Kribman Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 I am painting a musky sized shad bait and found some really cool silver enamel for models. I am planning on spraying that for the side, white on the belly (naturally), black on the top, a strip of iridescent blue underneath the black, a black head that I will spray the face over with silver. Thats the gist of what I am going to do. But I want to do mesh scales. what color should I spray under the silver enamel for the scale accent? I don't want to steal any creativity, I just can't spit any out for myself... Oh, and I'm not so good at the step of the mesh style scales, so any steps or when I should spray the color for the scale accent in relation to the other colors would be helpful... thanks a ton guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snax Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 What I often do for a subtle scale is to use a flat white base and then spray a pearl or metallic white through the mesh. The flat white scale outline is visible but not as pronounced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 Kribman, Within the color pattern you say you want, I'd spray the entire bait with the belly white, then put on my mesh and spray the sides and shoulders with the silver. Remove the mesh. Then do the transparent blue shoulders over the scale, and the black back and face. Typically, there should be some contrast between the base coat, in this case the white, and the scale color, in this case silver. I think your colors will make a more subtle scale effect, but it may work. Do a test on a piece of cardboard first, so you can play around. If you're making a musky bait, which I never have, everything I've read here says yellow perch. With that in mind, you might want to test silver over yellow, and see if that works, and then put yellow over the white sides and shoulders before you scale with the silver. Some of the best scale patterns I've seen here use the silver as a base coat, and then blend in different transparent colors on the sides and shoulders for the scale color. Again, cardboard testing is cheap. And if you buy some self-adhesive drywall mesh tape, it's easy to test scale patterns. Even if that's not the final scale pattern you use, it should give you a good idea of how different colors work together, and it's easy to use and cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 Snax, If I had waited just a little, I could have saved all those keystrokes and just let you answer the question! ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captsully18 Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 Kribman, don't know what types of paint you are using, but I would like to suggest that if using Createx, spray a light coating of med. gray on sides before using the silver enamel. Think this will add plenty of contrast for your scale effect. I have never used enamel over Createx so I would definitely try it on cardboard first. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snax Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 Snax,If I had waited just a little, I could have saved all those keystrokes and just let you answer the question! ) Ha,ha,ha!!! Actually I liked your answer Mark. Great advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
