Scale Aviator International Magazine Issue 3

MASTER CLASS in PILOT PAINTING PAINTING THE FIGURE Painting a ﬁgure can be broken down into about 4 steps. 1) Paint a medium base coat of the main color. 2) Choose a darker color of the main color and apply a wash and/or 3) Dry Brush a lighter color of the medium color. 4) Apply a ﬂat clear coat. That is really it. This brings out the detail, adds interest and makes up for the smallness of the ﬁgure. As a general rule, if it gets hit by light or is the highest object, it gets a highlight. If it is in the shadow or recessed, it gets a wash. This visually exaggerates the 3-D qualities of the sculpture. Since I sculpt the pilots for Best Pilots, and knew that I would be painting (or hoped I would be!) a lot of them, I jam-packed as much detail and texture as I could into the ﬁgures. The 3-D texture in the pilots actually does a lot of the work for you when dry brushing and applying washes. Thats what make these pilots the BEST! Lets paint the Sailor Malan ﬁgure from Best Pilots. UNIFORM As stated above, everything gets a base coat. The blue woolen uniform of the RAF gets a base coat of my own mixture for RAF b

Scale Aviator International Magazine Issue 3 | Page 63