Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Well the results look fantastic! Something that you may have tried that I find that works well when I'm trying to line up a stencil to airbrush through is lightly drawing the line you want to follow with a pencil and then lining it up through the slit in the stencil. The paint covers the pencil mark and I find it easier to line up. You probably have already thought of it, but worth some consideration.Thanks for the compliments, guys! The streaking technique I use is pretty low-tech. I made three masks out of thin clear sheet plastic and used an Xacto to cut thin strips out. One mask was a narrow straight rectangle and the other two were tapered. I used clear plastic so I could see where to position each streak.
View attachment 791484View attachment 791486View attachment 791485
On the tapered ones, I cut the tapered end all the way to the edge of the plastic so that I could flex the plastic back and forth to narrow or widen the taper as needed. I'd hold the chosen shape using some tape. When it was time to paint, I would use tape to mask off the top of the panel on the model where the streak would start (to avoid the streak starting above the panel line) and then hold the plastic mask in position. I'd hold it a couple millimeters above the surface of the panel while spraying, varying the height to soften (farther) or sharpen (closer) each streak. I usually held the mask at the bottom of the taper so the bottom would be a little farther away from the model surface than the top. This helped the streak fade from top to bottom. On some of the really faint, wide streaks I just used some ground gray chalk pastel and a stiff brush to put them directly on the model. If the painted streak wasn't quite right (which happened a lot), I'd either scrape at it lightly using a blade or give it a light sanding to get it closer to what I wanted. Where needed, I also brush painted little blobs at the top of some streaks to indicate the oily source of the leak.
I definitely recommend airbrushing the streaks to give it that authentic 5-footer look. Most of the streaks are narrower and fainter than you think. It's better to have a lot of faint streaks than it is to have fewer darker ones, IMHO. Keep the streaks from getting too uniform in thickness and darkness. Build up layers. Mist with some hull color to blend and finish up with a dusting of grime and viola!
To be honest, I kind of rushed the painting this weekend because I'm recovering from surgery and couldn't stay vertical for too long. This isn't a perfect technique, but it's working pretty well.
View attachment 791488
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk