Weathering & distressing

Everyone has a different take on just how much weathering and distressing is right for RC warbirds, and to be honest, no answer is "correct" for all planes. Some are restorations, nice and shiny, while others are models of historical aircraft that have seen varying levels of both nature's elements and man's battle scars. Add to that, the length of time the aircraft had been in the field, whether it was land-based or on a carrier at sea, and how much "action" it had seen... you get a wide range of possibilities.

My personal taste is for planes that have a decent amount of weathering, since it tends to make the plane look more like a full scale bird instead of a model. Also, the historical battle history of the plane is part of what draws me to it, so I don't care a whole lot for restorations. There's nothing wrong with modeling restorations, it actually gives you a better chance of doing well in competition (more docs and photos available), but it's just not my cup of tea.

The main thing is, weather and distress your plane accordingly. Don't add dirt and scars to your plane if it's a restoration, and don't leave it showroom finish if it spent any time in battle. Here's the rundown on the weathering of Black 3.

Model Master's Acrylics

Paints used

I used a variety of waterbased hobby acrylics to do the majority of my weathering. These were virtually all Model Masters brand. The finish of your paint isn't that important, since you will ultimately clear over it anyway.

Waterbased acrylics are low-tox, water cleanup and very mild on your airbrush. I don't use a lot of different colors, since I mix most of them "on the fly" to get the various shades I need. Some of the colors I used were Flat Black, Flat White, Leather, Armor Sand, Rust and some RLM 76.

I had already used various tones of my 3 base colors to "mottle" the shades of my color scheme back when I painted the airframe, which is really the beginning step of making your finish "weathered" and believable. Make sure you have some good reference photos handy so you can get a feel for what real-life weathering and distressing would look like on a warbird. And more specifically, get good photos of how your particular airframe weathered in the field.

The overall process of weathering is not a single step that you "just do." Rather it is a sequence of steps that I call "layering." Some of these "layers" of weathering must be done in a specific order, others aren't as critical that they are done in any specific order. For example, you can do windstreaking, then panel line accents... or vice versa. It will work both ways, but you'll get a slightly different result depending on which order you follow.

Accenting panel lines

The first step I did when weathering this plane was to go in and accent my panel lines to help bring them out. They were inherently off-shade on full scale planes since they collected dirt in their seams and they were occasionally handled around the edges when removed for repair.

I accent mine by going over them very lightly with an airbrush using various shades of "dirt blends". This process can vary slightly depending on the color scheme that you are weathering. In other words, the base colors/hues can effect your choices for what colors will most realistically augment the panel lines in the desired fashion.

This time, I chose to use various dark and medium gray shades that were a mixture of Black, Leather and Armor Sand colors. These colors were mixed and then diluted extensively, as much as 50-70% water in most cases. On the lighter RLM 76 colors, I actually used some Acrylic RLM 76 in the mixture to keep the hue on track. Yellows get more of the brown "Leather" color for accents, and the red areas actually get the RLM 23 Red in place of the Armor Sand color. Don't overdo this step, you just want to "hint" the lines.