fading paint scheme

[kelltym88]

Hey everyone,
How's it flyin'? I'm trying to find out how to blend or 'fade' two colors together. I've got a Mean Machine that I have modified to 29mm and want to give it a different paint scheme than the original. I do not have an airbrush, I want to do it using spray paint. Hope you know what i mean by "fading". Thanx,

kelltym88

 

[teflonrocketry1]

For a fade outs, I use a concentric ring of two diameter wide body tubing and some centering rings. I paint the lighter color fist, then after it completely dries, I place the open edge of the wider body tubing at the point where I want to start the fade out. The bottom of this mask tubing is closed with several centering rings that hold it in place evenly around the body tube. I use a few inches length of tubing and the centering rings are placed at the rear (or bottom) of this tube. I mask the rest of the area past the closed end of the tube. This forms a cup like mask around the body tube. I spray the darker color perpendicular to this assembly evenly over this entire rocket to give a nice smooth fade out. You will have to experiment with the depth of the cup and its diameter to get the effect you want after the mask assembly is removed. Wider mask tubing gives a longer fade out with more wavy edges.

Hope this helps,

Bruce S. Levison, NAR #69055

 

[Stymye]

you could do it with spray cans
the basic rule is to,
paint the lightest color first ,let it dry,or nearly dry
spray the next lightest color,leaving some of the first color
and so on, spraying the darkest color last

I did a Fat Boy this way , except all the colors were still wet
and they sorta bled together it came out as a cool melted candle look
also make sure to use the same brand of paint for all the layers

 

[KermieD]

Bruce,

Your method sounds very interesting. Any chance you could post a sketch or something to help me visualize it?

-Jon

 

[astrowolf67]

I've done one fade out so far, and the results were pretty good. I basically did what Styme said. Started with the lighter color, then with the next darker color, spraying away from the original color.

 

[Vance in AK]

I did mine pretty low-tech using rattle cans, I'm guessing the same way Stymye & David did. Wanted the front white & rear red. Painted it all white first & let it dry. After it dried thouroly(how do you spell that word?) I shot the red. I painted the red going from the nose of the rocket toward the tail only, & started the strokes with the can angled toward the back at about a 45* angle each time. No masking. I was happy with the results. A few red speckles toward the front, building pretty quickly into solid red as you progress rearward. All in all a nice effect. Started somewhere between 1/3 & 1/2 way back on my Gemini DC.