First Weathering Attempt

[Anonymous]

Having just spent several hours watching trains on the old Pennzy main in Latrobe Pa.
I must say there are as many differant weathering types as ther are cars passing by.
The hardest thing to get right is the rust markings.
I use chalks and first spray car side with dullcoate then apply chalks with stiff bristle brushes. If you overspray this you will loose some of the coloring. The chalk will be imbeded into the dull cote and not rub off after dry.
If you can match the lettering color you can, using this tecnique , make the lettering fade and run down the side of the car.
The more you practice the more fun it becomes.
A light spraying of light gray along bottom of car simulates the road dust. but not too much of this. Ends af cars need sprays of light brown to simulate wheel throw-up of dirt from tracks. Starting from bottom to the top, getting less as you go up end of car.
Keep up the good work B.

[PennsyHoosier]

I use airbrush, washes, chalk--EVERYTHING--to weather.

Zachary, you have done well. Keep up the good work--and get after those trucks.

[Anonymous]

Also, I suggest you join http://www.modeltrainsweathered.com/forum . My suggestion is, read all you can absorb it all, experiment, and share your results. If we seem a bit critical, it is because we always strive for perfection. We're willing to help any way we can.

Hope to see you there,
Matt

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bergie

You're off to a good start.

Practice, practice, practice....

Learn, learn, learn.

And most of all, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just learn from them.

Bergie

Couldn't have said it better.

[Anonymous]

You did a great job. Remember is is almost imposible to make a mistake when weathering as long as you look to the prototype for ispiration, mother nature does some great weathering learn from the ral world. Take pictures of different types of weathering on box carss and structures and dry to duplicate what you see in the real world. Have you tried using pastel chalks for weathering? They are great because you can mix colors to copy what you see and they can be removed before they are set in place should you not like what you did. Your cars look great, the dirtier the better!

[SilverSpike]

Great job with the first attempt at weathering! Keep up the great work!

[MAbruce]

Very nice. Much better than most I’ve seen (including me) for your first time out.

Some good advice has already been given, but how much you want to weather your cars should be up to you. Prototype cars have a wide range of age and abuse, so you have a lot of varying degrees of how a car can look at any given time of it’s RR life (and after if you want to model bone yard heaps).

I’ve always found it helpful to find a picture of a weathered car and try to approximate it. It helps to see how things weather (how colors fade, areas of the car that weather/rust more than others, how the logo/letters fade and/or run, etc.).

But overall, you are off to a great start! Keep up the good work.

[Anonymous]

It looks awsome, they look better than the ones I drive by every day.....

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kd6dxa

Hi Everyone! Tonight I made my first attempt at weathering a couple of cheap freight cars to get my feet wet with weathering. I would appreciate some criticism/suggestions/praise/blame in my attempt to get better at this. Here's what I did for these: I started with a wash of Grimy Black, then I used powdered artist pastels to get the rust, grime, dust on the cars. Then I finished with some dullcoat and retouched up some of the details that I lost with the dullcoat. What would help to make these better? Thanks, everyone!
-Zachary

[AggroJones]

I'll direct you to these.

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=5&TOPIC_ID=45957

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=-1&TOPIC_ID=66744&REPLY_ID=755657#755657

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=59430

[Anonymous]

Just remember: Less is more.

For a newbie at weathering, I'll give ya a thumbs up. They look better than my first attempts.

For future reference, check out: http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=59430 and http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=45957

[JimValle]

They do look good. But.....the hardest part of weathering is knowing when to stop, certainly before you obliterate all the lettering on the car. The next thing is to remember that every train has a quota of almost pristine cars, a bunch of lightly weathered cars, some that are rusty, others that are dusty, some that have come from the desert and some that have been through a sooty city environment. My suggestion is to have a scenerio for each car and do something different so they don't all end up looking alike.
And yeah, the sooner you convert to Kaydee couplers the more satisfying your operation will be.

[Anonymous]

Very nice. Be careful not to overdo it. I'm not saying that you did, just that the hardest thing to learn is when to put the paint brush (or airbrush, or Q-tip or sponge etc) down.

[dwRavenstar]

Very nice!

[cefinkjr]

Not bad for a first attempt. I agree with earlier comments about weathering wheels and trucks. I did a bunch of cars for a friend without that touch and now have them staring at me every time I visit his railroad. More recent efforts with weathered wheels and trucks make the earlier ones look bad.

And don't necessarily believe the air brush crowd. Yes, an air brush can be used effectively for weathering. But so can a bunch of other techniques and I've seen a lot of air brush weathering that looked very unrealistic.. I say you should experiment to find the technique with which YOU are most comfortable and the technique that gives YOU the best results.

Chuck

[zgardner18]

Hey Zachary,

First off, it's good to see another Zachary in the hobby.

I think that your cars look good. I second the motion to do your wheels and trucks too. The best thing to do is get pictures, lots of pictures of real cars and study them. That has helped me a bunch. Next thing that I would advise is to make sure your brush strokes are as straight up and down as possible. Remember water goes straight down. I know, I know, easier said than done.

Something that I've done was taken all of my old Tyco, Bachmann, and Life-Like cars and used them for practice, then slowly move to the ones that you want to keep. When you get good and buy an airbrush and want to start painting your own cars, then you can take your practice cars, remove all the paint, and repaint them. Old cars really come in handy.

[SOU Fan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bergie

You're off to a good start.

Practice, practice, practice....

Learn, learn, learn.

And most of all, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just learn from them.

Bergie

[#ditto]

[Bergie]

You're off to a good start.

Practice, practice, practice....

Learn, learn, learn.

And most of all, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just learn from them.

Bergie

[cwclark]

not bad at all for a first attempt.....try it with a double action air brush some day...chuck

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Very good for a first attempt. You sure you haven't done this before?

[MisterBeasley]

The car bodies look very good. Next, try weathering the trucks.

And if your cars are going to look that good, they deserve Kadees. It looks like you have truck-mounted Talgo couplers, at least on the hopper. You should look into body-mounting some Kadee #5's. That's the sort of thing you probably want to do before you weather the car, since it involves a lot of handling and probably some drilling and cutting. Once the Kadees are on, they can be rusted a bit, too.

[james saunders]

For a First attempt thats a good start! keep it up!

-James-

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone! Tonight I made my first attempt at weathering a couple of cheap freight cars to get my feet wet with weathering. I would appreciate some criticism/suggestions/praise/blame in my attempt to get better at this. Here's what I did for these: I started with a wash of Grimy Black, then I used powdered artist pastels to get the rust, grime, dust on the cars. Then I finished with some dullcoat and retouched up some of the details that I lost with the dullcoat. What would help to make these better? Thanks, everyone!
-Zachary