As a regular visitor
to this excellent web site I have always wished that I could come up with
something useful to share with this community. Now I think I have one for
you.
Are you good at
weathering your aircraft models? Pre-shading and all that stuff that take
up your precious time. Isn't it a bit tiring? Well, here comes
the Tamiya Weathering Master for your rescue.
As I started
assembling the 1/48 SDB-2 Dauntless (Accurate Miniatures), I had to decide how I
should finish up the painting. I am not much in favor of pre-shading as it
only gives a monotonous and even shade. You know the navy aircraft always
look rather dirty with various stuff such as oil, soot, and rust. You need
shades with gradation of more than a single dark gray.
So I tried this new
weathering method using the Tamiya Weathering Master. The kit looks like
women's eye shadow kit with 3 different colors of solid pigments (some powdery
and some sticky) and an applicator stick. All you have to do is to apply
the pigments of your choice to the finished painting surface.
There are several
merits over the conventional pre-shading:
1. It is easy to handle and saves time.
2. You can have a wide variety of shades.
3. You are allowed to make mistakes; just wipe it off with wet tissue in case
you messed up.
4. It works on decals to some extent (dry pigments do not stick well on glossy
decals)
Click on
images below to see larger images
On this Dauntless model I mostly
used the Soot and Rust from the Kit B with some use of the pigments from the Kit
A. The Soot gives a realistic shade not only for the exhaust and oil
stains but also for the aging panel lines when combined with lighter pigments
from the Kit A. The highly characteristic speed brakes of this aircraft
show rust streaks from the air holes, which can be easily recreated by applying
the Rust along the air flow lines. It is a shame the low resolution of the
photos does not fully capture the delicate hue of the shading by using this
method.
Ciao,
Flanker
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