Painting Zvezda SD with Duplicolor: any tips?

Hey, everyone:

First post here, I'm typically a 1/48 aircraft guy, but also a HUGE SW fan from waaaaaay back when I first saw a midnight showing of ANH at a drive-in in 1977 (double-bill with Futureworld, and yeah, I'm old). I've been enjoying building a few ships from Bandai's addictive SW lineup (Y-Wing and snowspeeder), but have since turned my attention to the Zvezda SD (thanks to some help from a gentleman in Russia).

Anyway, I've never painted something the size of the SD, so I'm going with the recommendations I've read online and using Duplicolor rattle cans (instead of my trusty Iwata HP-CS). I've also never painted a kit with rattle cans in any serious way (except when I built Monogram kits as a kid) so....I'm a little worried about the lack of precision of painting with a spray can, including drips, getting an even coat, etc.

Any tips you might have to avoid disasters? How does Duplicolor lay down, generally? Should I pick a low-humidity day (will do this outside, obviously)? I do plan to practice on some scrap first to get a feel for the spraying action.

Thanks so much!

A.F.

I'm not a big ran of automotive spray paints on any model, especially a model made out of styrene. Solvents in the paint may damage the plastic. If I were you I would just go with acrylic paints and your trusty airbrush. You control the paint flow with a paint that is made for styrene models.

TazMan2000

I used Rustoleum 2X black primer as a base on mine followed up with Duplicolor grey primer followed lastly with Duplicolor Universal White. Paint laid down very smooth and was easy to control coverage. This was followed up by a sloppy wet coat of thinned black acrylic paint as a wash. I think it turned out pretty good myself.

Light coats with rattle cans. Don't try to cover in one pass. Build up your color until you happy with it. I did the black as a light blocker and as a preshade. The gray was done to base the white so it was going straight over the black and coming out too grey. I wanted my ship to be more on the white side. The grey also allowed me to mask off panels for a two tone paint job. After removing the masks I was left with a white ship with grey panels, too stark. I then went over the ship again covering the grey panels with a thin layer of white allowing them to blend in with the white better.