Re: [OT] a clarification of my comments to David (of DLD fame)

Allan Goodall wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 10 Apr 2002 17:34:06 -0400, "Laserlight"
<laserlight@quixnet.net>
> wrote:
> 
> >I don't know if you saw that APC I was paintiing in Stuart's class,
> >but I did everything just by dabbing sage-green with the latex sponge
> >wedges, and it looks pretty fair.  Stuart did another one in a green,
> >brown and black pattern, took about 5 minutes.
> 
> Okay, is this as easy as it sounds? Are there any tricks to the
technique?
> Which side of the latex wedge (or sides) did you use? Inquiring minds
wanna
> know!

Well, as for "easy", the one I did sponging (dabbing) came out better
than straight-up painting by far (still was the "getting there" stage
;-).
You have to be careful to not have *too* much paint on the sponge, or
not to press too hard when dabbing (lest you fill in the cracks that you
really don't want to fill). The way I did it was to put the sponge over
the opening of the bottle, invert for a moment, revert back, then start
dabbing off the excess paint onto another surface (Stuart showed me a
new use for all those AOL CDs that come in the mail ;-) ;-) until you
have just a bit, then start gently dabbing. Keep dabbing until you start
to see a change (and don't forget to move around the vehicle (or figure)
as you dab ;-). When the sponge runs out of paint, smear it around a bit
in the excess you left off on the CD or where ever you wiped, and go at
it again.

You can use any/all sides of the sponge. In general I've seen that one
uses the long leg or "hypotenuse" sides for general dabbing, the short
leg for smaller area dabbing, and the thin edge (where long leg and
hypotenuse meet) for getting into nooks and corners. For the visually
impaired I present this wonderful ascii drawing:

		  /|
		/  |
      hype    /    | SS
	    /	   |
	  /	   |
	/	   |
   edge ------------
	     LL

Of course, given the granularity of ASCII drawings you'll have to
abstract a bit.  ;-)  So I've labeled LL (long leg), hype (hypotenuse),
SS (short side), and edge (edge ;-)  for you.  :-)

Note: sponging is MUCH harder to do with 1/300 scale tanks than 15mm
tanks. ;-)  I think I got more paint on my thumb and fingers than I
did on the vehicles when I was working with them last week.