The thread title says it all, lets have a discussion about weathering.
Do you weather, what are your techniques, do you think it is a waste of time, or would you never ruin your models like that?
Lets get going...
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Brought over from another thread:
richhotrainWeathering! That brings up another topic that makes me cringe.
No need for it to make you cringe, it is just another task... but a task with huge consequences if you mess it up. There is hardly anything more frustrating that riuning a three-month structure kitbash with bad weathering.
richhotrainSo, now, all of my structures are painted, but none are weathered. They just look NEW, which was never my objective. For that reason, I often think about airbrushing these structures to weather them. Is it too late once the windows are in place?
In this case I think I would try chalk weathering, but I am interested to hear if other people have a better idea.
My favorite high-speed weathering technique is the Monroe Weathering Powders.
I keep mine in this plastic box I bought at the container store. The dividers are molded in, so the material cannot migrate from one compartment to another underneath the dividers.
I apply the weathering right over the box. I do not worry about the small bits of powder that find their ways into the incorrect compartments.
I have not found a brush type for applying weathering powders that I am completely happy with. Stiffer brushes, like hogs hair, seem to work better, but they do not hold the pigment very well.
Any ideas?
I weather buildings and rolling stock, but I do keep it light.
I am more inclined to show dirt as opposed to any heavy deterioration, heavy rust, neglect, etc.
I am more concerned with the "broad view" of the layout rather than up close views of specific models, and in my real life observations things look better and cleaner from a distance than they do up close.
Building the kind of layouts I have always built, and am planning to build next, most viewing is at 2-4 feet, not really "up close".
Most of my stuff is packed right now, and I don't have a big file of photos. Maybe soon a few pictures.
All this said, I do like some variety in weathering, so some things are "dirtier" then others.
I'm mostly an air brush weatherer, with just few dabs of other paints or chalks here and there.
I do, after all model the 50's, a time of renwal and optimisum for the most part, and a time when railroads were buying new equipment and had concern for "image".
A great many color photos from that era suggest the world was in pretty good repair in a lot of ways, in a lot of places.
Sheldon
ATLANTIC CENTRALI'm mostly an air brush weatherer, with just few dabs of other paints or chalks here and there.
I weathered this GORRE AND DAPHETID boxcar with an airbrush years ago. I have always liked the airbrush for applying different shades of the same colour for weathering, but I was not satisfied with the effect when using gray on boxcar red.
Airbrush weathering works much better (for me) on steam locomotive boilers.
I love weathering structures with paint washes, chalks and India ink techniques. I always do weather structures. I suppose I feel confident doing this because I realized if something doesn't turn out to my liking I can always start over.
Locomotives and rolling stock on the other hand, I do not feel confident weathering yet. Painting over the decals and the fine lettering terrifies me being that they are so expensive. At this point I feel like I would be permanently defacing them.
That doesn't mean I never will weather them. I just don't feel like I'm ready to take that on in my modeling experience yet. Maybe someday with more refined experience after I brush up on my skills.
TF
Track fiddlerI love weathering structures with paint washes, chalks and India ink techniques.
All of those techniques were used on this little cast resin barn.
I need to get some newer pictures of it. That picture was taken under old photo-bulbs in metal reflectors. You can really tell the difference good soft-box lighting has made in some of my recent photographs.
Being a conemporary modeler, there is a huge variety in the condition of equipment these days. Some are in bad cosmetic condition. Several patch outs and rust. Others are brand new with just a bit of dirt. Tank cars and covered hoppers mainly. Box cars tend to be in bad shape.
I like the variety. I like patch outs and rust.
I also like faded paint, which is very hard to represent on our models.
Athearn has a series where the colors represent fading from the as-built color. That's a nice start.
What more producers need, however, is to fade the lettering. A weathered car needs to have its lettering faded equal to the other condition of the car, IMO.
