Panel Lines

[Fighter Pilot]

The fact that Royal Navy aeroplanes were cleaned to a much higher standard is an oft stated misconception.  A quick Google search will reveal hundreds of extremely grotty FAA aeroplanes in service both at sea and ashore.  Usually there was no time for cleaning and polishing, it was a job just to get them serviceable for the next sortie!  Discipline never came into it!

 

The fact is there was usually little time for "husbandry" whilst deployed.  The environment is very unforgiving and even modern FAA aircraft quickly deteriorate and they are meticulously looked after.

[Braille Dave]

I have to say, from personal experience- the only naval aircraft I've seen that are kept tidy are the Hawks- which are maintained by a civvie company. The Lynx's are decidely 'tired' now- the gray is faded and patchy (unfortunately, a side-effect of matt grey paint), there are oil stains and various unidentified drip stains.

the other thing I want to say....having worked on the apron of a large airport, and having been within 72feet of an aeroplane...I can safely say that you cannot see panel lines...Two reasons for this; One, civvie aeroplanes especially are painted with all the panels in place (usually a complete repaint, including previous finish stripped off, is about 8hrs, new livery might be 18hrs)... And the other is that most panels are angled- not butted. 

Civvie aeroplanes are also washed frequently; a smoke wash (some aircraft when using reverse thrust get exhaust stains on the rear fuselage) every couple flights, a complete wash weekly.

Now the military aircraft I've seen: A couple of F3 Phantoms, dirty and streaky, but no panels apparent...although the panels on the wings were obvious- the grey paint had faded differently on different panels.

The Tornado F3's had really prominent panel lines around the rear fuselage- due to the thrust reversers leaving soot in every crevice...including screws! In fact the Tornado's back end is always dirty- not so noticeable on the grey/green ones... Until you put your hand on it...

Dominies, HS125's, Jetstreams and 146's were always tidy, and 10 sqn weren't called 'Shiney Ten' for nothing. The RAE Viscount always looked very tidy...until you got up close, then you realised most of it was brush painted!

[Andrew Thomson1707819853]

 

I have read with some amusement/trepidation on the above discussion. I feel many people nowadays are taking the hobby far too seriously, relax and enjoy it boys and girls. The comments about building your own model to the standard that satisfies you, I believe, are the ones to listen to. There are always going to be differing opinions but above all, the model is yours - do what you think is best !!

[richard baker1707820250]

For what it's worth, i agree 100% with Mossieman,

it is being taken far too seriously.

 

Rich.

 

[Michael Meister1707820176]

I agree with Mossieman as well, for a number of years I was obsessed with accuracy, camo schemes, paint colours, weapons loads etc and I was finding that I was losing interest in what should be a fun hobby as I was spending more time on research than building.

Now I build out of the box except for weapons added and I am having a lot more fun than before.

[Peter Terry1707820234]

 Hi Guys,

This debate on panel lines is all about the eye of the beholder if it looks good to you as the modeller then it is good, As i once asked a Buccaneer pilot do you ever check your aircraft over for weathering or dirty panel lines, Reply, to many other things to do than waist time on that.May be we should look at things from the operators point of view for a change ?

Peter 

[Braille Dave]

Can I point out that pilots are not the operators of the aircraft! They only fly the things and are told where to go ( in both cases, sometimes) by operations staff. The aeroplanes themselves are fixed by engineers, and are operated by squadrons, or airlines or operators.

Operations staff, rightly IMO (having been one), think it's their aeroplane, as they decide what aeroplane does what flight, and what crew will fly it that day...Engineers, think it's their aeroplane, because they maintain them and care for them... The arguments often go on all nightshift.

...Pilots just want to fly, and frankly don't care much what colour it is let alone how clean it is...

[Braille Dave]

...To me, half the fun is in the research, and producing as accurate a representation as I can... that's what floats my boat, and that's what the OP asked...

 

If you have a different view, then fair play to you...

[nmcabecadas]

I want to make accurate models who can be as real as possible in pictures, so I need to include exagerate details or even panel lines to allow them to be clear in the pictures. It also means adding more deep shadows in cloths and even in the skin.

 

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[Sausage Fingers]

Each to their own with pre-shading but I have to confess, to my relatively inexperienced eyes, I do struggle to see the relevance. Not only that (and perhaps it's why I can't see the relevance) I can't seem to do it... I've tried on scrap models but for me the pre-shading just gets eaten up by the final coats of paint! I realised that it wasn't for me, anyway.

 

I would prefer to put on a couple of light coats of the final paint scheme, then weather on top. To my mind that's what would happen in real life - fresh paint would become weathered rather than any weathering coming from underneath it. Of course great models can be clean and 'factory fresh', but are they realistic? Even the newest planes by the time they got to service would have some sort of staining. Wartime aircraft particularly wouldn't have had the cleaning they might otherwise have done. So whilst there is no doubt in my mind that a pristine WW2 modelled craft looks beautiful, the likliehood is that it would have had at least some sort of fuel/exhaust/gun stains with paint wear somewhere on it.

 

Royal Naval machines were maintained beautifully, that was part of Naval discipline, but even then there'd have been fading and staining of various kinds - again, fuel, oil, hydraulic, gun and salt water. Arguably though, trying to attain a realistic 'faded' paint job just ends up looking like, well, a bad paint job from the modeller (well, it does in my case). Yet I am happy to lightly weather my planes by way of the panel lines and other stains. Thus the combination of 'pristine' paintwork with such panel line treatment and other stains might be an anomaly, but to my mind it works.

 

Whilst, then, it might not be 'accurate', to my mind it does look 'realistic'. I suppose it's 'scale vs realism' again. In any event, it's interesting to see it's just a thorny subject here as anywhere else!

 

[peebeep]

Pre-shading has become old hat in some quarters, the latest fad seems to be black basing and marbling. Whatever floats your boat at the end of the day. The real artists (in my opinion) are using post-shading and highlighting to achieve faded effects and personally I think pre-shading is best employed to enhance areas of shadow, but your mileage may vary. It does often seem to be the case that showy paint jobs are there to display technique and not enhance realism in the model.