I am looking for some ideas on weathering this kit. I have painted the brick Red Brown and the windows white. I have tried several ways to add concrete between the brick but nothing seems to work. Any ideas or pictures would be welcome.
Thanks,
MC
I haven’t built mine (Northern Light and Power) yet but the technique I use is for all my brick buildings. After the brick color has dried overnight, I use an inexpensive acrylic paint from Walmart (about $.97 for a small bottle) and brush it over the brick, about 1-2 inches at a time, and then wipe it off with a soft paper towel. This will leave a slight haze on the bricks themselves and a solid color for the mortor, but you can remove all of the paint from the brick surface with additional wiping. I use a color called Linen, but you could try a few of white/grey/beige colors to see what looks best to you. I don’t like a lot of contrast on mine. This makes a very convincing mortor and after it has all dried overnight you can weather it with washes of acrylic paints (I use the same Walmart paints for the wash too.). Try a few colors; you can always repaint the brick if you can’t get all the wipe in color off. Good luck and enjoy it. This has become my favorite part of the hobby.
Bob
Bob,
Thanks for the reply. The problem I have is trying to get the paint to stay in the mortor joints.The joints aren’t very deep so when I wipe off the paint it also comes out of the joints.
Bob, what are you using to simulate the mortar lines? I use a wash of off-white water based acrylics (from the crafts section at Walmart). I use a ratio of about 10:1 (rubbing alcohol:paint). Alcohol flows in the small cracks better than water. It also evaporates faster.
Bob do yourself a favor and stop trying to add mortar line at this point before you wind up with a mess. What you need to do is add the mortar lines to the wall before you assemble the structure. So the walls can lay flat. I have a tried and true way that I’ve been using for years. After you’ve painted the wall and added the windows or not. On some kits I like to add the widows to the walls before attaching the wall to each other. Ok with your wall laying flat on the table you either take a spray bottle full of water and spritz them good or use a paint brush and apply a copious amount of water to the panel don’t worry if you add too much simply blot it with a parer towel. Now take your off white or gray color acrylic paint.( I prefer a light gray myself) and brush on thinned coats. The color will be wicked into the mortar joints by the water. When the wall is finished wipe the excess off with a soft cotton cloth or a clean paper towel. Repeat the process until you get the desired look. What this will also do besides filling in the mortar joints is color some the brick here and there where the paint was heavier in spots just like you see old or used brick in the prototype world. Once I have the look I want (make not of how many coats your applying so you repeat the same number of coat son all of the walls so you get a uniformed look. Once the model is assembled completely (This step you can do on your finished building now) I thin some acrylic grimy black almost to a was consistency and spray the structure with my airbrush same as you owuld when weathering a freight car havey at the bottom and light at the top. Simulating the grim runnng down the sides of the building. Some guys like to use a wash of India Ink & alcohol wash over the entire building. This is ok but in my O/P it leaves things very grimy, which is ok if thats the look your going for.
Well hope this helped a bit but stop trying to add the mortar lines now you may be able to pull it off but it definitely would be a gamble. One other
MC, I’ve had good luck with “Red Devil” brand soft spackle. Wipe it on with your fingers and don’t worry about it smearing across the wall in general. Leave it for about 5-10 minutes and then brush off most of the remainder with an old tooth brush.
If you need to remove more, a damp cloth follows. It will leave a realistic dusting/smear of mortar (older brick) and cling to most mortar (cast) lines. All of it should wash off if you feel like you want to try again before it gets dry.
Try it on a spare wall from the junk box and see if you like it. It’s more 3 dimensional than painted mortar lines which is why I prefer it. Sorry I don’t have any pics but I have structures built 20 yrs. ago with no dullkote and handled constantly and the mortar still looks great.
wow ,every day I learn something new or a new trick.you guys are allright…Jerry
I use the acrylic paints sold at Walmart or Hobby Lobby in the craft section. I don’t thin it at all when doing the mortar lines, just straight from the bottle. I use a soft paper towel to wipe it off and don’t use much pressure as you will take it out of the lines. Some kits have deeper mortar grooves and it works better on them. As I said in my O/P I haven’t built my Walthers kit yet so I don’t know how deep their brick mortar lines are. I have built kits by Korber, Atlas, RDA, Life Like, Bachmann, and this process works great on all of them.
Bob
FWIW I go the other way around…that is, I paint the individual wall pieces an acceptable mortar color (usually primer gray, any grey or light tan would work) then color the bricks using an art marker. I found one called I think “English red” that looks good to me. Since the bricks are raised up and the art marker has a fairly hard point, you can color the bricks without getting the red into the mortar. It also allows you to leave the lentils (or whatever you call them, the areas above and below the window openings) gray to provide a little contrast to the red brick. Once you’ve painted the bricks and they’ve dried, you can go back with a tiny brush and paint individual bricks slightly different shades of red or brown if you want.
At least in my area, a number of buildings use brick that is sort of a golden or tannish color rather than red. On those buildings, I paint the wall pieces with the light tan first (and add any decals and seal them with flat finish. Then rather than trying to replicate mortar, I use powdered charcoal over the building. I spread it on fairly heavy, then use a paper towel to remove most of the charcoal from the brick faces, leaving it in between the bricks.
I use a similar method, but let it dry overnight (or longer), then wipe the excess spackle off with a damp paper towel. It is best to use a diagonal wipe, particularly on models that have shallow mortar lines.If there if too much buildup around windows or pinasters, you can carefully scrape with an X-Acto knife. I have buildings that I did more than 20 years ago, and they still look good.
These are a couple of buildings
Thanks to everyone for the help.
MC
Thanks George for posting your pics. Very nice. Mine aren’t as “dusty” as yours but that’s the nice thing about using the spackle type methods. You can vary the look easier (at least for me) than with painted mortar washes-although I’ll experiment and see if I can get something I like with paints too. For the OP, you can get a pretty new look to your brick/mortar with the spackles too. But there will always be some “dusting” to the look.