I recently purchased a custom decaled Pennsylvania box car that I wanted to turn into a Nacionales de Mexico car for my mexican freight train. First I thought I´d scratch off the decals just, but when I started doing it, the color below the decals came off too and revealed a blue color underneath, so I suppose the original car might have been a Rock Island box car before it was repainted and decaled into a Pennsylvania box car by the pre-owner. When I saw this I decided to paint the whole car with brown color, but the only brown color I had in my house was simple water color. So I took a brush and applied that brown watercolor all over the car except the roof. And this is the result how it looks now after the color has dried.
What do you guys think of it? I never weathered a car in my life before, but this looks heavily weathered, doesn´t it? But now I have a problem: I must apply some white NdeM decals on it, but those clean white decals don´t fit to that heavy weathered look anymore. Any ideas of how I could weather the decals after applying them on this car?
Interesting results. I never attempted this but after applying the decals and after letting them “dry” why not give the water colors another shot which I would think would give you results close to what you have now. If the affect is satisfactory you can seal it with dulcote.
It looks like the color/paint sort of puddled itself due to the surface tension of the water. Add some alcohol or dish washing detergent to the paint to break down the surface tension to help get the paint into all the corners. I wouldn’t mess with trying to weather the decals. NdeM sometimes(according to oldtime stories) would confiscate a few cars, slap their name on it, and keep it on their side of the border. After all would the PRR really miss this box car?
I once bought a Hershey bar from a vending machine at the Little Rock, Arkansas Greyhound station that looked a bit like your box car… but seriously, your method may have merit. I would do the decals first, on a glossy surface if possible. Then start your weathering. Maybe use some alcohol with your watercolor medium and make it more like a thin wash.
You can always add more color later. Good start, just keep trying. Use prototype photos as a guide.
I hope you don’t mind but I’d like to make a suggestion to you to help make your boxcar look more realistic.
Before applying decals, consider using a 3M Scotch Brite pad and wet-sand your sides in vertical (top-to-bottom-to top) strokes. The action will smoothly knock down the excess water color buildup. The cool factor in using Scotch Brite pads is that their flexible surfaces will sand those “hard to reach” areas on most scale model surfaces for applications in which ribs, molded ladders, or other raised body details are involved.
The body’s color will likely lighten slightly, but you are trying to achieve a very worn appearance.
Scotch Brite pads come in various grits and are available at most hardware and home builder supply stores.
Here is the one I’ve often used on models, successfully:
when you said “Watercolor” did you mean water base craft paint or artist’s watercolor? If it’s artist’s watercolor it will run when you apply the decal & setting solution. You can use artist’s water color for weathering, but after decaling & be sure to seal it.
Unusual, but a good start. The scuffing w/ Scotchbrite pad and further dry brushing will get the final results you want.
Another accidental weathering techinque happened to me when wheel cleaning w/ isolproply alcohol. The Stewart F3 was slightly weathered and Dullcoated. I “slopped” some excess alcohol on the shell and had wet fingerprints along the sides. As I wiped it dry the alcohol fogged the finish. It acually looks like intenional weathering. I since found that this is a method used by some for this very purpose. If you don’t like the results, recoat w/ the Dullcoat will hide any blemish. This has only worked w/ testor’s dullcoat, the alcohol reacts w/ the talc, flattening filler.
When first starting MR I wondered how to weather, I have a large set of watercolors, so I thought, why not? and have used them ever since, the ONE rule of weathering is M OD E R A T I O N
