Fading two colors together (1 Viewer)

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DarrellC

Airman
69
0
Jan 30, 2013
Atlanta, GA
Title may be misleading? Building a Doolittle B-25B. Bottom will be grey and top olive drab. What technique to make the line between the colors "fade " together. Don't want a tape line. Will be using air brush.
Thanks
 
There is a product known as "Blu-tac" (that also comes in yellow), in the office supply section at Walmart that as normaly used to hang posters on the wall without damaging the paint. This can be rolled into long "snakes" and applied slightly above your intended line. Then you stick your masking to that, keeping it slightly off the surface and spray downward. This gives the diffused soft demarcation that you are looking for.
 
Yeah, that sounds about right. You will squish it down slightly when putting the masking over it anyways. It's more of the angle that you have the airbrush at when spraying that will dictate how tight the demarcation is.
 
If you are using an air brush just spray one of the colors higher or lower than you intend then when you spray the second taper off the spray as you approach the line you wish to hold. Spray very lightly one of the colors over the other. Use a very light spay. You can go over the line as much as you want to get the fade you want. In general it is easier to cover a lighter color with a darker. With something like camo I spray the entire model the lighter and then spray the darker over that free hand if you want the diffused line camo. For sharp line camo I make a template (stencil) which covers the area, then spray the openings. A tight-fitting stencil gives sharp lines while a looser fit will give a bit of fuzzyness to the line.
As always practice on some scrap or as I do get some free styrofoam resturant carry out boxes.
 
You need to also consider the scale. If 1/72, a taped demarcation is arguably suitable as the scaled overspray would be barely noticeable. For 1/48, the methods above should be OK.
 
If you are using an air brush just spray one of the colors higher or lower than you intend then when you spray the second taper off the spray as you approach the line you wish to hold. Spray very lightly one of the colors over the other. Use a very light spay. You can go over the line as much as you want to get the fade you want. In general it is easier to cover a lighter color with a darker. With something like camo I spray the entire model the lighter and then spray the darker over that free hand if you want the diffused line camo. For sharp line camo I make a template (stencil) which covers the area, then spray the openings. A tight-fitting stencil gives sharp lines while a looser fit will give a bit of fuzzyness to the line.
As always practice on some scrap or as I do get some free styrofoam resturant carry out boxes.
That's the basic idea, to give the mask a slight offset to provide a little "fuzz". It is something that can be achieved with practice, but for a first timer, (and how I do it after many years) my method gives an acceptable and fool proof result. Mainly because the mask has no chance of moving.
 

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