a general question:

I understand how primer color affects subsequent coats.

I understand how shading prior to full coverage coats affects the shaded areas.

Q: if I have performed all the steps required to get a base/ overall color applied, how do I proceed to adjust the color?

a specific example: I have a kubelwagen painted in Vallejo idf sand grey, and it's a bit blasé. i'd like to spark it up a bit, but have no idea what color to use. I feel somewhat comfortable laying on a mist coat.

Q2: would the mist coat be a filter?

I do not think i'm ready to start brushwork in specific areas until I get the majority of the model in somewhat the color I want.

edit: this is Not meant to represent any prototypical vehicle!

any help is a step up the ladder! thanks

Have decals been applied? If not gloss coat the whole thing before and after decals. You can then give the whole thing a wash which acts as a filter/color modulation. Since it appears to be a desert vehicle I'd go with a dark brown one. There are LOTS of YouTube videos on applying washes to models.

Another option that I've recently gotten into is the use of weathering pigments such as those made by Vallejo, AK and Mig. Again YouTube is your friend. One thing I will say on using pigment powders is that they go on last!

Several folks have posted articles on the "oil dot" method of livening up monotone color schemes. I've tried it a time or two, but will stick with my old methods using extremely diluted burnt umber and burnt sienna washes.
The idea behind the oil dot method is that you get very subtle color variations. The problem I've seen is that some folks blend the colors so much you end up with a brown anyway. (Remember mixing all of the colors in Kindergarten?) If you're gong to end up with brown, why not just start with it?

No on is ever going to name a "method" or a "way" after my style, but I'm happy with it.





The color variation is so subtle you can barely see it, but it's there.

Yep...Rob is definitely an artiste!

18Bravo "The color variation is so subtle you can barely see it, but it's there."

I think its subtlety is what gives character & depth.

Q: is there a build thread where you detail this process?

I still don't think my base color is ready to start this application, but when I am .. .

thanks

A filter, either brushed or airbrushed



Yes, it's the best way I know to change a color subtly.

However... why don't you start right with the colour you want?

if I knew what color I wanted, or of the infinite shades of said color, the query would not exist, now, would it?

you have to remember, if the dog didn't stop to poop, he would have caught the rabbit.

There’s a hundred different ways, none of which are wrong if, in the end, the result looks realistic. You didn’t mention if you’re using acrylics or oil-based paint and some methods work better for one or t’other – I far prefer acrylics & assuming that's also your weapon of choice.

One overall observation – airbrushing comes easy to some, not so much to others and I think there’s a tendency to over-use it. By that I mean large areas can tend to be rendered featureless/uniform - OK for factory-fresh but not so much a working/used vehicle. I seem to be a heretic, only resorting to airbrush when I DO want a uniform effect, or the area's so large there’s a risk brushstrokes will show. If you want tonal variations on a 1/35 scale vehicle, we’re dealing with panels that are typically no bigger than a postage stamp, and (to me anyway) brushes are the only way to go unless you have a masking tape fetish. “Brushes” meaning 2 or 3 soft sable ones – a quarter or half-inch flat one, a small rounded type, and a fine pointy one for details.

With your kubel I’d start again: mix a range of 3 or 4 colours from dark brown to chesnut/tan, each shade brushed on to specific panels – not thickly applied, just enough to cover. Then I’d mix a very milky wash of your IDF sand and brush over the whole vehicle. It’ll look terrible. When dry, brush another thin milky wash over it, brushing in opposite directions so any brushstrokes begin to disappear. Then maybe I’d brush random little areas/edges/corners with a dilute mid-gray (or whatever you like) for local variation. Then brush on further ever-more-dilute washes of sand over all, until all the non-sand colours are barely visible...but still just visible all the same. It can always be adjusted on a panel-by-panel basis. I use this softly-softly approach because it’s really hard to screw up & gives you ample opportunity for subtlety in variation. (One tip – I usually “sleep” on each wash, it’s strange how things look slightly different the next day)

Then after maybe teasing on some traces of rust with the fine brush, I’d brush it all over with a very dilute dark-gray wash which will collect in recesses, panel lines etc. It might look good first time or need a second wash. Some people would then finally make a 67% white/33% sand mix, and dry-brush that to lift the raised elements. “Dry brush” meaning dipping the brush in the (un-diluted) mix and then gently scrubbing it on a piece of dark/black paper or cardboard until there's hardly any paint left on the brush, and then dragging it over the vehicle a few times until it begins to show. Worth practising first on something that doesn’t matter, it’s disastrous if overdone but works well if done right.

yeowza, Tim!

thank you for the detailed and very specific step-by-step process and the expected results. if you don't write technical manuals for a vocation, please consider it!

which (I know...) brings into the conversation another observation I have recently made, to wit:

if I use 3 steps to get something painted, it looks fine to me. and then, here goes -Q: why do so many painters use 7 or 9 steps to get things to look "right" to them?

is it because at my stage of the painting journey I am only able to see so much? will there be a need as I progress to add more layers of detail? depth of finish?

thanks again for the detailed description.

Thanks JS & no worries,

I guess it is a deeper question about perceptions, one’s own vs other people’s. I might use one coat and think it looks fantastic, whereas anyone else will probably be too polite to say it looks crap…even in the AFV Forum victims are only torn limb from limb because of something they wrote, seldom anything they painted. Other times I’ve used 10 coats, hated the result & people go Wow! What’s my point? Find a critic you can trust to be 100% honest. My wife’s excellent at um speaking her mind and er she’s usually right…hi darling…seriously she knows zip about this hobby but that’s arguably a big plus & I trust her when she says something looks crap, OK, or “quite good” being her highest accolade - as long as she tells me why. And I need that, we all do.

The reason I usually end up applying 6 or 7 layers is to creep up on (what I perceive to be) a match for whatever image refs I’m staring at. To me, there’s no way a couple of coats will get anywhere near it, whether it’s the paint’s fault or mine. But that doesn’t mean you won’t achieve the same or better results doing it your way in 2 coats. Experiment – buy two cheap kits and use totally different methods eg spray one with enamels and brush the other with acrylics. Use multi-layer washes on one and go for a 2-coat finish on the other. The goal, though, is that the two kits have to end up looking identical in colour. I did actually do that test years ago with 2 Italeri trucks…failed in the goal but learned heaps very fast & as you can tell I chose the Dark Side

sobering advice. I have a few "paint mules" to use Will Pattison's term, ready for exploration.

actually, one is a kubelwagen . . .