Painted hull

splodgerboat
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The footie fishing boat’s looking really nice now. First the bottom was given a spray with red oxide colour car primer. This gives lovely rich red colour that I can’t get from hobby paints.

Next the water line was marked with pencil balanced on various boxes until it reached the right height. With the boat in its stand this was fairly painless although I had to guess the height from photos of other peoples models. I then masked this off intended to spray the top colour on.

My planned bright green hit a hitch when the pot of Humbrol enamel I intended to use was found to be nearly empty. Worse, the only shop easily accessible that sold the paint was shut for holidays.

Luckily down the same road was Castle Trains who stock Humbrol acrylics and Games workshop paint. I’ve heard good things about the later but never got around to trying some. Still, after a quick look at the rack of colours I found one I liked, amusingly named “Snot green”.

I’m not sure how to thin acrylic for spraying. Some suggest water will be OK, while others say you need some vile chemical compound that needs full bio-hazard suits to be worn in its presence. So I chickened out and brush painted.

The paint flows well with few bush marks. Two coats gave a good colour depth and hid the primer and test coat of enamel, something that acrylic paint normally balks at.

With the paint on, I added white lines from vinyl lining and named the boat after one of our cats using Bec letters.

Finally, and another first for me, I airbrushed on varnish from a DIY can. I used cheapo Blackstone varnish as found in every pound shop but that was just because all the Ronseal we had was gloss or matt and I wanted satin. The varnish was thinned with cellulose thinners but I suspect Humbrol ones would have worked as well. It took a few hours to dry properly so the cheap varnish probably wasn’t the best idea – or it had gone off a little while sitting in the garage in that pile of mostly finished paint cans we all own.

The varnish will help the stickers stay put, although this isn’t essential as they are supposed to be waterproof. The acrylic paint definitely needs protection though, as the stuff is notorious for rubbing off while handling – not sure if the Games Workshop paint is better in this respect as it’s intended for figures that will be handled. Best of all though, varnish brings some colours alive. The red is vibrant and even the green is improved.