Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've got to say, I'm not entirely sure it worked out too well...

Of course, my first mistake was buying the things from Hobby craft. - £5 for 150 odd mls of Humbrol Spraypaint.

First, I undercoated it with Army painter matt black spraypaint. Then, today I sprayed the model with Humbrol Crimson Gloss Spraypaint.



A few hours later I covered the tank liberally with some Tamiya Masking Tape.



I sprayed the model with some Humbrol Midnight Blue.



And this was the result:



I dunno, it just doesn't look right to me. Anyone got advice on my next attempt? Should I start looking at 'proper' sprayguns as opposed to spraypaint?

Or maybe I should just be smarter with the masking tape?

needs more random. Just a couple straight strips isn't going to do it justice. If you want stripes, then they still need to be random and meet/bifurcate. Look to Zebras or tigers for inspiration. There's a reason that one pattern of camo is called tigerstripe. Incidentally, so long as the paint is thin, this isn't ruined. You could just throw some more masking tape on it to jagged it up a bit, and just give it a little bit more coating to randomize the appearance.

Next time, i might suggest taking the tape, and laying it out in strips on a non-adhesive surface (doesn't reduce the stick of the tape) and then trace on it with a hobby knife so you get some extra randomness. Else, you can also take the tape, and cut it into random squares/triangles/strips, and tape the bits on randomly.

Lastly, you're not finished. You could try to see if adding a third color will fix it.

There is definitely an art to painting camo so it looks good on models. You can go more random as poda_t mentioned, my main suggestion with "random" is that it still needs to be somewhat ordered to look good. Choose how thick your bands or blobs are going to be and how much of the below colour you want shining through and then try to stick to that across the whole model, so even though the bands might be random, the spacing between them is somewhat consistent.

A good example is WW2 planes, or the Thunderbolt on the cover of the Imperial Armour masterclass book...

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Modelling-Supplies/IMPERIAL_ARMOUR_MODEL_MASTERCLASS_VOLUME_TWO.html

Note the camo is quite random, but the size of blobs and the spacing is actually rather consistent, so there's no areas which are just purely one colour of the other and no areas with more or less detail.

Another option is to go more ordered. Something like this looks really good but is actually just strips sprayed equidistant...

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Imperial_Navy/MARAUDER_DESTROYER.html

Or this tank on the front of another forge world book, not as ordered, but still for the most part it's quite ordered.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Images/Product/DefaultFW/xlarge/imparmour5.jpg

Have a look at images of camo on vehicles and pay close attention to how the bands and blobs are painted, you'll notice that it's not quite as simple as throwing down randomness.

You also have colour selection, I'm not really good at colour theory so I'm not going to make any suggestions other than to say the brown and blue does look a bit odd to me, though maybe it's just the gloss.

There is nothing wrong with Humbrol paints as such.

As the other responders have said, you need more complexity and/or variety in the pattern of the camo.

If your pattern is based on straight lines, look at WW1 naval dazzle patterns for some inspiration.

Wavy patterns will work better with soft edges, which you can get by defining the edge with a thin roll of blue tac. It lets the spray go under the edge a bit.

I also agree that colour selection is difficult. Being colour blind myself, I have a tendency to pick some kind of alien world colours that blow people's eyes out, but most people look for the kind of colours they are used to. That doesn't meant you can't do something different, but you need to think about the brightness of the colours. Matt varnish will dull things down a bit.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is nothing wrong with Humbrol paints as such.

As the other responders have said, you need more complexity and/or variety in the pattern of the camo.

If your pattern is based on straight lines, look at WW1 naval dazzle patterns for some inspiration.

Wavy patterns will work better with soft edges, which you can get by defining the edge with a thin roll of blue tac. It lets the spray go under the edge a bit.

I also agree that colour selection is difficult. Being colour blind myself, I have a tendency to pick some kind of alien world colours that blow people's eyes out, but most people look for the kind of colours they are used to. That doesn't meant you can't do something different, but you need to think about the brightness of the colours. Matt varnish will dull things down a bit.

Killkrazy is right about the WW1 patterns, but I'm going to add a bit to that and say you should look at insects and fish for more inspiration, like flounder and katydids. Stippling is really good, but that's probably better with something smaller.

@Killkrazy - Is that a Porco Rosso cosplayer as your avatar? If it is, that's pretty cool!