Good afternoon to you all, I have been doing some weathering on some of my locos and rolling stock today, and I don’t know if I know what I am doing. This a first for me and would like your comments and opinions.
These are the locos I have got done
Thanks in advance for your help, what do I need to be doing or what do I need to stop doing?
Mike
I think they look great. The only thing I would do different would be to streak down and not across. The Santa Fa hopper would look great with the streaks down and not across. You might want to try some different shades of weathering. How did you do what you did? Don’t get me wrong, I think it looks fine. If thats your first attemp then you are way ahead of the game.
Thanks 8500. The streaks on the hopper are supposed to represent deep scratches, as I used the point of a hobby knife. I used a mixture of India ink and alchol with a little chalk applied with a small paint brush after the ink mixture was about 1/2 dry. on some of the cars I wiped them off befor appling the dulcoat. Mike
Looks good Mike ive got about 40 cars to do what is your mailing address? LOL! Dave P. S. got a new genesis F3 w/sound today boy am I having fun runs and sounds great. keep up the good work .
They look great like they are. Any more will be overkill.
Nothing wrong with them for your first ones done. Just take a look at any thing outside and you will find all kinds of weathering going on around you! I love the A and I method along with chalks. Thats the most that I do with my weathering so far. Kevin
I think they look good, especially if these are you first attempt. A couple of the photos came out a little dark. On the ends of the covered hoppers, did you streak the slope sheets and car end with some muddy colors to similate mud and grime thrown up by the car wheels? I see this on the prototype and think it adds a very good effect. Tweet.
Mike…
I’m waiting for my granite chip to load the pics… but…
Hope these notes help [:)]
I usually drink my alcohol so I like water based acrylics for my weathering… great thing is that when you get used to them you can wash them off if you go over-the-top on your first effort… so long as you get in before they harden. You can get them (and water based oils) from good artists stores. I also like “comb” brushes among others you can get at the same places. A surprising brush is a “deer’s foot” this looks like an awful lot of brush… but with practise (on a plain sheet of plastic) you can get used to unloading it and then just leaving a tiny speckle of colour on the surface. One of the big
I think you’ve done a pretty good job, Mike, especially for a first attempt. In my opinion, though, that front handrail on the lead diesel in your last two shots is a bit “too weathered”[:D]. Dave has some good suggestions, as usual, and if I may add a few? Paint the sides of the wheels on your freight cars. Most cars with roller bearings have wheels that are very visibly rusted. They may also have other crud on them, too. On older cars, with friction bearings, usually the wheel faces are oily/greasy looking, again with other dirt and crud over that. A very simple way to weather the trucks is to paint the wheels an appropriate colour, then give the car a light spray of a suitable dust/dirt colour along its lowest portion. I usually do this, using an airbrush (although careful use of a spray can will also work) by placing the car on an old piece of track in the spray booth, then manually rolling it as I spray the truck area and lower carsides. This light spray will highlight the details on the truck sideframes, too, like the springs and bearing caps. If you do this step, it’s also easy to also add the spray pattern thrown up onto the car ends by the adjacent cars. Simply cut a mask (I used .040" sheet styrene) that’s the same width as the car ends, and at least as high as your highest car. I also added abbreviated sides to this piece, so the whole assembly slips over the end of the car. Cut an opening for the coupler to protrude through (leave it open right to the bottom of the mask) then cut two inverted "V"s, extending from the bottom edge of the sheet, up to about 6 scale feet. These should be on the same spacing as the wheels are on the axles. Place this over the car end, and using your favourite dirt/crud colour, give the car end a quick shot with the spray. Less is usually more here, and don’t hold the mask tight agai
Couple more ideas…
Rather than black use a variety of greys and rather than white use off whites and creams… use sparingly. Intense colours such as black and white don’t occur much in nature. (that’s why we use them to highlight things like handrails… and flowers /insects etc use them to warn off or attract…
2nd idea…
If you haven’t got a spray gun (and even if you have) you can “drift spray” to get the lightest misting of colour. this needs some practice. Basically shake a can of spray for a month or two to make sure it is really well mixed and you’ll get as little interuption of flow and as few blobs as possible. Then practise using a block of wood.
The block of wood (later a car) goes in a much bigger box (like a wine crate) - box on it’s side so that the opening faces you - then you spray a brief burst clear over the top of the block/car against the back of the box… a small amount of the spray will drift down onto the block/car. to get an even lighter mist you put the big box upright with a second part box over it as a hood… then spray a cloud briefly into the hood and let it settled down into the big box.
3rd idea… fade the edges of any patches of rust or dirt… or hard line the extrem edge with a darker colour… the pach may also be worked on to darken or lighten parts of it.
The variations are endless. [:D]
Dirt and grime tend to accumulate around rivets, in seams etc. I like to get a car or engine very dirty with powdered charcoal and then wrap a paper towel around my finger and use downstrokes to wipe of the weathering. Enough of it will stay on the car to darken it a little, and it will be most noticeable in any seams or around anything raised like a rivet or whatever. It also brings out the details on the car or engine a lot more than a clean one. I find that works better than just sort of randomly slingling mud or dirt on a car in splotches…although a little of that after the overall weathering I described can be nice. [:)]
You can “drift spray” to achieve the effect of paint having faded. On yellow (eg UP Armour) paint I would drift with a buff or flesh colour. The amount of paint needs to be minimal.
Hi Mike. Those are the best you have ever done, though maybe not the best you will ever do. I critique with caution in that I don’t do this well, but when I compare them with Aggro’s, his are more “subtle”. I like the scratches, but they begin more abruptly than in real life. Now, how you accomplish this “sublety” is beyond me, but I watch your posts with interest and someday will get to that stage on my layout…