How repaint a B&W FG Model

[Paperwarrior]

I find myself with A LOT of time to kill due to surgery and would like to take a crack at repainting a couple of FG models. I have the Black and White versions, but how do I open them to repaint? Specific software?

Thanks, Jeff

[Spacemen1969]

Well, the lengthy way is to print them out and do the re-color my hand with markers, which is the way I do it. But, you can also just copy the file and paste it in a Paint document, but it would be quite tricky, I can imagine. Plus, if you do it by hand, you can do what ever colors you want, such as camouflage or solid base color. But for decals, some type of software would be needed.

Hope this helped,

Jarrod,
Spacemen1969



P.S. Here's a of my most recent re-paint.

[Maltedfalcon]

If you are looking for free software then use the Gimp.

GIMP - Downloads (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)

[3Turner]

Using a number of different programs will help you out.

Windows Paint

Gimp

Inkscape

Photoshop

Photoshop Elements

Corel Paint/Draw

And many others I may be forgetting which others can chime in on.

[hawkman67]

I have used PhotoShop to repaint all of the models that I have done, Mainly because that is the program I had at the time and learned how to use some of it, I am still learning how every time I do. Started with B&W FG kits many years ago, did quite a few repaints for Chip, Now do them for Chris's shop..
Jeff

[eric_son]

I highly recommend you get a painting application that supports layers (e.g. GIMP for raster images and Inkscape for Vector images).
You can then load or import the B&W image into one layer.
Then you can create a new layer on top of your B&W image.
On that new layer, you can start making painting your new design using the B&W layer as the template.

[Paperwarrior]

Much appreciated guys! I'll give 'em a try.

[Don Boose]

Jeff -

I have a distinct memory of a tutorial on repainting that used to be at the Fiddlers Green site. As I recall, the aircraft used for the tutorial was the North American FJ-1. I can't find it now, and my memory may be playing me tricks. When I get home tonight, I will check my Papermodeler's Vade Mecum and see if I printed it out.

If DrLaser, Texman, or Rock-Paper-Scissors Don are guarding this push, they may be able to weigh in, either by identifying the FG tutorial, or with advice on how to do it, all three being wizard modifiers of FG models.

Don

[Texman]

Your grid reading is correct Dogface. If you go to the "for designers" section
on the left side of the home page, click "post it comments", in the first paragraph
or so is a link for tutorials. There are several there, including a repaint tutorial by Rob Carleen.

[Don Boose]

Roger copy, Flyboy! Many thanks.

Over to you, Jeff. Fire for effect.

Don

[Paperwarrior]

Thanks a lot guys! I'll head over there and see what I find.

KABOOM!!!!

Jeff

[avro202]

I remember that one by Rob: its very good.

[Paperwarrior]

I just took a look at it. It looks great! -Jeff

[thorst]

I recommend to use GIMP - it's almost as powerful as Photoshop and is free.

To begin, load a BW-model sheet and create a new empty layer. Take the "select by color"-tool. Make sure that "Antialiasing" and "Feather edges" are activated and choose something of about 5px for the feather radius (to avoid single pixel artifacts).
With the grey-red symbols you can set how multiple selections influence each other, for our purpose the one with only red is in general the best, the selections are just combined.
Set the threshold to ~20 (higher if the background has some fluctuations)
Now click into the areas that you want to recolor. They should get a dashed border.

Select the new layer and the "Paintbrush" tool. Choose the color you want to paint with and paint into the picture. Alternatively, if you want to colorize the whole selection, take the bucket fill tool, activate fill whole selection and click into the selection.

You can so do for example a camouflage sheme in one layer.

Now the really useful thing: if you want to give it a weared appearence, create a new layer ontop of the others and paint f.e. the corners of armor plates with a dark color. Work with small opacities for best results. Now you can set the opacity of the new layer, and most important, the layer mode. Mode "Overlay" or "Soft light" are useful for such works, but try all and whatch their influence.

In principle, these are the most useful basics of GIMP for colorization work, at least in my eyes. There are more advanced things you can try (like plasma filters to achieve an irregular look of plain colors), and none of them are hard to learn.

Thorsten

[Paperwarrior]

Very useful information. Thank you.

[Vermin_King]

Gimp has been very good to use, but I'm having issues with multi-page documents. Can't save, or save as, so I just print to pdf. There has to be a better way

[ghshinn]

Here's Rob Carleen's tutorial from FG:

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/TUTORIALS/Recoloring-Card-Models.pdf

Garland

[Vermin_King]

Thanks very much