Art paints and Weathering on Styrene & Wood

[wp8thsub]

I use craft paint for weathering styrene all the time.  I do apply a base coat of sprayed or airbrushed paint first, and add the acrylic over that.

This was a Walthers kit that received acrylic and watercolor pencil weathering, followed by some Dullcote to impart an even finish.

 

[tomkat-13]

I use a gray spay paint from a can to primer then acrylic paint for main color then a combination of india ink, acrylic paint wash & chalk powder.

 

[AntonioFP45]

Cedar,

I've used the artist acrylic paints that are commonly found in arts & crafts supply stores for weathering.  These will adhere to our plastic model trains with no problems as long as your surface is "squeaky clean".  

Instead of an airbrush, I "over-thin" them with distilled water and apply them on to my models as washes using a #2 Taklon paint brush.  I especially like the results I get on weathering the wheel faces and underbodies of freight cars.  The capillary action from those acrylics yields instant results. My favorite colors were the tan and brown colored earth tones.

Oil based paints work well also but are less forgiving than acrylics.  With acrylics if you don't like your results, you can quickly wash them off and start again.

 At the moment my freight cars are boxed up, but once I finish metalizing my passenger car fleet, I'll pull them out and post photos of my weathered freight rolling stock.

[cowman]

Have done some weathering craft paints for plastic structure painting and weathering.  I think it came out quite good for a first try.

Years ago I used some of my mother's artist oil paints on some plastic models.  It was much too thick.  I have the feeling acryics would be too.  I do have a video that uses acrylics to paint the backdrop scenery.

I use india ink/alchol washes on both plastic and wood.

I recently used some liquid shoe polish for stain on wood.  Looks very close to what I was after.  Minwax also makes a wide range of stains that work well on wood.  I have thought about, but not yet tried mixing some of the colors to get a variety.  Nice thing about staining wood is that you can use a small scrap and see what your stain is going to look like before putting it on your project.

Good luck,

Richard

[dstarr]

cedarwoodron

I was wondering if anyone has experience using artists paints, both acrylic and oil, on styrene and wood for weathering? How well does either medium stick to styrene particularly, both on previously painted and unpainted surfaces? Is a clear matte coat required after weathering? Thanks, Cedarwoodron

Artists paints will stick to both wood and styrene, and they offer a near infinite range of colors.  You may find brush marks are a problem on styrene.  Lacking an airbrush, I paint my styrene with rattle cans. 

   If you weather with chalks, be aware that  a "clear matter coat"  (DullCote) will marry with the chalk and make it invisible.   For structures which don't get handled as much as rolling stock, I don't  DullCote over the chalk weathering.  For rolling stock, I  haven't come up with a workable weathering process. 

  I use Dullcote over decals.  It makes the decal film turn invisible.  It is also helpful on low end models that are too glossy. 

[hminky]

Visit:

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/weathered_wood/

Thank you if you visit

Harold

[peahrens]

Hi.  I'm building the first few structures for my HO layout (a coal tower and a couple of engine houses).  I had done some Woodland Scenics DPM and other buildings for my grandsons layout and used Testors enamel paints with a brush, and Testors spray flat black or gray primer for roofs to avoid brushstroke issues.  I usually soap & water washed the styrene parts first but seldom primed them.  When done, sprayed with DullCoat. I found working with the solvent based paints a bit of a pain with the brush thinning, cleanup, etc. 

I've got an airbrush in a box but am not ready to tackle it, planning to use it first on track painting.   

On my Walthers 3 items I've just built, I tried Hobby Lobby cheap acrylics ($1 per small bottle).  I thinned them slightly with water, mixing the colors to get a color I liked (e.g., wood coaling tower, brick engine house).  I found that the color covered pretty well if the plastic color was not too far different.  In some cases in the future I may lightly primer the exteriors if the color will be much different).  I always gray primer the interior walls.  I found the acrylics easy to work with and fun to try color variations.  After painting, I've tried some weathering on the 2 engine houses with a 10:1 dilution of mortar color for brick, black or gray for grime, etc.  I have yet to finish off with a coat of DullCoat, plus then add the windows material.  The mortar came out a bit thin in color, so I may try next time a bit lower dilution or even the Hydrocal approach suggested as an option in one of the following threads focused on painting brick exteriors:

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/203842.aspx

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/137047.aspx

There are some links to other threads in the two above.

On staining wood, I believe the following link is the one that clued me in to staining some raw wood "timber" tunnel portals, using a wash of india ink & acrylic colors.  I was happy with the results. Edit: be sure to let the stain dry to see the result...it looks quite different when applied/wet.

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/36049.aspx

As an aside, maybe it's me, but I don't find the search feature (on the right) as helpful as earlier (before a forum update).  It seems to list items by date as opposed to relevance, so if you type "structure weathering" you get a chronological list of mainly unhelpful threads.  I know it's not nice to complain about a free forum, but if I'm wrong about effective use of the search feature, please advise.

[cedarwoodron]

I was wondering if anyone has experience using artists paints, both acrylic and oil, on styrene and wood for weathering? How well does either medium stick to styrene particularly, both on previously painted and unpainted surfaces? Is a clear matte coat required after weathering? Thanks, Cedarwoodron