 dollars.

Then depending on what kind painting you're interested in, either get some nice brushes or a low-end airbrush. Personally, I recommend going the airbrush route becuase, eventually, you're going to end up there anyway. You'll never be able to achieve a great finish without both brush and airbrush skills in your repetoire.

Personally, I love working with acrylics. They clean up with windex and there's no odor. I use both model master and tamiya almost exclusively. Almost every paint needs to be thinned to be properly airbrushed. Even the ones that say they are prethinned for airbrushing, still need some thinning.

Aside from airbrushing, you'll want to work on drybrushing techniques, working with pastels as well as artist's oils. I would stay away from brush painting large areas until you've really figured out thinning ratios, otherwise, you'll have brush marks in your finish.

As for actual technique, there are as many techniques as there are painters. The bigges trick to weathering is the planning. If you want chipping, do you want the bottom layer to show through or would you rather try to paint it on top? If you want it to show through, then you're going to have to paint the entire model that base color. For stains and grime, keep in mind things like airflow and gravity. Fluid leaks would pool in low spots but wouldn't be on high spots. Exhaust stains would be the opposite.

I really suggest that you go over to FSM.com and just poke around there. There are dozens of threads pertaining to nothing more than weathering and painting techniques.

-Fred

FSM.com is not a modeling forum that I can tell. I am appreciating all of this help though, gents.

Chalks are good for weathering as are tubes of artisit water color paints.

If you don't have a good art store nearby, check out your local hobby shop for these brands Polly S, Scale coat, or Floquil model paints. They are intended for serious detail stuff ike military modelers and model railroads These lines include colors like 'grimy black' 'soot' and multiple shades of 'rust' They are good for dry brushing or sprayed from an airbrush.

Qui-Gonzalez said:

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FSM.com is not a modeling forum that I can tell. I am appreciating all of this help though, gents.

Sure it is - Fine Scale Modeler. try finescale.com. They keep changing the url linking. Sometimes fsm.com brings you there, sometimes finescalemodeler.com brings you there, but I think it may actually be finescale.com

-Fred

Just a thought, but we have been doing "how to weather" sessions down our LHS and we have been using the Revell snap together star wars models, you can have them together in under an hour and because there pre-painted you can start weathering straight away, we have seen some really very good results with washes and pastles (if I get a chance after the next session i'll try and grab some pics)

Only thing I don't know is how much the kits are where you are, in the UK there inexpensive so make good tryout models.

Dan