Chris Nevard's Blog

"As with everything, there are no rules, so be sure to look at the real world rather than other people's models for inspiration."

 

So true Chris but I do get inspired by 'How' others achieve results. Its copy the methods not the model. Thanks for the paint info some useful tips there.

Don

 

The bit of kitchen roll was after a good old dry-brushing session, it was too pretty just to chuck, well not until a camera was pointed at it first.

Thats a fantastic little insight into how you go about painting your models Chris, thank you. Drybrushing is such an excellent way of adding colour to models and its a technique I use all of the time.

 

One thing I tend to use all of the time is to add a final light drybrush of white onto something as I feel it gives a great faded appearance as it exaggerates the highlights, is it something you do?

 

Missy

Thanks for the thoughts on BR(S) buildings green - yet more shades to consider if I ever get a 60s layout built.

 

ĸen

Hi Missy, yup, those 'stone' shades get used for dry-brushing everthing too - as you say, it really helps with the patina. I don't think I ever use any solid colour straight from the pot these days - well bith buildings and ground cover anyway.

Ken - those greens work well for SR building green. I just remember it and generally recall the green being a very pale almost copper oxide colour and nothing like what we see on preserved railways (that's probabaly down to the fact that they're repainted far more regularly than working BR). I'll have a look to see what I use for the SR 'cream' later - it certainly will be nothing like the bright yellow 'railway colour'.

You missed my favourite, Humbrol matt 66 Crud (for, well crud). best ,Brian.

That might be similar to the revel brown. It's just that my local Modelzone only stocks Revell these days. I like gunmetal black too - it drybrushes to a lovely oily sheen. I hanve to thank Darren of Torrington fame for that tip after seeing what a beatiful job he does on his locos etc.

What colours would you/do you use for brickwork as I have to paint a couple of buildings one a signal box which is mainly the standard brick colour with engineering blues at the corners the other mainly engineering blues.

For brick recently I've been using Halfords red primer and do the usual pale wash over for mortar. We tend to overdo pale mortar on models, though in real life it's often darker than the brick. Feathering in some Humbrol 'brick red' and 'leather' randomly will give some colour variation. Picking out the odd brick more accurately in another colour can look good, but it can look a little cartoon like if overdone, that could probably be addresses with a little dry-brushing to reduce the effect if it looks a little like a 'painting by numbers' exercise.

 

 

For the 'blue bricks' the same grey that's used for slates won't be far wrong. Luckily, whilst steam and semaphores are mostly long gone, we have plenty of old brickwork around for reference.

That kitchen towel should be in Tate Modern!

good information