I was finishing up a caunter scheme (sharp lines) on a stuart honeyt when I noticed I pulled up a little paint with my tape. Touching up with a brush I noticed a couple brush marks. I sat and swore and thought how crappy it looked. Anyways reading that night about the SAS in the desert it talked about how desert yellow paint was poured into split 44 gallon drums and applied with a mop, and before the paint dried sand was thrown on the vehicle for a really matte finish.

I wonder how many brush marks showed up on that tank.?

How do you apply your camo with an airbrush or a brush which do you think is more "authentic". I'm not a rivet counter or a paint chip sampler, just starting conversation.

Jeff

I feel that with the scale we are dealing with that brush marks should not really be visible. I would prefer airbrushing compared to paint brushing.

Leader

Hi
I completely agree with the Leader last post...go with the airbrush no doubt...

Hi

As a dissenting opinion: Airbrushing sucks. I have my reasons for saying this, stated at length elsewhere, and they don't bear repeating here!

I've had good luck with PollyScale paints. You have to work to get brush marks, and they give a nice matt finish. Now, I know lots of folks love their airbrushes, and you can do some things more easily that way, but it sounds like you could be touching up after airbrushing. There's no avoiding the need for brush painting!!

I have heard that you can touch up things with a post-it note as the mask. So if you are airbrushing, you could hit it with a spray, see if the border worked, and try again as necessary.

Cheers
Andy

Im all for airbrushing too, I've seen a friend go over a model from 2 1/2 " away disecting it totally looking for any minor flaw. Field camoflauge has to have been pretty sloppy so driving yourself nuts about it doesn't help, I'll convince myself it give the model charecter.

Jeff

I used to know a guy who had painted a bunch of vehicles in the Army. He once told me that the camo paint was applied very, very sloppily and brush marks were all over the vehicles. However, as stated in another post, at 1/35 or 1/72 scale, brush marks would be nearly invisible. I don't think scale camo needs to be flawless, but the flaws shouldn't be TOO large or they'll get out of scale.

I'll have to jump on the band wagon as well. On some of our older M113's we have where I work, you can see where the previous call signs have been painted over or where cam has been touched up with brushes. Up close you can really tell, but step back a dozen paces and they practically disappear.
So at 1:35 scale I cant imagine seeing anything at all except possibly some slightly rough edges. #:-)

I have to agree with everyone... except on a few exemples : some winter camo.
If you check pictures of some PZ III on the eastern front, you seem to see the individual brush strokes. So with a fine brush, you should be able to replicate it best.
#:-)

So, here comes a "dirty" paintjob that you'll need a paintbrush to do !