I’m building my first ever structure. It’s the Cornerstone Two Stall Enginehouse from Walthers.
It is a red brick building with green windows and doors. I plan to paint the windows and doors gray but wanted to know how to get the morter look between the bricks. I’ve seen it on many buildings that have been pictured on this forum.
How do you get that effect?
Bill
I use powdered gray chalk that I put on with an old shaving cream brush. I then wipe off any chalk that’s on the surface of the bricks leaving only what’s in the mortar lines. I then spray on a light coating of Matte-Finish. Later I’l give the strucure another coat of Matte-Finish just before the window glass is put in.
I use a “wash” of water-diluted grey acrylic paint. With the diluted paint, paint over the whole wall, then carefully wipe it off. THe grey in the cracks stays, the wall paint is removed. A little film may be left on the wall itself which I like. Gives a bit of a chalky not-so-glazed look.
For mortar on this N scale depot I used full-strength Poly Scale D&H Gray, and then wiped the bricks with a dry rag:
The result is that the paint stays in the mortar lines but not on the brickface.
I did the same thing for the machine tool factory in the background, except that I used Poly Scale Sand instead. I like the D&H Gray better.
I don’t add mortar, but this thread on NTRES is great for it.
http://www.getphpbb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=522&mforum=ntres2
(Bergie, just pointing him toward a great thread for doing this.)
I think this is the best way. It has worked well for me.
I used plain old flour. I took the tip from UKGuy (Karl) who posted of his process two or more years ago. The flour is brushed into the gooves and then the faces of the bricks are wiped essentially clean. Then spray with dullcoat or leave it dry. Later, you can add an india ink wash (non-alcohol…or it will make the dullcoat go powdery white) to make both the bricks darker and the mortar more aged.
I use the “white/gray wash” method with a twist…
I paint the walls with a brick color first (Wal-Mart Red Primer spray works well for this), then hit it with the wash (or shoe polish…either works).
The last step for me is to MIST on a very light dusting of the brick color onto the surface. This brings the brick detail back out, and hides the “washout” effect that washes and shoe polish can have.
[#ditto] If the brick face ends up with too much mortar, I go back and dry brush some brick color over it. Dry brush some black and dark grey to the brick face to add some weathering.
This is a link on the same topic.
Thanks for all the ideas and the links to other threads on the same subject.
I never thought about painting it with a diluted paint and wiping it off. I’ll try that first and see what it looks like.
Bill
I’ve always mixed up a thin light gray water based paint and painted each wall then wiped it off with a wet paper towel leaving the paint between the bricks, and wa la!.
Tracklayer