how do you get that look fo a faded area, alwasy the main color but light to blend in. airbrushing for me just gets it to looke like a lighter color spatter on(i do have a crappy a270 by the way) and brybrushin and blending gives it such a sparse look, how do you do it. btw i cant blend colors good any tips? like trying it with thinner, it doesnt work any help is appreciated

so i dont need to start a new topic for this, for a sherman for the battle of the buldge, do you know if they all or most are afew of them had the white camo and anyone know how it looks? thanks

The best way I find to do a "panel fade " is by airbrush. Mix as a wash 8 parts thinner to 2 parts paint of ( 80% thinner/20%paint ) the base coat lightened by 2 to 3 shades. Spray hull & turret in flat & open random area's. You have to know when to stop. Too much is OVERKILL ! Step back and let dry for an hour and see if you want to add more.
I use an Iwata airbrush, and spray at a low pressure of only 3 to 5 psi so I can get in close.

- ralph

Kurtz, check out this excellent feature article by Ken Fortier (Kencelot)
Winterized Sherman
That should give you the idea for the winter camo!



Toni

I agree with the air brushing technique - that's what I used and found good results.
I have a question about sealing this technique. When I used this techniqe I good a good result on the base kit. When I coated with a gloss coat to put decals on I lost the fade. It just blended in and dissappeared. Whats up with that ??? Not enough fading??
Check out these photos in this other post - This is after I added a gloss coat and then subsequent dull coat (both from Testors). Sorry no pre gloss coat photos as reference. You can see its very hard to distinguish where the fade is.
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/8157&page=1

My technique is pretty much the same as the other guys here except my compressor is not adjustable so what I do to compensate is to close my nozzle till hardly any paint comes out ..I can spray a panel 7 or 8 times before I can see the color begin to change..lots of patience and well diluted paint is the trick ..It can take me a coulpe of hours to paint this effect on a 1/35 scale kit ..By the way I use a good old Pacshes H and I love it !(Thinking about getting a Tamiya Superfine though).

Richard

Hi Scott, The glosscoat in some way must have over powered the light panel fade ( that's all I can speculate at the moment ). First of all, I gloss coat only the spot's where I will lay down the decal's not the entire model, unless I really have a wide range of good size decals that cover various area's, like on aircraft. But looking at your tank, I would have "spot glossed ". The thing is - You should have - 1) "spot glossed " - 2) applied your decals, let dry AND THEN - 3) AIRBRUSH THE FADE & DULLCOAT . Now if you gloss-coated the entire model instead of a spot gloss, after #2 - I would have 3) DULL-COATED FIRST and THEN AIRBRUSH THE FADE. The point is the decal's should have been included underneath the fade, and also faded out a bit.

Since I very often "spot gloss " I actually add my dullcote as the " next to last " thing I do to finish/complete my model. The very last thing is adding pastels. Since I don't handle the finished model there is no need to seal the pastel's, plus you end up losing a good deal of the pastels wethering effects under a clear cote. No matter if it's clear gloss or dull coat.

Your tank really look 's really good, but unless it's the way the photo came out, I would have made the fade mix just a TAD BIT more transparent.( "but that's just me " ). You did a really good job ! Fire away if you have any questions and keep up the good work !

- ralph

If you're airbrush isn't cutting it for that technique, try fading it with some light colored chalk pastel dust. Just scrape some off and apply it with a brush, just keep blending it in with a brush...and then to accent that you can make the other areas darker by applying darker dusts like blacks or browns.

HTH

Andy