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Multi-color Paint Schemes?

claycookiemonster

Well Known Member
I'm planning a pretty simple military camoflage scheme. What I'm wondering is whether it's easier to paint the whole airplane in the lightest color (which is the main color, and the entire underside of everything) and then over spray the darker camo parts? OR, try to only paint the light parts and then paint the darker patches on prepared aluminum next door?
 
I think it will depend on the type of transition you want to achieve between the different colors. If it's a gradual blend as with real military camo then there would be some overlap at least for different colors. I don't know how you would deal with overspray, though, real military probably doesn't care about that detail.
Otherwise, if you want a sharp line between colors then this would require careful masking and there would not need to be overlap of colors.
Every layer of paint adds weight.
I've painted other colors but not camo and I don't expect it is that easy to do well.
 
I've painted other colors but not camo and I don't expect it is that easy to do well.

Realistic camo is pretty easy to do well, because the people who did it weren't trying to win awards. They were just doing production painting of military equipment. So a run or a fade line or messing up the pattern slightly didn't matter.

One thing I learned from a local P-40 guy was that they would paint the aircraft a base color at the factory, then they had rubber masks they laid on the wings and fuselages to create a mask for the secondary colors. That's why camo jobs on batches of P-40's all looked remarkably similar.
 
What makes for a good camo paint job?

Yeah, OK, valid point! Another way of saying this is: does it need to look "good" from 1 foot or 10 feet or 100 feet or 1000 feet? If it is real authentic camo then we'd hope that the "enemy" wouldn't get any closer than 1000 feet, because the camo is so "good" that you can't be seen!
For an RV, I think many people would like the paint job to look "good" from close up.
 
I’ve done multi color camo schemes several times. The way I do it is to prime the entire airplane first. Let it dry then give it a light scuff sand. Paint the light belly color first. Decide where you the color transition to be and paint a couple inches more than you need. Once that is dry you can start to plan out where the other colors go. If doing hard lines, fine line your sections and mask off areas you’re not painting at the moment. For soft edges I used a separate paint gun for each color I was spraying and sprayed all remaining colors at the same time. For the first color, spray the areas you want it to be in. For each other color, turn your air down and turn the fan control to point. Use the point to draw in your edge then open the fan back up and fill in the void. There will be a little bit of overspray but that is part of the look. It’s a little stressful at the start but once you get going it’s not that bad.
 
Yeah, OK, valid point! Another way of saying this is: does it need to look "good" from 1 foot or 10 feet or 100 feet or 1000 feet? If it is real authentic camo then we'd hope that the "enemy" wouldn't get any closer than 1000 feet, because the camo is so "good" that you can't be seen!
For an RV, I think many people would like the paint job to look "good" from close up.
I would guess military does not want sharp crisp lines, at least not old style camo. New digital style camo maybe different in line sharpness.
 
Think about an aircraft that has been around awhile with battle repairs.......

There's going to be faded paint, new paint, misalignments and patches...


Do that and you don't have to worry about perfection.........



:D
 
Military camo is not pretty. On vehicles it starts with a base color, usually tan, olive drab or white. Shapes are added in a couple of other colors to disguise the profile. The is usually a diagram to give a general layout of the design of the different vehicles . . . not very exact.
 
For an authentic camo paint job, we should rivet random square bits of aluminum to the skin to simulate patches? :D
 
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