When pre-shading panel lines and othe details, is it ok to do it with an enamel, and then once it dries to apply an acrylic coat of paint? Does it matter if pre-shading is done manually or by air brush?

when pre-shading panel lines and other details on the model you can use enamel for this and use your base cote with acrylic . However though the enamel paint must be fully dried before any other type of paint is applied . Enamel over acrylic is another story . The paint will eat into the acrylic paint and ruin your work . Per-shading is best done with an airbrush , brush painting will work but the effect will not be all that great . You can also use a sharpie ( balck maker ) , but there is the chase of the ink running or over time sepp through the paint .

To play it on the safe side it would be easier if you pre-shade in acrylic then your base clouors should be the same and the same with enamel .

It would be best if you used one type of paint for all the painting and weathering but I know of others that do mix their paint types and have success.

An airbrush is needed for doing pre-shading, if you used spray cans it would be hard to control the paint flow and you would find that you covered up the pre-shading too much for it to be seen.

Here is a Fw 190F-8 that I pre-shaded earlier today. I started out with a base coat of the undersurface color and added some pre-shading with black and white paint.


And here is the same model after the pre-shading was covered up by the undersurface color and I put on just enough paint for the pre-shading to still be seen (but just barely). The biggest mistake I see on most models that have pre-shading on them is they seem to have pre-shading on every panel on the aircraft and that makes the model look like it has some sort of bizarre camo pattern on it.



Matrixone

I see that your lines are very soft, contrary to the real heavy dark lines that I've seen before in pre-shading examples

Gendrok,
As you can see in my in-progress pics of my Fw 190F-8 I like to have my pre-shading very subtle, this would not be very easy to do without using an airbrush.
My model looks very rough right now but after the rest of the camo is painted and the markings are on the pre-shading will hardly be noticed. Pre-shading is a great way to add some weathering to an aircraft model but sadly some people take it to such extreme levels that instead of looking like an aircraft with some weathering on the paint job the models end up looking very toylike.

Below is a recent model of mine that had pre-shading done the exact same way as the Fw 190F-8 pictured in my earlier post, as you can see (just barely!) that the pre-shading is very subtle and hardly noticed on the finished model, it helps to have photographs of the aircraft you are modeling nearby to look at when adding pre-shading or other weathering effects so you don't over do it.



Some people say that pre-shading is just a fad and does not help the model look more realistic but I don't agree with that line of thought, if done correctly its an important tool for weathering aircraft models.

Matrixone

Gendrok, Les does a great job with pre-shading. I rarely use the technique but when I do, I keep it subtle.
[quote]...some people take it to such extreme levels that instead of looking like an aircraft with some weathering on the paint job the models end up looking very toylike.[/qoute]

Les is correct. A few years ago a popular model magazine featured and praised a B-29 with pre-shading, but the panel lines were so dark it looked like the airframe was covered with quilted cloth.

Thanks guys I'm going to keep this in mind and go very easy on the airbrush. Any settings to recommend/

Fred,
That model of the B-29 is a perfect example of the pre-shading being overdone! I have seen other models that were as bad or worse than the B-29.
I think what is going on is when a modeler who visits a modeling forum and sees pics of a model with extra heavy weathering on it and the response to the model is a bunch of oohs and ahhs from the other forum members so the modeler will then try and copy what he sees and maybe will add a little bit too much of the weathering to his model to try and match the model he had seen that got a lot of praise. Adding too much of anything will ruin a model, and pre-shading is the worst thing to have too much of.

Gendrok,
When I add pre-shading I use a dark colored paint and have it thinned more than usual and lower the air pressure slightly to get the airbrush to spray fine lines. You don't have to be very precise when spraying on the pre-shading and its actually better if slightly off in a few places to get a more random look to it.
I usually will have the pre-shading heavier around the engine cowling and much lighter towards the wingtips. Panels near the engine will have more of a chance to be exposed to fluids leaking from the engine and thus will attract more dust and dirt and which is what make the panel lines more visable, and I try to copy that look on my models.
When you are starting to cover up the pre-shading thin your paints more than usual, you want to put on lighter coats of paint and slowly build up the paint layers, if you use thick coats of paint you could very easily cover up too much of the pre-shading and erase all the work you had done.
I have been building models for years and STILL cover up too much of the pre-shading, its hard to judge how much of the pre-shading to leave exposed because the other weathering effects will slightly mute the pre-shading and also adding the markings can alter how the pre-shading looks on the finished model.

HTH

Matrixone