Pencils…. who knew?

The first model I made when I came back to the hobby was, of course, the 48th scale Tamiya F4U-1A in the tri-colour finish. And I was all about experimenting with that one. I did exhaust staining, oil staining, fuel staining….

And I tried adding chipping.

I think I read somewhere that people added chipping using ‘Prisma’ pencils. So, that’s what I went out and bought. But, I didn’t think anything more about it. I just sharpened and went to town adding pencil chips to pretty much every metal panel, rivet head and corner on the model.

To say it looked a little weird was an understatement. It kinda looked like it was peppered by hail or maybe caught the dreaded silver measles. After that, I put the pencils away for a long time.

However, it was at the last few model contests that I saw some excellent, focused and logical chipping on a few airplanes. And the builders said they used pencils. And I tell ya, the chipping looked great! I was inspired to try again. First on a mule and then on my Arma P-39. And the difference was a little practice and a whole lot of studying pictures:

I am still learning but I was much happier with my results this time.