Figured I’d try it on some eBay’ed Bachman cars before I get my “real” ones. Here are my first three attempts in order.
I don’t have an airbrush. This was all stiff bristle brushes, acrylics, rubbing alcohol, and leather dye.
input? Advice?
Advice? I think you need to give lessons…nice work!!
Quite nice. I like the big dent in the hopper. The engine looks good, but I suspect that practice will bring improvement. I like the little places on the refer where someone washed places off.
Not Bad, I love the “Wash Me” on the yellow boxcar. I dont like to put dents in my cars, I dont think its all that realistic looking and if you arent very careful you can really make a mess of things. I know you dont have the best things to work with yet, but especially the engine looks a little “smeary”. Airbrushes are great, I use mine often for weathering, but there are certain effects that look a lot better if you use chalks. I use my chalks and my airbrush on most things I weather. When it comes to chalks, you can get sticks of chalk which many people do. Its cheap, you grind or file it to make powder to use but being that its not designed for weathering it doesnt look or work quite as well as Bragdon, AIM, Doc O’Briens etc. These are already powdered and are made especially for the purpose of weathering. Bragdon is the most expensive of the three and it has its own adhesive mixed in which works to some degree but for rolling stock or things that will be handled you still need to dullcote it. AIM is cheaper than bragdon, you get a lot more for the same price and I like the AIM colors better. It also has adhesive but again you need to dullcote it if you will be touching it often. AIM is what I buy because its cheaper and IMO better than Bragdon. Doc O’Brien is cheap kind of “entry-level” weathering powder. A few of the colors are strange, like blue, and it doesnt have adhesive. The colors are less realistic and there are less of them that are actually useful. But its half the price of AIM so you get what you pay for. I also use assorted thinned paints, as well as the always useful opaque watercolors. You have to use lots of methods to get the look right of the many things that affect rolling stock in the real world. The people who understand that make great looking cars, engines and buildings, those who dont make good looking stuff but it never looks quite right. The best resource on the internet for weathering is www.modeltrainsweathered.com There are lots
GREAT JOB!!! But the engine does look a bit…dirty. Real railroads clean their engines so a bit lees “dirt” on the engine might make it more realistic. Love the wash me on the box car!!! Keep it up!
The engine is based on one of the UP’s that is here in Lodi, CA that’s used as a switcher / local. I don’t think they have seen any sort of a rinse since the engineer sneezed out the window.
My eventual layout plans are based on a split between the altamont pass and the local Lodi yard.
Dayv, I use chalks that I’ve made a pile of powder with using a sharp X-acto knife blade, then rub a makeup brush in. It works good for getting into those nooks and crannies, like the ladders of your cars. The second picture shows the tools I use for weathering.
Dayv,
That is a great start for first time weathering. What technique did you use for getting the “wash me” on the boxcar?
To get the dirt level to where I could write “wash me”, I dry brushed some acrylics to do light rust down the rivets, and a little extra in the middle panels. I used leather dye to do most of the “grime” over the whole car. I was using a q-tip dipped in alcohol to remove some of the grime to make it look like it had been rubbed up against, and to do around the door handles where contact would have kept it clean. I dipped the tip of my exacto knife in the alcohol and just as lightly as I could scratched off the dye to get the “wash me”.
The “Wash me” is awsome and very original. Good job, except I think your engine is a little to grimy, but if you have seen an engine like it, it works! Great job.
Nice job! You’ll be an expert at it soon.
I agree with you on the very dirty switcher. I’ve seen some filthy, rusty, beat up, mean looking ones at my local, small Conrail yard through the years. They also provide a nice contrast to the nice, bright clean road units sitting on the interchange tracks.
I also like physical damage to rolling stock, though I think the gon’s get it a lot worse than the hoppers.
To each, his own.
Greg
Dayv, How old are you? I’m 29 and weathering is very hard for me. I guess it’s because I’m kind of a perfectionist. I see work done by guys like Mellow Mike or Rich Divizio, and then I look at my stuff and just want to throw it in the trash. We are all at different stages and we should except that. The advice given to me was to just study the prototypes and take lots of pictures, then just keep on trying using cheep cars like the ones that you got off of EBay. I think that you are “on the right track” keep up the good work and remember, sometimes less is more. Really focus on your trucks and wheels for on the prototypes they go down hill the fastest.
Just wanted to respond about the dirt level…
I took these myself today of a northbound UP at Pine St. in Lodi, CA [swg]
Dayv,
The UP engines you show are actually rather clean. I was in Roseville last weekend and saw several MUCH dirtier, like twice as dirty as the 5780. Also the older SP engines seem to be cleaned less, the cleanest part being the re-numbering under the cab windows.
UP really needs to keep those “American Flag” units clean, or at least the actual flag. Just as a symbol of patriotism, you know? (this is actually a controversey that arose on www.railpictures.net recently).
-Brandon
Looks good, who’s leather dye?
kiwi bottled leather dye, The little bottles with the sponge on the top. I have a boatload of old babyfood jars. I just squeezed some out into the lid of one, and brushed it on, and wiped it off.
It worked pretty well for my first effort. I think it worked better on the box car than it did on the engine. Next time I hope to have some of the chalk to try with the weathering.
Brandon,
You’re right about the UP needing to keep the “American Flag” units clean. I wonder if we can all make a petition to UP demanding cleaner representations of “Old Glory” on their engines, if not they need to stop charging licensing fees to model train manufacturers and make things go back to how they used to be. My two cents.
Tony
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You write it, I will sign it. UP and a fewothers are part of the upwards cost that we are seeing.
I agree with you completely. I think if we could present UP with some sort of petiton they would have to take some sort of action. This also came up on www.railpictures.net (the link provided on my previous post). They said something about petitioning, so maybe we could bring this to all model railroaders and railfans alike. Here is the link to the page with a photo and a few comments about it. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=153470
-Brandon