Hi everybody,

That Bf-109 G2 for FUMS on my workbench is coming along nicely and I'm getting dangerously closer to painting stage. Now I'm in need of some pointers for airbrushing mottled camouflage because I haven't done freehand soft-edged camo before.
The plane is going to have the usual Luftwaffe scheme of RLM 74/75/76.
Here's how it looks: It clicks here and sees the link

That doesn't look so difficult to do as the mottle shapes are not very clearly defined, but it still makes me somewhat uncomfortable thinking about trying to spray that freehand. I presume that's the way to this kind of camo? It looks so undefined that cutting templates wouldn't probably help much.

How do you do it? Any tips will be greatly appriciated. For starters, I'm thinking thin the paint a little more than usual, and using a lower pressure. Is there anything else to it? Also, do you aim for a certain pattern when painting this type of mottled camo, or just improvise it?

Also hold the airbrush as close to your surface as possible.
Make the outside line first and then fill it in.
I dont like totally improvising .... Id have some sort of plan worked out in advance. Make a rough sketch as close to scale as possible and using certain points as reference, draw your scheme on the sketch. This is good practise for when you´ll do the same thing on your model. Make the first few blotches/mottles(?) on a test surface first to you get the hang of it and all things sorted out .. paint consistency, pressure, distance, etc.
This is what I do when doing armor ... never painted an aircraft before with an airbrush!! Good luck

The scaleworkshop.com videos on the testors site has a mottled camo job featured on a BF109