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G'day all,

Often I've looked at models of vehicles, tanks, planes, etc where the panel lines have been preshaded and I've thought that, yes, it adds a lot of depth, but something looks unnatural about it to me.

I never really thought about it until now, because I'm finally buying an airbrush myself now, and after thinking about it, isn't preshading a panel line actually shading the wrong direction? Shouldn't the panel around the line actually be a lighter colour, and then use something like an oil wash to shade the line itself.

If you don't get what I mean, here's a video of someone preshading a jet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMPAwHmTdpQ

So what I'm saying, instead of starting with a white undercoat and spraying crevices and panel lines black, shouldn't you start with a grey primer, spray crevices black, but spray panel lines white, then when the model is finished, come back over with an oil wash and paint the panel lines black/dark brown/etc?

No, you want the centres of panels to be lighter overall (that's where the majority of light is reflected from). It's a trick to make the object seem to be larger than it really is.

Often, a very soft highlight is drybrushed if the panel lines are to be 'sharpened'. This ups the contrast at the edges of panels to the shade.

This is very, very subtle drybrush work, by the way. Many wargame model painters don't realise how subtle you have to be when using drybrushing for this sort of effect. Takes practice!

Hmm, ok, I figured more light would be reflected off the edges of panels, as the light is more likely to catch the edge and be reflected to your eye than in the center of the panel.

If you look at real world vehicles that have been weather from actual weather, the lightest parts are at the centres of panels or top sides. The edges usually have shadow and are darker if not chipped or worn in different ways.

Extreme edge lighlights as seen in most wargame miniature painting isn't realistic, it's cartoony. The edges are highlighted to bring attention to them to show the detail that is often too small to be easily noticed at a glance.

Scale models can replicate scale detail but they can't change how light reacts to smaller objects so it must be faked.

 LUTNIT wrote:
If you look at real world vehicles that have been weather from actual weather, the lightest parts are at the centres of panels or top sides. The edges usually have shadow and are darker if not chipped or worn in different ways.

I'm actually struggling to find real world pictures that look like that. Some aircraft do look like that, some F18 images definitely. Usually the panel is pretty uniform in colour, sometimes the panel near the panel lines are darker, sometimes brighter, kind of depends on the vehicle and I guess how the panel was formed and the airflow around it. Looking at some F16 pictures, some panels are much paler near the seams.

Pics of aircraft generally wont be exposed to the elements long enough without maintenance to really be weathered. Then again I mostly use panel shading with tanks, not aircraft. Aircraft I tend to do solid colours with pinwashing on the panel lines. Often a different colour on the top than the bottom.

When I talk about panel weathering I mean cars, trucks, tanks, and other things left out in the elements for a decade or two. If you look at a really old, sun beaten car the centres of the panels are generally lighter than the edges.

Actually I'm struggling to find picture that looks like that of any vehicles, be they tanks or cars or aircraft. A couple of modern fighter jets seem to be the closest, maybe because grime builds up in the very tight crevices between panels and when it washes the grime out of the panel slightly, staining the surrounding area? Just as equally you find aircraft with panels that are brighter at the edges and darker in the middle.

I have a faded car sitting in my driveway, it fades the most on the panels which are most vertical, it doesn't fade more or less near the edge of panels unless the panel changes orientation. It actually fades quite evenly across a mostly flat panel.

I'm beginning to think maybe I should try and preshade crevices, but not panel lines, then paint the panels uniform colour and just do weathering and oil washes on top of clean uniform panels.

Here is the thing, pre-shading, color modulation, weathering, highlighting, shading, are all artistic techniques used by painters to try and mimic reality. Take a look at a panel line on a 1/48 scale aircraft., on the model it is visible, if you were to scale that panel "gap" up to life size, there would be 2 inch gaps between every panel on an the aircraft. So the idea is not to replicate life it is more to mimic it at smaller scale.

Now the reason why I think pre-shading has evolved the way it has is due to the washing out nature of highlights. When a high light is placed next to a highlight you loose contrast, ie detail at a smaller scale.(general rule of thumb is the smaller the scale the higher the contrast). However when you place a shadow next to a shadow, the loss of contrast is not as great, ideally you would want to place a shadow next to a highlight.

So i guess the point I am trying to make is that you can certainly try to highlight panel lines, but I think you will ultimately loose some of the contrast that a paint job can give to a model to help the details stand out.

Good luck!!

A.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
G'day all,

Often I've looked at models of vehicles, tanks, planes, etc where the panel lines have been preshaded and I've thought that, yes, it adds a lot of depth, but something looks unnatural about it to me.

I never really thought about it until now, because I'm finally buying an airbrush myself now, and after thinking about it, isn't preshading a panel line actually shading the wrong direction? Shouldn't the panel around the line actually be a lighter colour, and then use something like an oil wash to shade the line itself.

If you don't get what I mean, here's a video of someone preshading a jet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMPAwHmTdpQ

So what I'm saying, instead of starting with a white undercoat and spraying crevices and panel lines black, shouldn't you start with a grey primer, spray crevices black, but spray panel lines white, then when the model is finished, come back over with an oil wash and paint the panel lines black/dark brown/etc?

Watch this guys work. He has a ton of stuff to help with hints on modulation depth etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRUlAr2ehWM

There is a lot of experience out there on this stuff....I think its good to learn as much as possible on it.

However, if you want to try something different - try it...get a toy truck from the dollar store, and paint it.
You may like the affect more than what others do - and what you like for your models is what is most important.

However, if you are just getting your airbrush...I would suggest get used to it before starting this type of stuff.

Despite what some people say, an airbrush is not some magic tool...it takes a lot of skill to learn and use well - for example, to use pre-shading well, it takes a bit of skill.

You need to learn to use small amounts of paint, in limited areas, and to follow panel lines consistently.
Finally, when applying the base color, you need keep it exceptionally thin - possibly in layers - otherwise you will hide your panel lines.

Then of course there is controlling spatter, even flow, mixing paints, etc.

So, I would say get your brush, practice practice and practice.
Watch lots of videos on methods and techniques, then do a few practice models and decide what look you prefer.

best of luck!!!

As a former aircraft maintainer I agree that the middle of the panel would be a bit lighter and the edges/corners would be a bit darker on aircraft painted with lighter colors. The reason is when I pull a panel I usually handle the corners/edges of the panel so they get more wear/tear/dirt/grease on those areas. In addition, oil and hydraulic fluid leak in those things and usually come out on the edges of the panel when you pull it off the airframe, making them darker.

On a darker aircraft it's the opposite for the most part. The wear would make the edges/corners a bit lighter as the paint is worn down a bit. And the center of the panel would get less wear. But the edges/corners would also recieve more dirt.

So, I have no idea how you want to procede but I've noticed that most models are painted to look good and not to be technically acurate. Thats why you see metalic and rusted guns a lot, but every soldier knows that a corroded gun will get you killed and will clean their weapons daily even if they didn't shoot them. And every gun is painted to protect them from the elements or made from a non-corrosive material. If your painting rust on stuff it would be more realistic to paint it on harder to reach or indented surfaces. As surface rust is much easier to remove than rust that is in the nooks and cranies. The same is true for vehicles, all military equipment is taken care of daily and rust is immediately removed and treated.

Start with the basics, once you feel you have mastered them, then move on to stuff like this.

This maybe two weeks, or it could be two years, but an airbrush is a tool - the more you learn how to use it, the more cool stuff you can do.

here is one of hundreds of good videos on airbrushing....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPB7A5TlUsw