weathering

[cheese3]

what would be the best way to weather rolling stock

[tomkat-13]

I like to use India ink wash and chalk.....

[cheese3]

cool! where can i get india ink?

[tomkat-13]

Art supply store.......a few tiny drops to some isopropyl alcohol.....brush it on and the ink gets down in all the cracks and lines....around rivet heads....door hinges ect....the alcohol evaporates !.........when dry apply the chalk a little at a time.......look at real cars to get ideas.....

[cheese3]

thanks tomkat-13 i will try it

[tomkat-13]

see how the ink works on this CB&Q switcher

[cheese3]

thats really cool

[Anonymous]

The ink wash is a great first step for toning down the usually bright plastic look of new models. I use 91% alcohol for the solution, as it dries a bit faster than the more common 70%, so it doesn't stink up the room quite as long. While you're at the arts and crafts store getting India ink, look around for chalk pastels, too (usually in the same area with the other paint supplies) -- you can usually find an earth tone set, or a relatively inexpensive set that covers white to black, with numerous shades in between. Add a couple of inexpensive stiff brushes (round and flat), and you've got a good basic weathering toolkit.

Kalmbach also has a pretty good book, "Basic Painting and Weathering" that gives tons of good ideas for customizing and weathering cars and locos. Also check the free info off the main page of this site, in the 'Modeling' area -- there's reprints of MR articles under 'Construction Projects", including a really good one called "Quick and Dirty Weathering".

[tomkat-13]

I also like to dry brush with paints....

[cheese3]

I tried weathering with an air brush and chalks! pics coming ASAP

[AggroJones]

With this, I just ran a thin Polly S grimey black wash over the whole thing. Wipe down the sides with a paper towel while it was still wet, leaving only a hint of color on the rivit rows. Then this one was dullcoted up, and worked with light gray chalk and light tan chalk. And dullcoted again. The end.
Oh yeah, and the trucks are drybrushed with Polly S dirt and a little rust.




These are two modified tyco plastic deck flatcars. I painted the decks with Testors "wood" and ran washes of brown shoe polish over one. The darker one got black shoe polish. Then I lightly drybrush a little Polly S railroad tie brown on both. And dullcote misted across everything.


Here's one of my modern freight cars. An Athearn Railbox. I began weathering it by running a Testor's flat black wash over the whole body. A very thin wash. (To my suprise the paint didn't crack or melt from that solvent.) The wash clings to the cracks along the ribs and not so much to the flat areas. Once that dried, I washed it again, but this time with burnt sienna watercolor/ alcohol in an uneven pattern. At this step, the surface was flat enough to hold powder. so using a soft sable brush, I worked some earth tone chalks on the body, focusing on the botton edge. Then I did the usual 2 hits of dullcote to seal it.


This car has rivits opposed to exterior ribs. So, what I did was wa***he entire body with orangish brown water color. (all my water soluble washes have rubbing alcohol in them, it breaks the surface tension). After thats dry, I hit it with black shoe polish and alcohol. While that drying I come in with a damp q-tip and worked the areas between the rivit rows. I didn't wipe the pigment off, just worked it around some.
I don't know if you can see them in this photograph, but it is has rust on the roof and down some of the sides.
The young rust streaks are ground up brown, red, and orange chalks mixed with burnt sienna water color, applied with a 10/0 brush.
Then I dullcoted it twice and it was done.


This one was pretty straight forward. After washing vandyke brown water color/ alcohol mix over the entire body, I speckled each side of the car with tubed, concentrated water color pigment. Random dots of different colors--ochre yellow, indian red, raw umber, and charcoal black. The next step ties it together. I take a damp, long bristle soft brush and work it horizontally along the body. The colors were blended on the surface. I was sure not to blend them to the point where it just looked like one shade of brown on zee car.
The pictures kinda dark, but you get the jist of it.


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