Alpha, You can mimic that spatter with much more control than flicking a stiff bristle. All you do is hold a business card in the opposite hand that your spray with. Then take the airbrush at an angle and spray right into the corner of the business card. Call it a half inch away from the edge. The paint will build up on the surface and you can control the size of the dots by spraying more inboard on the business card. More away from the edge. Use the corner of the business card as kind of the aim spot. Try it out on something before you get carried away on a project with the technique.
palepainter wrote:Alpha, You can mimic that spatter with much more control than flicking a stiff bristle. All you do is hold a business card in the opposite hand that your spray with. Then take the airbrush at an angle and spray right into the corner of the business card. Call it a half inch away from the edge. The paint will build up on the surface and you can control the size of the dots by spraying more inboard on the business card. More away from the edge. Use the corner of the business card as kind of the aim spot. Try it out on something before you get carried away on a project with the technique.
I disagree... it's harder to do an entire surface how you are describing...I am not speaking of spattering splotches all over the place... I'm talking about texture.... on surfaces like the turret and hull of a tank... though it might appear smooth and ground down like a car ... they aren't... it was WAR they didn't have the time to smooth and polish the steel..before painting... f you look at a real tank.. some of the surfaces are almost like course grain sandpaper .... you might be able to shoot a dry mix to get that affect then shoot another couple coats of a semi wet mix over it with an airbrush...but I can get the affect with one going over with a brush... the charm to the whole thing.. I don't have to tape up anything.. where I want the texture.. gets it... where I want it smooth... I get that too ... same time same place
With that said... there are still colors I would prefer using an airbrush on... like white ... and red ... as when applied with a brush ... usually results in splotching
Certainly. I am not suggesting that an airbrush can do anything a paint brush can do. I certainly would not dry brush with an airbrush. I was just wanting to let you know that there is a technique for getting the random splatter much like you would using a tooth brush. I love the hairy stick portions of my projects.
O.K. my 2 cents! hehe!
I have done both methods. Airbrush advantage - faster, a little more uniform. Toothbrush advantage a little more random but slower to do and a little messier!
I find if you want to portray heavier mud and dirt use airbrush. If you want to show like the tank drove through the occasional puddle use toothbrush.
As I said just my 2 cents.
"There are things in Russia which are not as they seem..."
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov
palepainter wrote:Certainly. I am not suggesting that an airbrush can do anything a paint brush can do. I certainly would not dry brush with an airbrush. I was just wanting to let you know that there is a technique for getting the random splatter much like you would using a tooth brush. I love the hairy stick portions of my projects.
I don't think you are picturing the same same thing... it's all good ... Thanks
dgsselkirk wrote:O.K. my 2 cents! hehe!
I have done both methods. Airbrush advantage - faster, a little more uniform. Toothbrush advantage a little more random but slower to do and a little messier!
I find if you want to portray heavier mud and dirt use airbrush. If you want to show like the tank drove through the occasional puddle use toothbrush.
Hey palepainter.... I didn't think I had a photo of my stippling effect... but I did ...
If you look at the panel above the driver's armor plate... you can see the "texture" I am speaking about...I know how to do it with an airbrush.. so I may have been in err in my statement earlier... but it's much easier with a brush... and the texture is much finer...almost perfect to that of a real tank...almost like that of a 18 grit grinder disk ... the best thing... no taping... no muss no fuss...
Palepainter, I have an answer to your question about the circular marks on the nose. The info comes from Neil Stokes' "KV Technical History and Variants" book - which is 560 pages of pure KV geekiness, and just a wonderful thing to have when questions like this come up.
The joint between the front plate and the glasis plate was reinforced by a 30mm thick nose plate. On prototype and U-series vehicles, the nose plate was attached to the two plates with 17 equally-spaced bolts into countersunk holes, which were then covered by small circular plates that were welded in place. In August 1940, the number of holes was reduced to 11 on each face of the nose plate. The bolts were still countersunk, but the circular plate was omitted and the holes were filled with weld bead, leaving circular depressions or ring-shaped marks. In mid-July 1941, the number of bolt holes on each face was reduced to 8, and filled with weld bead like the previous one. In December of 1941, the bolts were eliminated to simplify production, and the nose plate was welded around the edges to attach it to the front and glasis plates.
So, you'd have to determine what time period your vehicle was built in, to attach the nose plate accurately. Or on the otherr hand; you could just ignore it and enjoy how it looks, now that you know why it looks that way. -Mike
