Zoe Brain suggested I explain how I did the 'squiggle camo' on my Dornier 217, so now that it's done (except for the prop discs), it would seem apropos to do just that!
The first two pictures below are the 'patterns' I found that I wanted to mimic - the first is a Steve Zaloga painting of a 217 launching the Henschel 293s, and the second is a picture of a model (either 1/72 or 1/48) with a more substantial squiggle pattern. I was shooting for something in between...
Here is my cup o' brushes (thanks again, Neil - it has pride-of-place on my workspace) - you can see the basic sizes displayed. I like to use as big a brush as possible, with a tip that comes to a nice point; but for fine detail like this required, I used a 10/0 with the opaque rubber 'handle' (another picture of that a bit further on).
One of my typical palettes - plastic and nothing special - with the Vallejo color I used for the RLM 76 squiggle color. I typically squeeze a smallish dollop into the cup and then add two drops of water (using the plastic pipette you can see in the brush cup above). I almost always thin my paints with H2O, especially for painting small surfaces and when I want there to be a smooth surface.
The nice thing about painting this bomber was that, when it was on a bomber stand with one bomber peg, it was at the perfect height to sit on my table and then allow me to rest my painting hand on my free hand to steady it as I painted the pattern. I am left-handed, so I paint with my left and rest on my right.
Here is the aforementioned 10/0 brush resting against the Dornier so you can see the size - it has a nice tip and holds a satisfactory amount of paint to be going on with
As always, thanks for looking - now on to Post #2 and the development of the pattern!
All the best,
Matt
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