I scrape the thick lettering paint to get some of it off. Then apply 90% alcohol on a qtip, and it slowly works its way where the body color begins to show through. Not great, but its better than pristine lettering on a grimy car. If the lettering was decals, I'm not sure what would work best.
I weather the seams and rivets with a fine tipped artists brush and cheap walmart acrylics. Mix browns, reds, and yellows in a glass dish like a pallette, having several separate combinations going at once. IMO, weathering happens in various shades of brown, with newer rust and clay having a more orangish hue, and older rust and dirt having a darker, near black hue.
For structures, I weather the roofs and the bottom sills for dirt. Haven't done the really worn out rusty look for the sides of the buildings.
Instead of rust, what I think I will try more is to apply different shades of the wall color in different places, like repairs or patches that got new paint. Multiple shades and hues of the same basic wall color.
- Douglas
SeeYou190 No need for it to make you cringe, it is just another task... but a task with huge consequences if you mess it up. There is hardly anything more frustrating that riuning a three-month structure kitbash with bad weathering.
Rich
Alton Junction
DoughlessI weather the seams and rivets with a fine tipped artists brush and cheap walmart acrylics. Mix browns, reds, and yellows in a glass dish like a pallette, having several separate combinations going at once.
As I move into layout construction again, I am looking forward to more effort going into freight car weathering. In the past three years I painted over 100 freight cars for the new Fleet Of Nonsense, and that production schedule prevented using any time consuming weathering processes.
richhotrainAnd that has always been my biggest fear. Ruining an expensive structure that I have put a lot of time and effort into.
Me too. I either weather a building as I paint it, or I do not weather it at all.
I will see what happens on my final layout, but my structures on all previous layouts have been unreallistically clean.
This is a structure I saved from SGRR V, I weathered the roof, but not the walls.
I resisted weathering for a long time either because I had some silly notion that I was somehow damaging the value of my models -- just opening the package does that, plus why are you buying them?, or because I was afraid of botching a nice model. And yes I have done that, to my regret. I still have many unweathered models to get to, but when I get the chance I try to do something with an unweathered model, even if it is not final or complete.
1. Like any skill weathering needs practice. This is where having a supply of junkers and lower end models pays off. Of course once you do a marvelous job on a car shell too crappy to want to use on the layout you might feel a little bad ... For the weathering clinic I have given to various NMRA divisions and regions I bought some junker Lionel freight car shells as props so that what I was doing could be seen by the folks in the back rows. They are also a good way to learn and are plentiful and cheap at swap meets.
2. Because I dislike cleaning my airbrush I go to some lengths to use techniques involving pastels, chalks and powders, as well as oil paint for rust streaks and other highlights. As is the common experience the carefully crafted weathering often disappears with an application of DullCoat. An article in MR or maybe the NMRA Magazine said to apply DullCoat FIRST, then then the powders, chalks and pastels. Good advice. It give some surface "tooth" for the stuff to adhere to and is more likely to still show after a subsequent blast of DullCoat. After a while (see point #1 about practice) you learn how to overdo the weathering so you get the result you want after DullCoating the second time.
3. Kevin's compartmentalized container for AIM powers (Now Monroe Models) is a good idea.
4. Also following advice, this time from the Tool Junkie in the NMRA Magazine, I discovered small wedge shaped make-up sponges in the health and beauty department of the local Walgreens. Inexpensive and very useful and easy to cut with sissors to special shapes if needed. You break away each wedge from a sheet of rubbery sponge material.
5. There are also good results to be gained - again with practice - from a pump spray bottle filled with isopropyl alcohol and india ink. the india ink catches in the nooks and crannies and adds definition to details. The alcohol has a tendency to lighten the color of the painted surface which is often exactly what you want - a sort of sun bleached effect. 91% alcohol however can soften paint and lettering more than you expect; I use 70% or the 50% that WallMart sells.
6. Mont Switzer talks about this in his articles, and credits another modeler for the idea, but a very sharp #2 pencil is also a way to highlight seams and other details. With care you can give a surprisingly 3D effect to molded on grab irons and freight car ladders because you create a shadow effect from below.
