When black basing a model. What color do you make the marbleling layer?

In my work I use a significantly lightened version of the final color. That provides the tonal variation needed and doesn’t throw the base color completely out of kilter. With that said I’ve seen others do complementary colors and get to a good outcome.

Hope this helps,
Paul H

Hi Paul. I've been watching the videos that Matt (doog) put out, but really didn't understand how to choose the right color for the marble layer. I kinda had an idea of what I needed, but after several videos I got lost (easy to do for me these days)

Thanks for your response.

To boil down Doog's technique, you can just use your base coat color for the marble layer, but quite thin. The marble layer, with it's varied opacity, provides the tonal variation, then it's brought together with even thinner blend coats.
To get a bit more complicated you can marble with other tones, and Doog illustrates this with a graph showing you work from dark to light, with the lightest layer actually being your base color.
But others might do it differently or a variation of the above.

regards.

I do quite of lot of Black Basing these days on my aircraft builds, and I've approached it in a few different ways.

1st is the most popular method of a black primer, but in some cases a darkish gray works better, that being a light topside color or colors. For the Marble effect I use any one of a good dozen different shades of Gray as long as it's lighter then the lightest color of the color coat. That now gives me a top color scheme of light and darker blotches. Added to that a 3rd or even a fourth color to create staining and deeper shadows. The key is thinned and light layers of color over the black Basing layer. Go easy, and go slow. Stop just as you see the colors blending and let it dry. Usually the effect ends up looking more blended in the dried and cure state. If you feel you want less of an effect, then just add another lay or two. Just remember you can't go backwards and remove a layer of paint.

The 2nd method that I've used is a gray primer with white mottling effect which yields a realistic looking effect on very light color coats.


Joel

Do you guys also use salt, hairspray or chipping fluid techniques to "chip" the paint when black basing? Seems it would be more difficult to accomplish.

Never mind. I found an article related to chipping with black basing.

Doogs Models Technique: Multi-Layer Chipping