Greetings!

I have primed and base coated my 1/35 Dragon Jagdpanther. This is the first time I have every attempted a 3-tone camouflage scheme. I am using the Badger Crescendo airbrush. I have 2 needle kits for medium and fine. The badger site show the medium needle sprays 1/32"-2 1/2" and the fine needle sprays Pencil line to 2".

From these specs either would get down to the size I want but will I get less overspray using the fine needle or just stay with the medium.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Unless you turn the pressure way down and use the fine tip for the edges, you will get overspray. I use painters tape, cut to shape to mask the kit. Works great. Some people use silly putty, frisket or just a piece of paper to mask. For silly putty, you have to let it dry for an hour. Roll or kneed it into the shape you want and apply. I have not been willing to take the risk of just using paper. Frisket works well.

The camo for this one is soft edges not hard edge. Would this masking still work for this?

Stephen, my suggestion is that you try out both needles and your paints first on some white card (something not too absorbent), plastic or perhaps on an old kit, but whatever, there's no substitute for practising with an airbrush. That way you'll get used to the feel and effect you're getting with each needle. Also you'll be able to try out the paint you're going to use and ensure the mix is right, and that the pressure is right.

For a soft edge, I think you're worried about getting too much over spray, which looks out of scale. I believe that having the paint properly thinned will help prevent any big droplets and will provide a softer edge. To make the edge look softer after spraying, you might try something I recently discovered which is to make a much thinned down mix of the base colour, then spray slightly over the edges of the camouflage colour until you have kind of toned it down and faded the edges in.

Something you didn't mention is what type of three colour scheme it is you have in mind - wide bands or thinner wispier lines? If this is your first attempt at this, I would strongly recommend that you have a design in front of you before you start spraying. Draw your design on to the diagram in the instruction leaflet with felt pens or highlighters, or just do a rough sketch of it. Then practice spraying the pattern on to card or something before attempting the actual model.

Thank you for the quick response. I have 6x10 piece of plastic card I fully covered with basecoat (dunkelgelb)so that I could practice with the green and red brown. I am using Tamiya acrylics and thinning 50/50. I recently bought a pressure regulator and was testing it last night around 10psi which made the spraying very controllable.

I have lightly marked the areas on the model with red and green prismacolor pencils for quidance having followed the patterns on the kits instruction sheet.

One question I have for you. I have read that using the base color for an overall covering of the finished model effectively brings the colors together, so to speak. In your reply did you mean the same thing or were you saying spray the basecoat over the edges where the green and brown meet the yellow?

Yes, I meant the latter, to soften just the edges of the green and brown. It may however be the same paint mix as used to tone down the overall look, as you describe, but when spraying over the whole thing it might just be done with one or two light coats, while to soften edges of the darker camouflage colors you'd apply a few more times so as to cover over some of that over spray, but kind of feathering it in.