7. There are a few things you can do with rattle cans. I have used the containers dental floss comes in to create a "mask" for the ends of HO freight cars, with two wedges cut into the bottom that are the width of track, and a piece of cotton from aspirin bottles or some other pill bottles to distance the mask just far enough away from the end of the car that a short burst of rattle can "tan" or "khaki" can create the splatter marks thrown up by wheels on the ends of house cars and tank cars. I show how to do this in my clinic and wrote it up in my Frugal Modeler column in the NMRA Midwest Region Waybill: webwaybillspr17 (mwr-nmra.org)
8. Even just an application of DullCoat helps, and if followed by a quicky spray of alcohol and india ink at least the most obvious "out of the box" look has been addressed. But the trucks and wheels need their own attention or the effect is still lost.
Dave Nelson
SeeYou190 Doughless I weather the seams and rivets with a fine tipped artists brush and cheap walmart acrylics. Mix browns, reds, and yellows in a glass dish like a pallette, having several separate combinations going at once. As I move into layout construction again, I am looking forward to more effort going into freight car weathering. In the past three years I painted over 100 freight cars for the new Fleet Of Nonsense, and that production schedule prevented using any time consuming weathering processes. richhotrain And that has always been my biggest fear. Ruining an expensive structure that I have put a lot of time and effort into. Me too. I either weather a building as I paint it, or I do not weather it at all. I will see what happens on my final layout, but my structures on all previous layouts have been unreallistically clean. This is a structure I saved from SGRR V, I weathered the roof, but not the walls. -Kevin
Doughless I weather the seams and rivets with a fine tipped artists brush and cheap walmart acrylics. Mix browns, reds, and yellows in a glass dish like a pallette, having several separate combinations going at once.
richhotrain And that has always been my biggest fear. Ruining an expensive structure that I have put a lot of time and effort into.
And that is OK because buildings get painted, but roofs only get replaced when they leak.
dknelson I discovered small wedge shaped make-up sponges in the health and beauty department of the local Walgreens. Inexpensive and very useful and easy to cut with sissors to special shapes if needed. You break away each wedge from a sheet of rubbery sponge material.
I never thought about using those! With the three teenage girls that used to live here, the bathrooms were full of these things.
Thank you for the tip.
I tried pastel powders once, but I don't think they were for 'weathering', and as soon as I oversprayed with Dullcoat, it all but disappeared. So, my go-to ever since has been the simple wash or dry-brush.
I did, quite literally, a 'whitewash' to the exterior of this Rivarossi H-8:
This BLI K4s has natural house-dust atop the boiler and cab, and the rest is done with acrylic washes. Tender looks a bit contrived, but in time I'll improve it.
I work to paint over all the glossy plastic on models. Such as trucks, molded in gloss black plastic. They look a lot better with a coat of rattle can red auto primer. And the wheels look better with the faces painted grimy black on friction bearing trucks and dry mud color on roller bearing trucks. Bright steel axles want paint too. I paint the undercarriages either dark gray or light gray auto primer. I paint the tar and canvas roofs of cabeese and heavy weight passenger cars and express reefers with dark gray auto primer.
I weathered a brick factory model with powdered chalk and it looked really good. Then I sprayed it with DullCote and the weathering disappeared, the DullCote blended with the chalk and made it go invisible. So I only use chalk and weathering powders on structures, which don't get handled all that much. Rolling stock gets handled enough to wear the chalk or weathering powder off too quickly.
DullCote on too-bright train set cars will dull the paint down in a very pleasant way. For that matter I do B&M passenger maroon with bright red rattle can paint followed up with DullCote which turns the bright red into something closer to maroon. I took a car painted this was down to the club and solicited opinions. Most said "A little bright, but not bad" , including some members who had worked on the B&M for decades.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
I definitely want my structures and railroad equipment to have that "used but maintained" look. Nothing as extreme as I've seen some modelers do but I agree that there was some pretty ugly stuff rolling around in the late '70s and through the 1980s.
