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I have a good idea running around my skull and have made some templates for painting the new(ish) digital camouflage for my armies. I have made some templates that I will need to cut to form and them layer onto the models (mostly vehicles) and then spray the patterns on. I'm going to be practicing with a Tau vehicle like a Piranha or maybe a Hammerhead.

The templates once cut will create inverse templates (male and female) so I can use them in a somewhat random fashion for realism. My question about doing it this way is thus:

So, let's say I've base coated and put an initial complete covering of a main camo color on the vehicle. I can use masking tape, transparent(Scotch Tape) etc. to secure one of the female templates and spray within the lines. Once this is done and dry, I want to use the male pattern to cover that newly painted section of camo so I can move on to a new area of the surface. How can I secure it so that when I pull the template off, it doesn't damage the first spray job (done with the female template)?

TIA and I look forward to your responses.

Masking tape should be OK to go on and off paint if you don't press it down too hard or leave it stuck on too long.

You might consider using Frisk spraypaint masking film for your stencils.

It's specially made to be repositionable and doesn't need tape.

It may be slightly hard to conform to small curved surfaces.

Hmm. I haven't heard of Frisk before, but I do have some liquid masking solution. A problem I foresee with using that would be making it conform to the sharp (and in some cases) right(as in 90degree) angles involved in making the kind of camo I am going for. Any ideas regarding that?

Personaly I would cut a bunch of squares out of sticky labels printer paper and after each layer of paint apply more squares then once your finished peel them off.. aslong as your paint is dry and no way to think this technique shouldn't damage any of the paint jobs...

can you run the liquid masking solution through an Airbrush? you want some overlapping to occour though squares cutting into other squares plus it should appear random and if your using templates you run the risk of losing the random factor.

Oooooh. I kind of like the sticky squares idea. I may try that as well. I'll give it a go this weekend and report back.

Cool, glad My suggestion was usefull

Tamiya makes a digital camo mask. It's excellent.

I'm dying to know how thie sticky squares idea worksd or not????

Sadly, I could not do the tests this weekend. My favored airbrush has a cracked ti[ it turns out. I'll be picking up a new one this afternoon provided it's in stock anywhere around here...

Anyone have a link to the Tamiya mask?

I did this on my Tau Vehicles, used masking tape, came out fine. Didn't have an airbrush at the time, so it's not as sexy as it could be, but it's good enough for greater good work. Good luck.

With the masking tape, did you do the whole vehicle first in tape then paint, or just the sections you were applying the pattern to? I would suppose you would only need to section it w/o an airbrush. I wonder if I will need to mask the who vehicle before airbrushing? (have never airbrushed something like this before).

If you look around, Trumpeter China makes decals for their figures that are to be depicted wearing digital camo.

I'm sure someone out there sells them as just the decal sheets.

mullet_steve wrote:Personaly I would cut a bunch of squares out of sticky labels printer paper and after each layer of paint apply more squares then once your finished peel them off.. aslong as your paint is dry and no way to think this technique shouldn't damage any of the paint jobs...

can you run the liquid masking solution through an Airbrush? you want some overlapping to occour though squares cutting into other squares plus it should appear random and if your using templates you run the risk of losing the random factor.

I like the sticky paper idea. I think it would work better with Post-it notes, or Frisk, which are designed to be repositioned.