John Brown's Painted Axis and Allies Pieces

Good luck John! May your paint be ever-so-smooth, your brushes finely shaped, and your fingers always nimble. Join the club.

I will definitely be following this thread.  You will enjoy painting John I can see it, hehe.

@John:

Thanks guys, I appreciate the words of encouragement. Since you guys are so supportive, I will go ahead and show you, my only two paint jobs, I’ve done.

I painted 2 German BF 109’s.

The first one was a black BF 109. I tried to paint a simple white stripe by the side decals, the problem is, I don’t know how long you too wait for the acrylic paint to dry before you do nose coloring, stripes or camo. I used a gray primer, then I painted the main color black.

If you want a crisp line or distinction between the two layers you have you should wait for the first layer to completely dry. This varies based on how thick the paint it, but generally I’d estimate 5-10 minutes. When in doubt, wait. At least we’re not using oils haha. You’ll come to know the properties of your paint the more that you practice. I try to paint thin coats, rather than globs, so that it dries faster and it makes it lookes crisper and less of a “glob of a mess”.

When I tried to paint the stripe, I had problems, even worse when I tried to paint the nose of the plane, it would have black still showing underneath. It was looking like one big glob of a mess.

This is a problem that you will run into when painting a lighter color over a darker color (especially). Well, really any color over another color, as your brush will leave a a streaked layer of paint, so the bottom often shines through the top. The solution? Multiple coats. I often paint a stripe, and then revisit it a few minutes later and go back over it to make sure nothing shows through.

Plane noses are just hard to paint without looking globby. Use a small brush and spread it around as best you can, and then just accept the fact that it will often look globby Especially on the Bf 109. Other models have better shaped noses.

Can you all explain how you do those things and make look smooth?

The second BF 109 was suppose to be a German Green Camo, with dark and light green stripes, here again, I don’t know when to add the next camo color, because I don’t how long you wait for it too dry.

For some reason, it came out awesome, because I smeared four colors and made this affect on the plane. Now, it doesn’t have the distinct camo lines, as the German green camo, normally has, but I think it still looks sharp.

Yeah, if you wanted distinct lines you probably didn’t wait long enough, but as you said, it looks pretty cool! I have never been able to blend colors like that, so maybe you can teach me a thing or two!

I would fly it, LOL.

HA!

Also would have liked to had a yellow nose with yellow side stripes, but maybe, you all can give me some advice.

See above advice on painting over another color. Warning: Yellow doesn’t have very much pigment, so it is notoriously hard to paint anything yellow. I normally paint two coats on the base of an infantry piece, but with the British (yellow base) it took 5 coats. Don’t let that dissuade you from using it; just know that you will probably have to put more paint over it than you’d expect.

General rule of thumb: The thicker the paint on the piece, the more vibrant the color will be. For example: a thin coat followed by a follow up coat will generally give you crisper lines, but sometimes it helps to put more paint on the piece and make the layer thicker to make it cover the bottom layer more effectively. Does that make any semblance of sense? Sorry if some of this is intimidating or useless.

Without further delay, here is my first works. Enjoy!

Nice start!

John

Nice application of the decals by the way.