How do I achieve desired painting appearance?
I was recently asked that by a community member.
Here is how I do my painting.
Like I’ve said before, there is no one set way to accomplish anything.
Achieving Painting Quality:
- Use only acrylic jar or tube paint. I order in 100ml jars so that I have less inventory standing around.
- I never use bottled acrylic. A) contains more water to make it flow out of the bottle, B) could contain added flow agents to make pourable acrylic art type pieces.
- I never try to water down the paint from the jar. Yes it is a bit thick. It has less water. Less water translates to higher concentration of solids (ground ultra fine material to make the color which all paints contain), which translates to coverage quality.
- I never paint anything on the boards. De-mount them, sand them, dust them off.
- I use painter mask tape upside down to hold the parts to a flat bookshelf panel that I cover with food wrap to keep it clean. You can see all of that in many of my postings or videos.
- I use a 50mm (2inch) wide SOFT foam roller and small paint try. See attache photo. Each roller can last me at least three-four painting cycles. Just wash them out and reuse. You’ll figure out when to replace them.
- I do NOT use a hard foam roller and NOT thick shag type roller
The roller allows for paint to be laid down quick, and, by going in many different directions over the parts to apply the paint. Downward pressure and amount of paint on the roller one will need to experiment with to learn when is has enough paint been applied. Then lean about how little down pressure to use to smooth out. The smooth out process does take practice, so be patient learning it.
Normally one good coat is more than enough.
I 99% never use a brush. Unless I need to edge paint.
The simple trick I use many times edge painting is to only use a BLACK art marker. Unless of course you have an edge you really want to highlight with paint.
Hopefully this helps anyone not sure if they want to venture into painting their builds. Like I said, there is no one way to do anything. Find your niche. For me a simple 50mm (2 inch) wide roller executes just fine from the smallest of parts to the largest of parts. Here’s a few photo examples. From just a few to about 35 components at one time being painted. For cleanup it takes me about 3 full minutes to wash out the roller and tray combined. If you want to change out a colour and keep painting just use a few paper towels to dry the roller a bit. It does not need to be bone dry before working with your next colour.
Anyone having more painting questions, just ask.
Cheers to all of the builders out there, both beginner and pro.
Enjoy your builds.
-uploaded image goes here-
I’ve never seen anyone do it this way before.
