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.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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 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
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?
Brought over from another thread:
richhotrainWeathering! That brings up another topic that makes me cringe.
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.
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...