Masking
Time to start the excruciating part - let's get to masking! (again)
Last time, I tried masking the hidden portions of the upper wings with masking tape and that ended up with accidentally peeling some of paint. I've concluded that using masking tape on these small curved parts are too difficult so I decided to give Mr Masking Sol R a shot.
Masking Sol is water soluble so I'm using a cheap brush to apply it onto the pieces.
Hard to see in the photo but I've applied a layer of masking Sol over the hidden feathers. I applied it little over the actual parts I want to mask so that I can use a hobby knife to cut a more precise border.
I've read that the Sol R is water based so it is not as caustic as the Sol Neo (ammonia based). This means this is a lot less likely to eat thru the paint it's masking but I won't really get to see the results until later when I finish rest of the paint work.
After waiting several minutes for the masking Sol to dry, I tried using a hobby knife to cut the edges. Unfortunately, that didn't go too well...
I'm not sure if it's because the hobby knife isn't shark enough, or because the layer of masking Sol was too thin, or because I didn't wait long enough for masking Sol to cure fully (or all of the above) but the peeling the masking along the lines of the cut didn't come out very smoothly. I ended up just peeling everything off - which turned out to be quite a pain.
I was also hoping to apply a more precise edge so that I would not have to rely on cutting the mask. Unfortunately, this was not possible because the thick layer of mask started spilling over.
Airbrushing
Today I worked on more top coatinging. I first re-applied clear gloss to the pieces I coated yesterday because I noticed they were not quite as glossy as I wanted to be (probably applied too thin of a layer). I then proceeded to apply clear gloss (final layer) to the pieces I panel lined yesterday.
The panel lines on the shallow grooves are really looking messy in daylight.
The deeper grooves have much cleaner panel lines - though I'm not quite sure what drove me to think that adding panel lines to the bottom of the foot was such a good idea...
Note to self: do not panel line these slanted grills on the skirts. They do not clean up nicely.
And finished! Once these pieces dry and cure, I can start reassembling the main body portion of Wing Zero.
Now to check on the metallic spoons...
Not fully cured but the thick layer chrome is coming out nicely. It's definitely more reflective than the generic silver paint from model color line.
The thinner layer has a much nicer sheen but I'm starting to see speckles of the black primer showing through as the paint starts to cure.
I figured I'd try painting a medium coat (2 pass) to see if that would hit the sweet spot.
The photo came out much darker but the medium spray came out to look much more like the thick layer. I may have messed up my brush control and released too much paint. I am still not sure if the airbrush just tends to release more paint than my old one or the Vallejo metal color line paints are just much thicker in pigment concentration.
After I finally got a better hang of the pressure control again, I felt bold so I tried just applying a super thin second coat over the thin coat from yesterday.
It looks much better than before and doesn't look quite as caked as the thick layer. We'll have to wait and see how this turns out once it fully cures.
And since I had a tad bit of paint left in my airbrush, I tried to test what a thin layer would look like on white primer.
It's hard to tell in the photo but the result looks like pear color. This has a thin layer (2 very thin pass) of chrome over white primer with clear gloss on top. This is not what I expected but it is a pleasant surprise. If I ever need to have a pear effect, I can just try to replicate this.
Today I Learned:
- Thin layer of masking sol is a pain to peel
- Cutting thin layer of masking sol is also a pain
- Thin layer of chrome color looks nice at first but does not look as good as it starts to cure
- Thin layer of chrome on top of white glossy surface creates a nice pearl color
- Phone camera sucks
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