It just takes a little practice, that's all. And straying away from the concept that the airbrush should lay down a color in one or two passes.
There was some work that I did last night that I didn't report. The grey "7" on the starboard fuselage was sprayed out and replaced with a light blue.
After the topside touch-ups, the camo was given a clear coat (Alclad Aqua Gloss) to seal the paint. I applied masking around the perimeter of the red/white zone and a base coat of white was sprayed on. This was where I left Red 1 last night.
This evening, I set about cutting long strips of masking tape for the stripes. I'm worried about all of this tape. I had a problem with paint coming up with the masking tape on my last build. In guard against that, I've been very conscious of wiping down the surfaces prior to painting and then wearing gloves to avoid getting any finger oils under the paint job.
Once the stripe masks are put into place, the red is sprayed on. For both the white and red, I've increased my paint mixtures to 2:1 thinner-to-paint. There is no pre-shading to dial in and I'm just looking for solid coverage.
After the red is sprayed on and left to dry for about 30 minutes, the tape is removed. Halfway through, it's looking really good. No big tape lifts of the topside camo!
There are some very small spots where the stripe mask was not all the way down but overall, the stripes came out great.
The perimeter masking was removed VERY carefully and again, I didn't experience any tape lift. It looks like my precautions paid off.
There are some areas of overspray but the areas are very small and look to be easily correctable.
I'm going to give the bottom a quick seal of Aqua Gloss, make some overspray repairs and then it'll be time to start the markings!
