Whenever I use a weathering solution on brick or stone, it crawls up the sides of cracks and indentations. Below is an extreme closeup of a building foundation I carved from molded hydrocal. You can see what the problem is -- the bottom of the crack is the same color as the top of the stones. The plaster has been painted with acrylic paint -- Polly S and craft paints. The ink solution in this case is from a Rustall kit, but this kind of thing seems to always happens with my own India ink solutions, on painted surfaces. The solutions also follow the leading edge on wood as well. I'd appreciate any suggestiong of how to fix this -- it just doesn't seem right to me!
Edit. Oops -- picture didn't load. Hopefully my description is sufficient. I'm new at this.
BernardDWhenever I use a weathering solution on brick or stone, it crawls up the sides of cracks and indentations. ...the problem is the bottom of the crack is the same color as the top of the stones.
I'm uncertain what you mean by "crawls up the sides of cracks and indentations". If you want the weathering only on the raised stones, use a relatively small amount of weathering solution on the brush - not quite dry-brush, but close to it. If you use a wide-enough brush and keep its handle almost parallel to the surface being weathered, you should be able to weather only the stones, and not affect the mortar lines and cracks at all.If you wish to weather both the stones and the areas between them, place the structure upright, as it would be on your layout, then add the weathering solution as a wash. Use the edge of a paper towel to wick-away the excess wash as it runs down the wall and collects at the bottom - this requires on-going use of the towelling until the wash is no longer liquid. That should result in weathered stone, and cracks and mortar lines also somewhat weathered, but not obliterated.
Here's an unpainted Korber roundhouse...
...and painted with Floquil Reefer Orange...
...and with mortar effects added (drywall mud)
...and with weathering added...
I don't recall whether I used an India ink solution or well-thinned water-based paint (with a drop of dish detergent added to reduce its surface tension), but I also used the paper towel method to control the amount of weathering that would be left on the bricks and mortar.
My apologies if I've misunderstood your problem, but a photo might make the issue clearer. To post a photo here, it needs to be on a photo hosting site, such as flickr, imgur, or photobucket. The usual procedure is to then "copy" the img data, then "paste" it where you wish it to appear in your post.
Wayne
I don't use any weathering solution on brickwork.
I have not found a way to make mortar that works for me, but drybrushing has come the closest to making me happy.
-Kevin
Living the dream.