Initial Painting, Masking, Dry Brushing
Today was spent finishing the initial air brushing and interior detail painting.
The wheel hubs are already painted, so the hubs are masked to paint the tires.
After the jump, today’s work.
It took me quite some time to find a way of painting wheels and tires that works for me. What I’ve settled in on is a circle template and circle cut knife to cut masks from Tamiya tape.
For much smaller circles I use a micro punch and die set to make the mask.
The second round of air brushing. Black on the propeller blades, tires and radio box.
Fine details are now painted for the interior. Since I’ll be doing the canopy closed up this is a fairly simple treatment.
The instrument panel got the most attention with individual dials picked out via a white colored pencil. Then a small drop of clear gloss lacquer was applied to each instrument face. This is a good enough approximation for a closed up cockpit!
Now its time for some dry brushing. An old brush with small amounts of medium grey paint is brushed across most of the painted surfaces. The tires got the treatment with grey and brown to look like they’ve seen service at a poorly prepared airfield.
Plane Dave 
I’ll admit that with my focus on armor the brighter primary colors weren’t much of a concern for the most part. But dry brushing was something I excelled at. For my teenage self, circa late 70’s an airbrush was an indulgence that an allowance and a minimum wage didn’t fully support, but dry brushing allowed me to add depth I never thought possible. It was a lot of fun learning these techniques from magazines and more experienced modelers.
Yeah I think dry brushing was the first more “advanced” technique I got good at. One thing hasn’t changed a bit in 35 years, I love watching the detail come out when I dry brush.
One other thing I used to focus on, and got pretty god at was figures. Granted I worked largely in 1/35th (1/32nd) but realistic humans, to give a sense of scale were huge for me. That 00 brush was my most prized possession at times.
In high school my war gaming and D&D led me heavily into miniatures. I learned a lot about fine detail from doing that. I definitely like doing the occasional figure; as you say, it adds scale to the display.
Although it’s funny about brushes. I used to use 00 and 000. But for the last few years I’ve stuck with just a 0. It is still very sharp and holds a lot more paint. If I really need to go finer for some reason I use a toothpick or a colored pencil.
Quite frankly a toothpick never occurred to me. But it makes sense. Like I said I’ve always wondered how I’d approach things.
I was heavily in to D&D miniatures, to the point that I became a source to like minded friends. It was a self-supporting habit. Coincidentally on a recent trip home my mother produced a few of my better works which were in lead and 1/48th scale. It was fun to see, I was pretty good.
I was also the main supplier of miniatures! I still have a few hundred stashed away. I doubt I’ll get back to them now though!
That may be part of why 1/48 is go to scale though. It’s what I’ve always worked with most.