Cockpit “washing”, dry-brushing with water-based paints

I wrote about this in an earlier post, but now that I have some pictures showing how it looks I’m breaking this out as its own topic.

Before

First Wash

After soaking up extra and a drybrush with black

You can super-dilute water/alcohol based paint and use it as a wash, just like oil-based paint. The increased surface tension of the water means it doesn’t spread as easily as oil-based paint, and tends to bead up. Use a tiny hint of dish detergent, or watch it and brush it out as it dries. I’ve had very nice results using metalic and/or black washes over brown airplane engine exhausts, dark color washes to suggest depth.

Unlike oil paint, when its dry, it won’t come up again, so you can’t do the “sludge” wash to and then clean off the excess for panel lines and the like. On the other hand, with water based paint, you can just blot it up with a damp tissue, paper towel, sponge, etc, if you don’t like how it looks, and if you respond quickly!

If you used Gunze Sangyo water/alcohol based acrylics, you COULD use amonia or an amonia-containing cleaner like Windex to wask it off… or Tamiya paints, which Tamiya thinner will lift readily. I guess I should try a sludge wash with Tamiya black, brown, silver, clear….

Here’s links into my Flickr photo collection:
Before
During
Done

Try it yourself and drop a comment here or post the pictures!