Help needed to paint camouflage

[phil9779]

Hi all,
I'm starting the Warspite in 1/350, according to my documentation, she wore a paint with stripes in light and dark grey to break her silhouette.

I come from planes modelling and I use airbrush as much as possible because I prefer the aspect it gives over the hand brush.

For plane, I use tape and blutac to mask various areas when painting camouflage, here, the surface is so irregular I really wonder how I mask to perform the stripes with airbrush.

Any tip or advise would be much welcome and much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards

[Timmy C]

Identify on the parts where the demarcations are before you assemble them. Mask and paint the parts as you go instead of waiting to the very end.

Typical build order caveats of dry-fitting, scraping, and puttying apply, of course.

[phil9779]

Hi thanks for the suggestion, sounds good.
I will try to apply your logics to sub assemblies when possible.

Regards

[marijn van gils]

Also, it might be obvious but worths mentioning that complex work will take more time. For masking camouflage on irregular surfaces with lots of detail, you simply will have to take your time. There are no shortcuts...
Don't try to mask entire lines with one big piece of tape. Use many small pieces of tape to work around detail, use thin strips to follow curves, etc. It will take some time and work, but can be fun to do, and the result will be worth it!

Cheers,

Marijn

[biggles2]

Agree! Three or four-color camo jobs can take all day, or two days, to complete. But there's nothing like stripping off all that masking tape and revealing a well-done camo job.

[phil9779]

Hi all, thanks for the tips, I'm progressing well building sub assemblies, masking, painting and then do again, it is starting to look good

As you very wisely say, it's just patience, by breaking the paint job in a sufficient number of small assies and masking locally, it is not that difficult, only time consuming

[garyrunnalls]

I would check with Kenny at Gator Masks to see if he has a camo mask for this ship. I have used his masks for a few dazzle Battleships and they worked way better than I could have done with Tamiya tape alone, plus not expensive. Kenny does make special masks at times if you don't see it listed, more money but worth it.