Wednesday, October 3, 2012

How to Paint Hazard/Caution Stripes

Figured since I'm painting a Deathwing Land Raider to sell on Ebay in Nov I would also put up several "how to" posts.  Perhaps these posts will keep my view count up instead of steadily declining as someone says "Great he's putting on Bleach Bone again."  Sort of a way to mix it up.  I do have a game tonight.  BatRep will land Thurs morning.

I plan on fixing bumble bee on the left.  Don't like that at all.

I've never liked caution stripes on vehicles til looking at painted models online.  Then suddenly I changed my mind.  Mostly it comes to the blandness of the stripes that I never liked.  Something I appreciate with the assault ramp of the Land Raider but don't appreciate on the Forgeworld Chapter door.  I have a plan to break it up.

As many of you know.  Lighter colours don't play well with dark colour under/base coats.  I based these with Citadel's White Primer spray.  Don't need an even or thick white just enough to get rid of the plastic grey and off-grey forgeworld resin.

These are my weapons of mass destruction in this theatre.  Turns out won't need one of these because something better comes to mind while doing this.  From top to bottom.  Mechanical drawing pencil (purchased from Blick), 3x5 note card and translucent ruler (purchased with mechanical drawing pencil.)

Working with a small area here.  Can't use standard have to go metric.  I mark every half centimeter.  Remember this is just like marking wood.  Use pencil.  Why?  So you can erase it when you make a mistake.  Preparation now reduces 10x stress later.

Each is marked.  Time to start the chevrons.  Then something occurs to me.

I can't see through, get it I'm doing a play on words, the 3x5 card.  Grabbed the other third of the measure tool set.  This will work nicely.

Using the square part of the ruler with triangle connecting to lines on side of doors I mark in pencil, again so you can erase, the lines that will be for caution stripes.

Looking good except for the chevron points.  Will have to make them more defined with paint.


Really doesn't matter which you lay down first you will be correcting either way.  I chose Flash Gitz Yellow.

Abaddon Black for other stripes.  Had to correct with yellow several times when black didn't want to stay within the lines.  You'll have this problem either way.  Correcting yellow or black.  Unless you really mess up it won't matter which one you start with.  If you do mess up black is easier to clean up than yellow.  Because again lighter colours don't play well with darker colour under/base coats.

So far looking sharp.  Still don't like the ramp side door on left.  Its too solid for me.  I have an idea how to break it up.

Now you can start adding other colours.  Added watered down Boltgun Metal to locks on ramp side door.  Also added it to interlocking teeth of assault door.

Watered down Boltgun Metal on grid.

To break up the pristine metal applied a wash of Badab Black on grid.


slainte mahth

2 comments:

  1. Just an observation but after going to the trouble of marking 1/2cm points on your door you then used 1cm thick chevrons. 1/2cm lines would break up the shape a bit more.
    You might want to try filling in the middle of the side door with the base colour for your tank, keeping the hazard stripes as a border.

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    Replies
    1. The Bear, great suggestions! I hinted at that I have an idea of what I wanted to do to the door. First idea was a strip of Dark Angels Green. Then it occurred to me do battle damage on it. With some muddy boot prints. That will break it up nicely. Of course your colour idea, The Bear, along with that would break up bumble bee a lot.

      Regarding the markings. Wasn't sure how thick I wanted the hazard stripes til it came time to paint them. Thanks for the observation.

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