Help with "Blackwash"

[adabiri2]

Im readin on this whole blackwash stuff. It does look great but i can't get over rubbing thinner across my glossy paint jobs. You guys have a link or technique to help me fig this out?

[Tom Geiger]

I usually use Tamiya acrylic flat black for my washes. For areas like grills, I'll let it get tacky and then wipe off the high areas with water on a Q-Tip. For highlighting panel lines, I thin a flat toothpick to fit in the crack. It does help to clean up the cracks with the back of a Number 11 blade prior to painting. Some guys will apply the black in the cracks prior to primer, or at least prior to paint. Then you don't have to worry about dragging thinner across your nice paint job. I've also done the cracks on my nice paint job, and again, I try to be careful as I drag the flat toothpick with a bit of paint on it through. I then quickly clean up any overage with the Q-Tip and water. I also found I could use regular turps or thinner on my Duplicolor paint jobs without hurting it. Just don't do that with lacquer thinner! Try it a few different ways, find a technique that you are comfortable with!

[Scuderia]

You could even try it with the grooves on the plastic spoon thats recommended for paint-testing. Just paint up a spoon like you would a part, and test your washing on it.

[Harry P.]

Please post questions in the Question and Answer section.

[adabiri2]

This is the Q&A section isn't it?? I don't get it. U said this last time too. Whats this section for?

[Guest]

Best advise I can give is DO NOT blackwash your panel lines. Simply scribe them deeper with either a razor saw (my preferred method),photo etch saw or by using the backside of a #11 xacto blade. To me, nothing looks worse than blackwashed panel lines. Especially when builders wash the wrong ones. All it takes is a few minutes of research to see which panel lines need to be deepened and which ones don't. The only thing I blackwash on a model is the cowl vents and that's only if I am unable to open them.

[edward smith]

Best advise I can give is DO NOT blackwash your panel lines. Simply scribe them deeper with either a razor saw (my preferred method),photo etch saw or by using the backside of a #11 xacto blade. To me, nothing looks worse than blackwashed panel lines. Especially when builders wash the wrong ones. All it takes is a few minutes of research to see which panel lines need to be deepened and which ones don't. The only thing I blackwash on a model is the cowl vents and that's only if I am unable to open them.

Really? So why scribe them deep if you are not going to add a blackwash? To me it doesn't make any sense.

[cruz]

This is a model with deeply scribed panel lines and a blackwash. I am sorry but yes, in my humble opinion, the panel lines need to be blackwashed after scribing. I keep hearing that it should not be black and that it should be something like a dark gray or something. If you scribe them deep, this is what you get, no matter how dark or lighter your wash is.....

http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki

[Tom Geiger]

I'm with Cruz! Here's a photo of my 1:1 Geo Tracker. Note the panel lines are pretty distinctly black.

[LoneWolf15]

I'm with Cruz! Here's a photo of my 1:1 Geo Tracker. Note the panel lines are pretty distinctly black.

Hmmmmmn , could this possibly be because all of the gaskets on the trunks , doors , etc , are all black ? Excuse my Half Heimerd state of mind , but every vehicle I ever owned , to my recall , had black gaskets .

As has been suggested , scribe the panel lines a bit deeper and use a Rapidoliner pen or thin point India ink marker to blacken them in to represent the gaskets . The thinner and finer the pen point , the better !

[cruz]

http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki

These also look pretty black to me...and it's a real car!

[Matt Bacon]

This debate comes up over and over again on model airplane forums. You get people who "pre shade" the panel lines, and people who "pin wash" them in all kinds of colours, and people who do both. The point is, the gaps between panels on aircraft are microscopic, even on access panels and gear doors that open, never mind between the sheets of metal that cover the airframe. The reason why they do it is that if you took a REAL aircraft and scaled it down to 1/48th of its size, it would look like a toy, because the surface would be smooth and undetailed. It's about creating the "effect" of busy-ness, rather than an exact scale replica... You can argue about how much to do, and what techniques to use, but the principle is to create the illusion of a complex mechanical thing, not a plastic toy.

