I'm making a Mig-3 model and want to paint it in the brown on green camo scheme. Something like this unfortunately small picture


But realized, oh shoot! How do I make the camo sharp? What I mean by that is, how do I make it have crisp edges, not blurred together at the connection between brown and green?

The model is 1/72 and I have an airbrush, if those are important pieces of info for help.

Thanks guys, I think...er, know you'll have a good answer

Dee

Dee,
I've only done a few camo schemes that required "hard" edges. Most of the schemes I do have the "soft" edges where the two different colors seem to blend thogether. The easiest way for me to do hard edges is to spray the entire plane with the lighter of the two colors, then mask off the areas that will remain this color and spray the dark color. I usually use Tamiya masking tape since it comes off easily and doesn't leave the sticky residue other tapes do. The picture below is a P-40 I did using this method. Hope this helps.

That is exactly what I'm looking for!

Hmmm...I already painted the base coat the green...but I think it should work out okay.

I'll have to see if I can get some good masking tape at Michaels.

Dee

I've been using sticky tac (made by pritt, like blue tac, but white. I think blue tac could work too, but this doesn't leave any residue) for masking camo. Just roll it up to make a sausage of it and stick it on. The rest can be masked with tape or other masking materials. You can achieve different effects by varying the thickness of the sausage and the distance and angle of your airbrush. You can get a softer edge by making a thicker roll and spraying at a slight angle, or a sharp one by making the rolls thinner and pressing them tightly to the model's surface.

The good thing about this method is that the sticky tac is reusable, if you don't the get the right shape the first time, take it off and try again. With tape, you would have to cut another piece.
But the tape method has it's advantages too. If your kit has good drawings of the camo patttern, just make photocopies it at the same scale, then use them as templates for cutting the masking tape. If you apply self-adhesive book covering film to the photocopied patterns, you can stick the tape right over them and cut out the masks with a modeling knife. (if the edges of the camo patttern don't show through the tape, highlighting them with a black marker pen will help)