EL_1407_GP7 by Edmund, on Flickr
I do like the occasional "patch-out" which gives some variety and also shows the heritage of some older equipment. This Geep has indications of three owners!
CR_GP9_7105 by Edmund, on Flickr
It still needs more weathering, some dust onn the trucks, oil spills at the fuel tank.
One of the most glaring things I see in photos are shiny, chrome-like wheel centers I try to avoid that by tackling it first on any new acquisition.
These ore cars will require a good "dust-up" soon:
BLE_ore by Edmund, on Flickr
Weathering is something I like to do when the mood strikes and I like to do it in batches unless it is something like a steam locomotive which I'll tackle a smaller number, say two or three at a time.
Again, with structures I like to have an aged look but stopping short of the "George Selios" depression-era run down look. The copper flashing on this PRR tower shows the patina of the copper as exposed to the elements:
PRR_SG_tower-bay-2 by Edmund, on Flickr
There's no one single tool or technique that I rely on. Usually it is an airbrush for an overall dusting and running gear mud splatter. I like to mimic the wheel-tread splatter on the car ends. Then I'll use chalks, pastels and powders to accent certain areas or "fade" the lettering. Then paints for more "concentrated" areas of rust or spilled oils and such.
Washes of India ink are great for giving structures an overall aged look, if not overdone, then more powders and to highlight details with paint.
Good Luck, Ed
I try to find a photo of a like piece of rolling stock that I am going to weather, if no photo then it's freelance time. I try to weather the rolling stock to meet my PC timeframe (older cars more dirty newer cars less dirty). To me the weathing technique is a Mood thing, as in how much time and energy I have to spend. I have used the above mentioned (REPLYS/POSTS) techniques with great success. In the past year or two, maybe three now, (I have not been to a train show at all this year) I have been using Powder/Pigments to weather rolling stock. (I do have three air brushs). Powder is fast and can be messy using a short paint brush (flicking residue dust) on the work bench (note to self, WORK SLOWER) yes, I do powder work over a restaurant takeout plate and now cover the work area with a news paper and work slower.
I use the short brush on the rolling stocks ''dimensional'' work to get in to the nooks and crannys. I will use a "Fixer" on items like the trucks so the Powder stays in place (trucks being the most touched items) and on the roof of covered hoppers to build up Crud/feed, grain, flour and crushed lime so when I need to dust the roof of the hoppers the Crud stays in place.
I use solid/soft Pan Pastels with the soft foam sponge and Powders to do "flat" work. If using Powder/Pigments on the flat work and you did not wipe the flat work off first with Acohol, the powder will pick up someone's finger prints.
I just weathered five so far, of Rapido's NYC and PC Flexi-Flo Hoppers using Powers/Pigments. You can build up dimensional ''Crud'' with the Powder/Pigments then use the "Fixer" and it stay in place. Build up ''Crud'' is somewhat hard to do with an Air brush.
I will say that I weather each ''outer work" car individually, like covered hoppers, tanks and boxs.
When I weather two or more cars at a time with "inner work" needed, like gondolas, open hoppers I will do the "inner work" first somewhat in assembly line fashion then the "outer work" will be done individually.
I took one of the road grim, rusted and built up Crud weathered Rapido Flexi-Flo Hoppers to my LHS for the Shops layout. I won't miss one car.
PC101,
What is the fixer you're referring to? Is it something other than Dullcote?
Tim
Late to the model railroad party but playing catch-up.....
