Up early again, today.
Apparently I was talking in my sleep last night. Mrs. Kenny X informed me. She got up around midnight to check on Vance, as he was coughing real bad -we think he has Asthma and we’ve got a prescription for Singilair for him- so she went to hold him. She said when she came back to bed I was talking:
“I have to line up with the panel line. The panel lines. It has to be straight. NO! It isn’t supposed to look line that...”
That’s interesting
Anyway, I was up early again, and decided to attack those red no-stepping delimiters. I looked over the decals and frankly, I don’t think I could mask and paint them properly @ 1:48. Not “In Production” on this model anyway. I’m going to practice on my paint mule and deploy this technique in the future once I’m confident with it.
So, I opted for decals instead. The Eduard decals. And I would like to amend what I said before. It isn’t as though Eduard’s “misbehave”. Rather, it’s that they’re so thin and come off the backing so easily, and seem almost to want to “position themselves” (I know how crazy that sounds), that it’s more like they’re “TOO OBEDIENT” in the sense that one stray brush stroke or touch and BOOM, the whole thing moves.
What I ended up doing was this:
1. Cut the backing and decal off the sheet
2. Dip it and hold it in water
3. Place the whole thing, decal, backing and all on the model where I wanted it
4. Using the smallest diameter brush I’ve got, very gently, very softly, very gingerly (I really cannot emphasize this enough), very mindfully brush the decal off the backing bit by bit
5. Once the decal is on the model, remove the backing from the model
6. Next, and this is key- breathe deeply and realize that, just like with the golf ball and the hole in the movie
Happy Gilmore, the decal’s natural place to be is in its correct position on the wing. That’s it’s home. And the decal wants to be home.
7. After the
Samyaksambodhi of the concept in Step 6 has been fully realized -and you don’t have much time so make it count- begin to carefully, gingerly, gently, cautiously, mindfully, brush the decal toward home, allowing it to “go home” of its own accord. Just brush it in the direction of its proper position, and it will -I swear to God- almost position it’s self of its own accord.
8. Trim the decal at the wing roots with a sharp hobby knife to get rid of the overlap, using the tip of the brush to gently, gingerly, carefully, mindfully keep that section of the decal positioned.
9. Carefully brush Micro Sol onto the decal, with that same small diameter brush
Here’s what I ended up with:
No folds, no curves, no creases, no bubbles that I can tell.
What a relief.
After coffee, realizing I still had at least an hour and a half until the little ones wake up, I set about doing the small stencils:
And that was that. Not a bad morning’s modeling. I put the numbers in the panel lines. I don’t know why I do, they’re so small. But I do. Unless there’s a decal in the way.
Alright! Back to work at the office. Lunch is almost over.
