I was in the work shop part of the train empire this morning figuring I was going to spray a few of the DPM buildings I had assembled and noticed I was out of red oxide.paint. I looked through my depleted supply of Flowquil and Polyscale paints and could not come p with one i was happy with. Way back when I used to use red oxide spray can primer but have shied away from using the rattle cans as I feel you tend to get too much on there for obscuring a lot of the details. I know all building weren’t red brick color but hey Im a creature of habit most of my brick structures are brick color.
So what color(s) do you use when painting brick structures.
Although the discussion is mainly about methods of applying mortor lines to make brick walls look more realistic, the topic of brick color is also mentiioned - with a number of pictures posted.
For red brick I have used Rustoleum rusty metal primer in a spray can. Recenty, I have tried collecting it for air brush by spraying it through a plastic soda straw into a bottle. Is seems to work OK, but needs to be thinned a bit and cleanup is a bit more messy. There is also a buff colored Rustoleum primer that is good for yellow brick.
Incredibly, I’ve recently made brick colors from dumping leftover small amounts of paint (mostly Floquil) into a community jar and no matter what I put in it remains “brown-ish”. I can add red or tan or light gray to tweak the color when it becomes gross. It’s a Hazmat thing!!
I use red auto primer in a rattle can. Any brand will do. It is just the right color for red brick, dries dead flat, covers anything, and you can buy it anywhere. It’s not that hard to spray well. Adjust the spray distance and the speed you move the can so that the paint goes on just barely wet. Too wet and it sags and runs, too dry and it doesn’t stick. Keep the can moving until the spray is all the way off the end of the model. Likewise press the button to start the spray with the spray clear of the beginning of the model. This give uniform coverage of the ends.
I’ve used mostly flat browns and flat reds for buildings. I’ve painted one a flat yellow and it turned out great, don’t forget that people did and still do paint over brick all the time to spruce up their houses and buildings.
I use red oxide primer as a base coat, then use various shades of brown and red acryilics, often mixing them, to get the final shade. This gives me subtle variations of brick red. If I were to use a single color as my basic brick, I would go with Floquil’s Boxcar Red.
I would stop and start again. You can go order one pack of concrete and brick streets from Walthers. These are broken down into seperate sections. You can use each section as a sample.
For example. Paint the first coat with Depot Buff (270-110087) and let dry. Paint the second coat Rust (270-110073) and let dry. Then add your cement color. This would make one sample.
Do Not spray paint. Brush the colors. You do not want to cover the brick detail.