I have been using ''AK interactive'' pigments made in Spain. Because my LHS has it in stock (for the Milatary builder guys) and it is something new for me to try. The AK ''Fixer" says it is "an enamel fluid designed for obtaining a strong adhesion of all kinds of pigments onto any surface''. It is a very light/thin fluid. I am fairly new to "AK" products. If there is something just as good and cheaper (Pigment Fixer #AK 048 $7.99 for 35ml.) I am sure/hope somebody here will have a good proven opinon. If I do not know that another past proven product (like Dull Coat) will work at the time, I will use what is said to be used by the Company. I grabbed the "Fixer" because it was there in stock.
I will soon try other options (Dull Coat=<$) with the Powder/Pigments as ''Fixer" and look at the results on a ''Scrap'' piece of Rolling stock.
Thanks PC101,
I watched a video that demonstrated the AK pigment system. Very interesting. It appears that much more of their pigment color remains after the fixer is added than with conventional pigments and Dullcote.
Have you tried using the AK fixer with non-proprietary pigments to see if it works as well with them?
In the video, I also saw a demonstration of their "White Spirit" that appears to be a solvent which lets you remove some of the pigment after the fixer has been applied. Have you used that as well and, if so, what were your results?
It would be great if you could post some pics of what this product looks like on model railroad equipment.
The weathering I have done after 35 to 40 years since I was a teenager off the layout.
We all learn from our mistakes and I can only see so many things I could do better the next time around.
CapnCrunch Have you tried using the AK fixer with non-proprietary pigments to see if it works as well with them? In the video, I also saw a demonstration of their "White Spirit" that appears to be a solvent which lets you remove some of the pigment after the fixer has been applied. Have you used that as well and, if so, what were your results? It would be great if you could post some pics of what this product looks like on model railroad equipment.
No, only AK Fixer product with AK pigment product.
Saw it at LHS but never used "White Spirit" yet.
I am sorry, I did have Photo Bucket at one time then they went stupid, maybe it was me. I may still have a P. B. account, it's full and not much MR stuff. I have no user friendly Photo Hosting Site at this time. Someday I should take the time and listen to these guys here and set one up.
I do not know if it's me being not with the times or if this forum is not with it, but other forums I just upload photos from my photo cards/files. Some forums even resize the photo to the proper size.
It's kind of like with me on other forums when someone ask, "what is this supposed to look like" , ''where does this screw/part go'', what ever the subject maybe at the time, a car part, piece of machiney or a tool, if I can help them out I go take a picture and upload it and there it is one and done.
Yes, a picture would be worth a thousand words.
Hey Edmond, I was looking at you PRR tower photos (NICE) and then I went though the album. You may want to go look at the ''Jaites Scrap'' yard, you have a man (in a blue jacket) down, you may need to call the Paramedics.
PC101You may want to go look at the ''Jaites Scrap'' yard, you have a man (in a blue jacket) down, you may need to call the Paramedics.
That's old man Jaite on one of his good days
Here he is when he's feeling his oats!
Jake_and-his-horse by Edmund, on Flickr
Model railroading IS fun!
Cheers, Ed
I hope Old Man Jaite is around when you decide to put some wheels an tires on those red Tractors.
Don't forget to weather your cows ! ... Shiny plastic cows do not look right.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Heartland Division CB&QDon't forget to weather your cows !
I read this, and then told my wife I was going to weather the cows.
I cannot post what she replied.
SeeYou190 Heartland Division CB&Q Don't forget to weather your cows ! I read this, and then told my wife I was going to weather the cows. I cannot post what she replied. -Kevin
Heartland Division CB&Q Don't forget to weather your cows !
We pass a farm on the way to my brother-in-law's in Antigo Wisconsin. It's on the left side of highway 29 and that farmer runs a tight ship over there.
It looks like a storybook scene with all the buildings freshly painted positiond perfectly on the land.
Uncle Butchie said that guy must have a cow wash because his black and white cows look so clean and perfect. The Belted Heifers that look like brand new Oreo Cookies and the Guernsey's.
Heartland Division CB&QDon't forget to weather your cows ! ... Shiny plastic cows do not look right.
Weathered cows is where aged beef comes from?
Same goes for sheep!
Ed