Probably dumb newbie questions .... (long)

[SC Lexicat]

Hey Chris,

We're out here. At least I am. Another Brit who contributes from time to
time is Ken Duffey, who runs the Soviet aircraft SIG in IPMS, and you'll
notice others around.

There's some stuff on washes and drybrushing in the FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions) which are updated and posted on the group about once a month.
If your newsgroup feeder can go back as far as Tuesday 26 Dec, that was
the last time they were posted.

(I've Emailed Chris direct with some relevant extracts - no need to take
up bandwidth here)

My personal taste is to wash with thin solutions of artists ink (Windsor &
Newton available from all art shops in many useful colours). The black is
the most docile - I dilute it with water & a tough of washing up liquid -
just a tiny amount to make the wash "wet" the surface properly. Then slap
it on with a brush, wait for it to dry a while and you can clean up with a
damp cotton bud the bits you don't want washed. This also helps to
feather in the edges so you don't get tide marks like the one around my
bathtub :-) .

When it comes to drybrushing, which is an overwhelmingly useful technique
for highlighting cockpit detail and weathering, I tend to do something
different from what most people do. My technique is to use artists pastel
pencils, usually in a grey or lighter shade of whatever the base colour
is. If you build WW2 aircraft, get a silver, a white, a couple of greys,
& a couple of various browns like umber & sienna. You can pencil them on
directly (e.g. when picking out instrument detail in white), or for a more
subtle effect fiercely colour in a blob on some scrap paper, and transfer
the pigment to your model using a cotton bud, or maybe lick the end of
your brush & use that. Experiment freely 'cos it all comes off real easy.
Too easily in my view, and despite what someone says in the FAQ, my
experience is you should airbrush a final coat of flat / satin / gloss
varnish as appropriate to fix in the pastel powder.

Anyway, hope this helps & welcome to r.m.s. Hope you enjoy it.

Simon Craven
England

[J M Makar]

With respect to the UK web page, how about a listing of suppliers
of UK/commonwealth specific models and parts? There's been a fair amount
of traffic from people looking for things that aren't available in other
parts of the world.
-Jon