When to begin painting?

[JPH]

Happy New Year all.

I have recently purchased my first airbrush, & am now ready to take the step of painting up the first model. I went for a double action Paacshe. Anyway, I have done some practice with water & food dye (water based) & am ready to get started. I will be doing Tamiya's 1/700 King George V so will be applying the relevent lighter grey colour all over it.

What is the best way to go about it?

1. Do I airbrush everything whilst on the sprues then paint the bits that will be different colours (darker greys & deck buff) at a later point with a brush or;
2. Build in sections, like the superstructure, guns/mounts, boats, cranes etc, then airbrush the main light grey colour & brush paint the other colours?

Thanks all

[Karsten]

Congrates on the new brush, I am sure you will see a big improvement in your build....At least I did.

As for how and what to paint, that is the Million Dollar Question and I don't think there is a definitive anwser.

Some build the complete ship with P/E and all other detail, then paint and weather. Others build sections, add P/E and paint as they go and then put it all together then weather.

Myself and I am no expert I spray everything the basic color on the sprues, Assemble a little bit while putting stuff together and painting as I go. .

It is more about how and what you are used to and comfortable doing for the most part. Some here just Brush Paint and come up with amazing builds.

Buy a couple cheap 1/700 kits off ebay, a set of generic rails and ladders and have a go at them . You get some practice with the brush, building and P/E before you mess up your Tamiya Kit.

Karsten

[JPH]

Thanks for the reply Karsten.

I have painted parts before whilst on sprues but that was with Tamiya's Haze grey spray paint. As far as Haze grey goes the spray just isn't right in my opinion so I bought the airbrush & some Testors Haze grey. I am wanting to ramp up the quality of my builds so any painting suggestions are good ones.

Might give the painting on sprues another go first. I'll use my 2nd Hasegawa 1/700 Alabama kit for that.

[johndon]

I tend to build mine in sections, add PE and then paint unless the part contains the deck in which case I'm mask and paint before adding the PE.

John

[Karsten]

JPH,

Just for clarifacation I spray one color (say grey) on the trees, remove as needed and clean up all the egdes with a fine emory board, assemble and set aside for touch up later.

I spray all the P/E in the same manner and remove as needed and again touch up later.

Then assemble components later.

As for paint I use Tamiya and their Thinner. I would suggest if you are using Model Master Paints to use their thinner as well. Thin the paint well and spray very fine coats.

Do a search of Testors Paints and on their website they have a bunch of How To vid's on using an airbrush. It is mostly for planes but you can get the general idea from there.

Depending on the Paasche brush you bought, order a couple extra steel siphon cups for ease of clean up between colors....

Clean up wise with acrylic paints I have found that a good strong mixture of Spic and Span Liquid and water works great with Tamiya paints. Mix it up in a liter water bottle and just keep it handy where you are painting. Also soak cup and complete airbrush (once in a while) in the same mixture).

Karsten

[JPH]

Thanks johndon & Karsten.

I have got some windex for the airbrush clean up as it seems to get well used by other members here. As for the Testors vidoe's, thanks, i'll look at them ASAP.

[nboyd383]

Personaly I build everything in sections, painting everything the main colour first masking off different colours as I go. I paint photo-etch while still on the fret and apply weathering last. But as said before there is no particular answer to the question it all comes down to personal confort. But it might be easier to do in sections first so that if the paint job doesn't go exactely to plan there is less clean-up to be done, maybe moving on as you become more confortable.

[Jadefalcon0]

Hey JPH,

Funny coincidence- I am doing Tamiya's 1/350 King George V right now. I'll provide you a link to the picture gallery with the progress I am making- basically I am building in sub-assemblies and then painting- I find it easier that way. To explain some of the pictures- I always take care of the hull first, then since I usually RC my 1/350 subjects I cement all the decks together (from the underside) then mask what I can then paint. The King George V Tamiya model has a ton of smaller squares on the deck: I would assume your 1/700 may have something very similar. For those, I spray the deck tan then I go back and brush paint those deck details that I missed. PM me with any questions. PS- the field blue is Pollyscale- my roommate converted me to it and I have never looked back.

-Rob
http://www.maj.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=164228

[JPH]

Thanks for the continued advice guys.

Rob, that KGV build looks fun, cheers for posting the link