As this is my first message on this forum I'd like to shortly introduce myself - my name's Radek and I've been living in Poland for nearly 37 years now
.By saying hello to all of you I wish our cooperation won't be one direction help only (at some time)
.I have recently returned to my "old" hobby - modelling. I must admit, I'm still a very novice newbie, I would say(as my list of 'achievements' is shorter than 20 built models some 15 years ago - most of them were only barely covered by basic paints if covered at all) so I'm trying to catch up with all techniques, various helping tools and 'chemistry'. For your information I will be using acrylic paints for painting process(Vallejo mainly) and will focus on 1:35 scale AFVs from IIWW era or military planes in 1:48 from the same period if I have enough of panzers.
The basics of painting and weathering process is more or less known to me after recent reading lots of posts on many forums. The trouble comes when I want to clearly define what to do in what moment of painting/weathering process depending on various painting/weathering techniques I would like to try.
So let's start with example - I would like to build an early war version of German AFV (e.g. Stug III Ausf. B - easy to build model (well, easy if you don't accidentially buy old Italieri/Dragon stuff ) with lots of flat surfaces to practice airbrushing) and try weathering the model so it would look decent, yes decent is a good word here .
First steps are obvious -
1) build the model,
2) wash it to get rid of anything that would negatively interfere with paints,
3) prime it;
4) put the base colour (I'm skipping pre-shading or anything similar as using airbrush is still a little fancy to me and I need more practice, however I know preshading exists somewhere between 3) and 4) );
5) camouflage (if required);
And now the 'fun' begins.
I have found two guidelines:
First:
5 ) protective layer (it wasn't determined what kind - gloss/satin or matt?);
6 ) filters
7 ) details (boxes, tools, etc. on model);
8 ) washes
9 ) gloss protective layer;
10) decals (including setting solutions);
11) drybrushing
12) protective layer again;
13) rest of weathering (dusting, mudding, chipping, scratching, squeezing...maybe not the last one )
14) matt/satin protective layer to seal the finished model;
Second:
5 ) details (boxes, tools, etc. on models);
6 ) filters;
7 ) gloss protective layer;
8 ) decals (incl. set/sol solutions);
9 ) protective layer (gloss);
10) washes;
11) drybrushing;
12) rest of weathering (as above);
13) matt/satin protective layer to seal the finished model.
I would like to ask you few questions regarding filtering solutions:
Q1: Which of above 'processes' is valid if I wanted to use AK Interactive or MIG solutions (eg. AK-071 blue filter for panzer grey)?
Q2: Is the answer to Q1 valid if I wanted to use homemade oil paint based filters (so some heavily dilluted oil paint (or mix) - according to rules)?
Q3: I've read few times about filtering technique that is based on small oil paint dots (various colours) applied directly on model that are later dilluted or softened with stiff brush vertical strokes (brush is slightly wet with turpentine or white spirit). Should this also be used at the moment of process as described in any of two given example processes above or should rather be used at any further steps of the process?
Q4: The consistency of washes is quite 'dense' which may lead to some unwanted veery dark stains or smudges on the model if used directly on basic coat / camouflage. So I understnad (based on own mistake )that protective layer should be used prior to applying wash. Should it be gloss varnish or satin varnish will also do?
Q5: If I want to use dry transfers instead of wet applied decals (e.g. Archer's stuff) - at what moment of process should I apply them (if I understood the instructions correctly - protective layer is not required prior to applying transfers) - like the 'regular' decals or in other point of process?
Sorry for all this (possibly silly questions and textwall, but I really want to finally start having fun with building models after self experimenting on understanding techniques and wasting 3 models already
... Kind regards,
Radek
