Hogbopper

Hello all i am a little new to modling but willing to learn i need help on painting a cockpit instrument panel for a lysander if any one could help me out that would be great i kind of need a step by step help with pictures i hope some body can help me out cheers.

Bunkerbarge

Firstly a warm welcome to the forum Hogbopper. We look forward to seeing your postings and maybe even one or two pictures of your projects.

As for your Lysander, techniques will vary a bit with size. What scale is the model, whose make is it and what meterials is it made from etc..etc..

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GEEDUBBYA

Howdy Hog,

First allow me to also welcome you to the forum. Much like Bunkerbarge....I dont know what scale model you are dealing with so this will be abit vague. I also dont have any photos, but these instructions should be straightforward enough that you should be able to follow them.

First, you need to decide what color the overall instrument panel will be on your model....ie...black, olive drab, gray etc....
Once the entire panel has been painted I "drybrush" the instruments usually with white paint. This is achieved by dipping your brush in the white paint and then removing almost all of the paint by brushing it onto a piece of paper or cardboard....you only want to leave enough paint in the brush so as that when you brush across the instruments, the paint will only appear on the "high spots" of the panel. Now mind you, the less paint in the brush, the less the effect, but that is ok....in this case, less is more because you can always repeat the process and the effect will increase. you can repeat this as often as needed to achieve the desired effect.
Now, after I finish that step, I go one step further, I occassionally use a bottle of clear fingernail polish and with the brush provided in the bottle, apply a small "drop" of the polish to each gauge....when dry, this gives the illusion of "glass" over the dials.
One other tip, you can dry brush different "gauges" with different colors if desired using the same method as above....this gives you abit of color on the dashboard. common colors would be red, yellow white, maybe a light blue or even silver.
Like I said, I know this is vague, but, with a little practice, you can achieve some really nice results.
If you have any other questions on this or anything else, be sure to ask, someone will be glad to help.
you will also find some tips as well as other useful information on this site:

http://www.craigcentral.com/modelmain.asp

Have a good day and I hope i have been of some help to you,

Greg

wonwinglo

Hello Hogbopper,and a warm welcome here,as I suspect you are dealing with tiny instrument panels then perhaps I can add a few tips to supplement Gregs notes-
Some kits have tiny panels with raised dials,others have virtually nothing,in both cases bringing those dials to life at say 1=72nd,1=48th is tedious,but a very effective panel can be made by first painting your base colour of the panel itself,for the sake of simplicity we could use matt black,or grey for that matter,once the panel is dry then open a tin of gloss varnish,apply tiny bezels by using the very tip of a 00 sized brush,to the scale mentioned this looks effective and really brings those instruments forward,it is all about making the eye think they are instruments,for raised instruments just use a dry brush technique,this involves dipping the very tip of your brush into say silver paint,then roll the brush on a piece of paper before stroking the raised portions of the bezels,they then start to come to life,once dry then drop a tiny amount of gloss varnish into the instrument dials,this looks like glass when dry.
This is just one way that you can bring the instrument panel to life,can I suggest that you get any old model and practise before committing to a good model,practise as they say makes perfect,experimentation is the answer,and above all we all have our own ideas about how a job is done.

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www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Hogbopper

Many thanks all for help i will be trying these tip out later cheers.

Robert

Hogbopper

This is my cockpit of my Lysander.

jeffsinclair

what i tend to do is paint the whole panel white and leave it to dry. then go over the whole panel in dark grey or black and leave it about 10 or 15 minutes to just start going off. then with a cotton bud gently burnish the panel. What should happen is the dark paint wil be rubbed off the raised detail and edges giving a worn look and really nice looking dials. then the drops of gloss for glass and hey presto, a decent looking dash.
Also is anyone else as anal as me about finding the right colours and positions for the various lights on the instrument panels? or does everyone else have a life? lol
jeff

jeffsinclair

Sorry hogbopper, meant to put on my reply, really good looking instrument panel. Looking forward to seeing the finished plane. Havent built a lysander for years. might have to go and get one now.
jeff