While I psych myself up for a long night of masking and taping invasion stripes next week likely, I’m trying to decide what livery to go with. I think I like moonlight cocktail but am not for certain yet.
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First go at the invasion stripes. Going to take a while initially as getting straight lines around the booms was tricky.
I also do not want to tape it all (over several nights as time is limited) and run the risk of residue being left behind. Going to waste some paint this way likely but it may be several total sessions. Looking good so far, purposefully not thick coverage to aid in the painted on look and adding fading.
You can see a little overspray that I’ll fix at the very end of the striping.
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So I had to try a new product after @Armor_Buff ’s recommendation. Thank you! It came flying out of the airbrush and pooled quickly but leveled out quick. The final result works but need to lower the PSI and set the limiter on the airbrush and try again to feel more comfortable using it. Tested on an unused fuel tank.
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Steve very happy to hear!
The P-38J is looking great. This very interesting build inspired me to do a bit of YouTube research. Greg’s Airplanes has several excellent videos like this one.
P-38 Lightning Mach Limits and Other Issues YouTube by Greg’s Airplanes
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Awesome! Really interesting video thanks!
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Coming along slowly but surely. Not a ton of time and at the moment still too fearful to leave tape on too long for a week of intermittent taping and then one giant paint session. Looking good. One little paint chip came off that I’ll repair. Didn’t turn on my bright lights I promise the stripes are white not gray. Mottled on a bit to make it less consistent looking.
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So one weird thing is I think an extra layer of paint is showing that some of the rivet decal film isn’t fully sunk into panel lines. Doesn’t look noticeable at all on the bare metal but think I will have to exacto panel lines so washes go well. You can see pretty clearly on the white portion. Luckily a small test cutting into the panel has worked well and created some nice panel line chipping.
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White a little too patchy and some touch ups needed but getting there. The decal film in the panel lines is proving more annoying than I thought. Had my first moment of regret even using the rivet decals but pushing past that.
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Steve, the P-38J is looking great to me.
Kinda off topic but being an armor modeler, I have to ask, is that a 1/48 scale Panther? Trying to roughly judge the size of the P-38J.
Thanks.
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Yep 1/48. Built that about 10 years as my first tank as an adult I was proud of. P-38 is big!
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Olive drab is too dark, think I need to add yellow and paint center of panels
Had to scrape off decals and scraped paint on two blades due to Mr. Mark Setter. It makes the decal stick immediately and no wiggle room for moving into place and they were slightly off. What am I doing wrong? Ordered Micro set as I hear it’s not as hot. I already have microsol which I like.
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Little bit of work. Almost ready for red on nose. Having a hell of a time spacing invasion stripes right.
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Couldn’t help myself and put a prop on. For the rest of the detail painting on nose this may be a tough mask job. Any experience brush painting Tamiya LP paints?
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The universe told me to be flexible and figure things out. When masking to paint the large black panel it looked good, but upon removing the tape a large chunk of metallic paint came off. Seen here are my attempts to cover it up. Will have to go nuclear on the nose cone. Next time will put gloss coat down before masking red and black to play it safe. There initially wasn’t any red overspray I just knew all hope was lost and started free handing for fun.
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Thought: what if I mask off the gun panels now so they stay black instead of painting the whole thing silver like I did the first go? How would I mask these tricky shapes? Part of me is thinking to surround one panel with tape and the. Use that as like a cookie cutter template to make four ovals.
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Tried cutting tape into a mask didn’t look good. Now will see about masking fluid, but so far it’s pulling away from the edge. May just paint the metallic and hand paint the black.
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