The same applies to model cars. The build standard for my Skoda Superb is that all "shut lines" should be 5mm gaps, and the "panel lines" (there are only a couple around the bumpers) should be 2.5mm. That means that in 1/24 scale, the shut lines are 0.2mm (say 8 thou), and the panel gaps 0.1mm (4 thou). You don't see many car models with lines that thin, I'd say.

When you look at a 1:1 car, you see the shut lines and panels. So, IMHO, for the same reasons as the aircraft modellers, you want to see some detailing on the car so it doesn't look like a toy. It's not "scale correct", but your brain needs it to be convinced.

Personally, I find "Black wash" is too harsh, especially over lighter colours. Recently I've discovered that Citadel Paints (made by Games Workshop) do a range of "washes" for enhancing detail on their figures. Because dwarves, elves and Space Marines come in all kinds of colours, they make a range of colours specifically intended to go over different base colours. I've laid in a stock of their dark blue, dark green, dark crimson and orange-y yellow, as well as the more standard sepia, charcoal and black washes, and I think they work great on cars.

This is the dark green in action

...and this is the dark red.

You can find them in hobby stores all over the place that sell Games Workshop (Warhammer) supplies.

HTH...

bestest,

M.

[Tom Geiger]

Hmmmmmn , could this possibly be because all of the gaskets on the trunks , doors , etc , are all black ? Excuse my Half Heimerd state of mind , but every vehicle I ever owned , to my recall , had black gaskets .

I think it's more the absence of light in the depth of the panel line. I just went outside and checked my Tracker. The gasket is on the inside lip of the door, which wouldn't be seen in a side view. None of the other panels in my picture have gaskets at all.

[Scuderia]

This turned into 'what do we like' rather than, 'how can we help' lol.

[LoneWolf15]

Mr Geiger ,

I wasn't hacking on you ! Lol ! I was thinking more along the lines of my Silverado pickup or the Mustang . Open the doors on the truck , there are the gaskets , same goes for the trunk on the Mustang .

You do have a valid point with the depth behind the door lines . My reply was more of a tongue in cheek of sorts and I should have presented it in a better way ! My apologies !

I was thinking of this very subject two weeks ago while sitting on the side steps of the shop . The Mustang was sitting in the drive way in the same position as your Tracker was in your photo . Panel lines definitely and prominently present themselves as being black !

[Guest]

Really? So why scribe them deep if you are not going to add a blackwash? To me it doesn't make any sense.

Because once you scribe them deep, they don't need a blackwash because light won't be able to penetrate the line and it will look dark. Yeah,when you look at a real car at a dead on angle, the lines look dark,but when you look at a real car at an angle,the lines practically disappear.

This is a model I recently built. Notice in this photo that the rear door line has almost disappeared. That's because there is paint inside the lines just like a real car has. You won't get that effect with a blackwashed panel line. It will look black and stark no matter what angle you view it from unless you can somehow keep the blackwash from getting on the outside edge of the panel line.

Now look at this photo that is almost a dead on shot,but slightly angled. The lines look dark just as they should and this is with a 100 watt light bulb shining on it from a couple of feet away.

[Bartster]

^ l think we have a winner ! All good points in this thread, but this one makes the most sense to me. Especially with the visual "evidence".

[cruz]

Very cool model Roger, good points, a picture says a thousand words!!

[Blown03SVT]

I guess there many different ways to do it. If the lines are shallow I try to do a few "light" passes with the knife blade but I never have a ton of luck deepening the lines without having a errant skip of the knife blade that I have to fix. That, and it always seems to widen the lines to larger than scale, and leaves plastic fuzzy burrs in the gaps. As I sit and think about it mabe filing the back side of the #11 a little thinner might help with that aspect. I generally use a micro permanant marker (.05mm I think) in the primer phase and then paint. it seems to add just a touch of depth but is still body color.