quick question

[always_opencarb]

do you paint lightest color to darkest color? sorry i forgot :o

[smalls92]

http://www.rctech.net/articles/painting_hauntedmyst3.shtml#sub03

One of my favorite effects to do is the lightning effect and it's a fairly simple effect to practice your airbrush control with. Plus it's one of those designs it's hard to screw up on and it just plain looks cool! There are a few different ways of achieving the lightening strikes. I will cover two techniques, first the hard way and then the easy way.



The Hard Way
Coat the entire body or the section of the body you want to have lightning strikes on with liquid mask.
In between coats of liquid masking, doodle lightning streaks on the outside of the body. Don't worry about creating straight lines since lightning isn't straight. Don't forget to add multiple forks in the lightning.
Once the liquid mask is completely dry, carefully cut out the thin strikes of lightning with a Xacto knife. Again, don't worry if the strikes are irregular since lightning is irregular!
Once you have the lightning streaks cut out in the body, it's time to break one of the supposed cardinal rules of painting by painting the white first! Spray the lighting with 3 or 4 coats making sure to get even coverage.
Once it's dried, spray it with a backing of Pactra Silver from a paint can. This will protect the background color from bleeding into it. Once that step is dry, peel off the rest of the liquid mask.
(If you have don't have an airbrush skip this step.) Again, using white or silver (or dark blue), you want to spray about a quarter inch fog down the solid lines of the lightning. This will give a nice haze effect that lightning has. DO NOT attempt to back the fog/haze with Pactra Silver, you will only screw up the body since it's impossible to do with any accuracy and it's unnecessary. FYI, instead of white, you can try spraying the fog with Purple to simulate the ionization in the air around lightning.
Move on to Completing the Night Sky.


The Easy Way
Cut out the complete area that will have the lightning in it.
Simply draw the lightening on the body using an Opaque Paint Marker from a craft store. This is remarkably simple and gives great results! Again, don't worry if the lines are irregular since lightning is irregular!
Again, using white or silver (or dark blue), you want to spray about a quarter inch fog down the solid lines of the lightning. This will give a nice haze effect that lightning has. DO NOT attempt to back the fog/haze with Pactra Silver, you will only screw up the body since it's impossible to do with any accuracy and it's unnecessary. FYI, instead of white, you can try spraying the fog with Purple to simulate the ionization in the air around lightning.
Move on to Completing the Night Sky.

[MT2 owns you]

not sure but i think you mask off what you dont wanna paint the first color(darkest) then remove the mask and paint the lighter color. when people say what they painted notice when they say "backed wiht ____" its usually like silver or white. i may be wrong but thi is what i seem to remember

[Phil Manro]

Standard rule of thumb is darker colors 1st (but sometimes you have to break this rule).

Phil