Painting advice?

[PlaceOfBayonets]

Was wondering is painting the model best done before or after the build? Or a combination of both?

I have a MPC Pirates of the Caribbean Dead man's raft model I plan to build.

[Federico Perez]

It all depend on the type of model and how complicated the detail and assembly is. The best way to achive a neat and clean look is to build/assemble the model in subassemblies and paint them in the appropiate color specifications and then assemble the parts into a final model. This is in my very personal opinion and experience the best way to build almost all type of model kits, the main reason is that if you build all the model first and then paint, reaching some areas of the model will be dificult and if theres diferent colors used, neat separation and application will be a problem. Alsi to remember is to scracht away the paint in the pieces contact s points to have a secure glue bond. Also using "super glues" is not recomended in the painted and final assembly stage since a possible reaction with the paint can occur...and clean up is difficult..again my very personal opinion and experience.

Hope it helps and please post your ship model, it sound quite interesting and looking forward to seeing it.

[PlaceOfBayonets]

Raft model not a ship.

[Mike Swan]

William,

Judging by the illustration, it looks like you're in for a lot of pre-assembly painting.

I suggest planning ahead by grouping any parts that are the same colour and painting them in one hit eg. the skeletons, then the cannons and metal fixtures and so on.

Good luck with the project and please post photos.

Mike

[Federico Perez]

Raft model not a ship.

Oh,sorry....good luck with your project

[Spanish Freiwillige]

My advice is study the plans, and see which parts you can aseemble and that will allow you top paint in a neat way without missing detail, and which parts you need to paint first to avid not painting certain areas after they been put together....

my advice is always to do a combination of both after carefull analysis and study of the plans...

[PlaceOfBayonets]

Well I bought a little bottle of brown paint for the wood decking Etc. Ran out rather fast and it was gloss. Opps. Spray on dull coat fixed it right nice.

It was taking forever to do it with the small brush so I resorted to spray paint. I'll have to dull coat that too.

If needed I will sand out on the contact points for gluing.


If anyone is interested I scored the Ghost of the Treasure Guard that came with Freed in the nick of time kit so I have a duplicate of Freed in the Nick of Time I could put on on the E stand.

I am getting 5 days off from work so will probably finish Dead man's Raft soon.

[Svt40]

Man I remember those pirate models when I was a kid. I thought they were the coolest thing out there!!

[Tony T-S]

Everyone has a different technique. I tend to build what I can and then paint, but I concentrate on tanks so that's not hard to do. It means plenty of masking along the way once you've put assemblies together, but its the same on a plane so no dramas really. On a tank I'll paint the lower hull assembly the final base colour as wheel as wheels, idlers and drive wheels. I'll also paint under fenders etc that I won't be able to reach when the gluing is done so that once the hull is finished it can get one complete primer and top coat (Wheels and completed tracks etc masked) so that it gets a uniform base coat that isn't destroyed by later gluing of things together. It means that I paint tools etc in place. There are very few corners you can't paint into and they are usually hidden from view anyway. I can either leave the masking in place or carefully airbrush the other camouflage paints in place just as they would be on a real tank. As has been said, its a matter of planning the order you'll do things.

Can you post shots of how the raft is going. Looks a good kit

[PlaceOfBayonets]

Here are some shots. I guess you can call this about 35% done? The right hand decking has been dull coated but not the left side yet. Rail in back is also not yet dull coated. What you see now is only 20% glued. I just put the parts together for the photos.

Note the Cannon, it's supposed to have barnicles on it. I used a base of light green, and then blotted on sparse amounts of white, light blue and sea blue. Don't really look like barnicles but best I can do. The instructions only call for the olive green but that would not look even as good as what I did with it, as bad as it looks. Sail was done with flat white. When I was done I poored a little tan into the white for the bones but the difference is not really noticable.
Still have to finish the back of the head scarf in red like the front of it.

Any idea how to weather the red vest the Pirate is wearing? I don't really know much in the way of weathering.

[PlaceOfBayonets]

Dull Coat will do wonders for the shine still seen on 80% of the parts. Wheel, deck hatch and other parts are still in gloss.

[PlaceOfBayonets]

Here is a photo I guess 99% done. Still have some touch up paint work to do and place a photo copy of the original map on the deck crate that the shipmate is stabbing.