#426 Project ~ Micro Painting

"Oh how dost one paint th' sill of a window so tiny! Without crooked brushstrokes, yet look so tidy?"  ~ Shakespeare

I just came across a picture set I took but never posted. So I thought I would share it with you now.

 Painting window sills on models is quite difficult and can make or break the fine look of it. So I thought I would try to put as much energy and patience as possible into the preparation rather than the execution.

 My hands are still pretty steady, but not steady enough to attempt painting all these window sills with a tiny brush. That would be tedious. And tedious = not fun. A much better approach would be to do all the work up front, at my leisure, and then blast it all with and airbrush! Now thats fun!

Start by cutting a length of masking tape to the height of the window sills. Then I measured off a scale 3" and marked it with an exacto.

 Squaring off by matching the top of the ruler with the top of the mask, cut at the 3" mark.

Bingo! Straight and squared.

 Use the knife to place the piece...

 and then the point of the knife to nudge the mask into its precise position.

 A small screwdriver is used to tuck in the mask into the corners.

 The smooth, rounded end of a paint brush can be used to burnish the mask so it will hold its position.

 Repeat above steps until all the posts are masked.

 Then mask off the rest of the car that will be in the line of fire of the airbrush. Now only the sills are exposed.

 Now I can blast away with the airbush, shaky hands be damned!

 I love this part. Peeling off the masking, revealing nice straight lines and smooth paint.

And there you go! Took some time investment, but the results are worth it. And its so much easier than trying to paint all those sills with a tiny brush. Yes sir! So much easier than using a brush! 

Dandy