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hello dakka,

I'm starting work on some scouts and I'm trying to figure out the best way to mask them so I can use an airbrush to paint the armor plates, cloth and camo cloaks different colors. the only masking I've done to date is with blue painter's tape on flat surfaces (tanks). is tape still the way to go for my scouts or should I be looking at something like masking fluid? any other options to consider?

cheers,

v

Masking can be quite the skill at times.

Knowing which way to mask off on each job you do is a lot of the skill.

You can use bluetac to mask off some areas;
Say you want a marines shoulder pad to be one colour (I dunno... red?)
spray the pads red and shade it all up nicely,not worrying too much about a little overspray, and let it dry off properly.

Then carefully cover the pad with bluetac, making sure its properly covering all the red you want to keep and spray the rest of your guy the other chosen colour (i dunno again say black?)
and youl have a black marine with red pads sprayed rather nicely.

this can work very well on parts where tape just wont stick or bend around etc.

Other times you might just 'free' mask with a 'shield' ... just a bit of plastic or something that you hold in place with one hand to mask off while spraying with another. free masking is pretty popular in airbrush art over making dedicated stencils for one job.

edit; also something called a 'feathered edge' can be useful on occasion. This is what they would do in vehicle panel repair when respraying the entire panel isnt required.
Instead of just flat taping around the area and getting a hard line where the repair happens. They roll the tape around on itself to form a kind of tube and stick that down... what this does is to make a fine 'feathered' gradient instead of a hard edge when sprayed against as some of the paint creeps under the tape tube.
Can be very useful for controlling overspray without giving hard lines.

Blue-Tac works as a decent masking agent, but I would recommend regular, old Silly Putty instead. Blue-Tac is much stickier than silly putty and often times leaves a residue on the surface it was covering. Silly Putty, however, is less sticky and leaves no residue on surfaces with the added benefit of being easier to mold in to any shape needed. Silly Putty is readily available at Micheal's and A.C. Moore and usually goes for about $0.99 for one "egg," which will last you for quite some time.

Another fantastic product is liquid mask of various brands. Vallejo makes one that is easy to get a hold of and works great. Another option is Micro Mask, which I personally was not too impressed with. Liquid masks are painted on to the surface you want protected and left to dry. After it has dried, you paint over the area and wait for the paint to dry. After that, you gently scrape the the mask away to reveal the surface beneath. It works great for doing damage/rust on models.

Tamiya makes a bunch of different sized masking tape that is always good to have. I think the smallest size is 6mm and it goes up to 40mm or so. Get yourself a cutting mat (if you don't have one already) and a decent ruler/straight edge and you can make all sorts of different shapes for masking just using a razor knife.

Good luck!

the advice i got from Les from Awesome paintjob, the guy with the polish accent from BuyPainted and Ifalna is to or airbrush the whole thing in the armor color and then paint the cloth with the brush or to first airbrush the cloth color and then paint the armor with a brush...

all depends on what you can airbrush and paint the best to get the best result

you can get verious makes of liquid mask as well you just paint it on let it dry and when your done it peels .

I was advised to use Copydex - It's a latex-based adhesive that is cheap readily available in the UK that, as it is essentially latex mixed with water, does exactly the same purpose as the special-purpose masking fluids mentioned above