Scale Aviator International Magazine Issue 3 | Page 65

MASTER CLASS in PILOT PAINTING

PAINTING THE FIGURE
awesome! Leather grain, stitching, pleats, wrinkles, it all shows up and looks great.
Painting a figure can be to see down into about 4 steps. 1) Paint a medium base coat
Okay... maybe I do needbroken a therapists. This guy gets excited about l1/5 scale
of the main color. 2)
leather gloves Doc! 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
SCARF rule, if it gets hit by light or is the highest object, it gets a highlight. If it is in the
a general
shadow or recessed, it gets a wash. This visually exaggerates the 3-D qualities of the
Ah, the scarf. Is there anything else that says fighter pilot like a silk scarf? Of course this
sculpture.
wasn�t just for show, but a necessity to keep the pilots neck from being rubbed raw from
the constant headpilots forlooking for bogeys. Youthat I get as fancy as you wish withI the
Since I sculpt the turning Best Pilots, and knew can would be painting (or hoped
color of these. I of them,that some of the RAF pilots had patternedas I could different
would be!) a lot noticed I jam-packed as much detail and texture scarfs of into the
colors. For most texturethey used silk from old parachutes, which wereyou when dry For
figures. The 3-D pilots, in the pilots actually does a lot of the work for mostly white.
Sailor�s scarf we�ll stickwashes. Thats what make these pilots the white. Then a very
brushing and applying to white and paint a base coat of MMA Flat
thin wash of Burnt Umber is applied, taking care to flow the wash into the folds and lines
BEST!
of the scarf. If necessary, you can go back and dry brush with Flat White again, to coax
Lets little the Sailor Malan figure from
out apaint more texture from the scarf. Best Pilots.
MISC.
UNIFORM
Button - Flat Black base coat, dry brush with MMA leather or wood.
As stated above, everything gets a base coat. The blue MMA
Tiny Leather Strap - Flat Black base coat, dry brush withwoolenleather or wood.
uniform ofemergency inflate tube - Just my owncoat of MMA Burnt Sienna and