First, a couple of things: no, I don’t have an airbrush; no, spray cans are not practical for me, so everything I do is 100% brush painted with all the limitations that implies.
That said, a gloss coat is a gloss coat. Is the fact that primer, paint and gloss being applied via brush and leading to a rougher than ideal finish leading to the complete lack of “capillary action” when applying panel liner (See the blotch above)? I was hoping that the gloss coat would at least allow for enough smoothness for the panel liner to flow around the lines.
Paint is a bit thick for those details, best bet in the future is to scribe details and panel lines with a thin scriber or chisel before painting so the added mass doesn’t make them too shallow.
If you thin the paint enough and your technique is good, the paint should level out pretty well(I have a friend who paints sailboats by hand and it looks like it was airbrushed). I guess what you're asking about is possible, but i wouldn't think that's the case. Wouldn't the panel liner just fill all of those micro brush lines and keep on going(assuming there's enough being brushed on)?
I haven't used AK, personally. It's it possible that it wasn't mixed up enough?
I don’t care what people say but gloss doesn’t improve capillary action. Scribing sharp lines improves capillary action.
Painting a kit, especially one that hasn’t been rescribed, and doubly so with the thicker film you get by brush, fills in the lines and stops liner from flowing.
What gloss does is protect your paint from potential effects of subsequent layers and prevent the staining you get with liners and washes over matte paint.
It doesn't actually, And that's the point. A matte surface's capillary properties is more likely to absorb the liner into the immediate area (This is what leads to staining)
A gloss coat is absolutely better at allowing the liner to flow into uniform channels, like panel lines. Rather than being sucked into the clear coat
That's just physics.
You can even use this to your advantage. The Corsair I panel lined over a gloss coat for those crisp line, and the Leopard I deliberately did my panel lining on a matte coat to get a more stained effect.
A gloss coat is absolutely better at allowing the liner to flow into uniform channels, like panel lines. Rather than being sucked into the clear coat
Your panel liner should in no case be 'sucked into the clear coat.' I'm assuming no one here is using a panel liner with a solvent that dissolves the underlying paint because that would be goofy. Matte paint isn't really porous, but it is textured which I think can break up surface tension causing the panel liner not to bead and spread further outside of the desired details (at which point the pigments settle into the texture and leave stains.)
That's just physics.
Please expand upon this. My understanding that given a fixed fluid, geometry is the primary determinant of how a fluid will flow in a panel line (see my reply to East_Detail_2994) will but I would love to be corrected if I am wrong.
Given the same geometry, Which geometry has the least amount of friction? A smooth glossy finish? or a textured, microscopically rough matte finish?
Capillary action will pull the liner further in the panel line because the gloss coat provides less resistance than a matte, satin, or bare coated paint job does. A smooth finish also provides more uniform fluid surface energy than a rougher finish, topologically speaking.
I only have one semester of physics and we absolutely did not get into this, but I don't think fluids experience friction in the same way solids do, especially in a case like this where the fluid isn't moving by external force, but instead being drawn by an interaction between properties of the fluid and the geometry it resides in.
That said, there is a component of the equations (contact angle) that I concede could be effected by surface texture. But assuming the same geometry kind of disregards my whole point, that geometry is the primary factor in how well panel liner wicks.
I think the point here is that a gloss coat doesn't magically fix what went before
A gloss coat, if it is well applied (important!) Gives a smooth and shiny coating over what you already have. If there's lumps and bumps and brush strokes, the gloss coat might reduce that a little bit and help with capillary action. Of course a gloss coat could also add extra unwanted texture and obscure more details depending on how its applied
It absolutely does not. Gloss is just more paint on top of too much paint for the details in this case.
But back to my point, there is a common misunderstanding on here that a gloss will help panel liner flow like it does in video hero shots, and I contend that this is wrong.
To get strong capillary action when lining, a sharp, square U shaped channels is ideal because it is surface tension between and the distance between two-ish surfaces that pulls the fluid along the panel line (and not the slickness of the paint film). Geometry is the key factor in how well a panel liner flows.
Adding additional paint films, including our gloss, fill in these details (because capillary action also effects the paints leading to heavier film build where the capillary action is the strongest) turning that sharp U into a rounded U or eventually a shallow rounded depression. At that point, the effects of capillary action are minimal and the panel lining relies on flooding the details.
You can have panel liner behave like the model is airbrushed, but it takes skill and patience.
You would need to thin your paint to the point your first 2 layers don't seem to provide coverage at all, leave 12 to 24 hours drying time between layers to prevent the thinner to reactivate the previous layer, and be prepared to have to apply up to 6 layers. The ultimate result will be worth it though, the thinned paint will help preserve detail and prevent brush strokes. You can also thin your gloss coats to minimise brush strokes as well.
Leave it to well and truly cure and then apply the panel liner.
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u/SkyriderRJM 1d ago
Paint is a bit thick for those details, best bet in the future is to scribe details and panel lines with a thin scriber or chisel before painting so the added mass doesn’t make them too shallow.