On another thread (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/99615-transfers-for-airfix-lowmac/) , where I was asking about getting replacement transfers for an Airfix Lowmac EK, I was asked if I could give an overview of how I got the wood effect on the Lowmac deck. So here’s a worked example - it’s the floor of a Parkside Plate wagon.

The equipment used is:   

• Lifecolor acrylic weathered wood paint set
• Lifecolor acrylic BR unfitted freight grey (UA 818)
• MIG Black smoke weathering powder
• No.  2 round paintbrush – good condition
• No. 0 Filbert paintbrush – poor condition

Start by giving the whole floor two coats of “Wood Cold Base Color” (sic) (UA717) from the weathered wood set with a decent quality brush, and leave to dry for 24 hours to harden off.  This is important as the subsequent dry-brushing can be quite vigorous, and can remove the base layer. Guess how I know this…

Then, when that’s fully dry, things do speed up a bit. Take the “Wood Warm Base Color” (UA714) from the weathered wood set, and using the grotty filbert brush, start drybrushing along the grain of the planks.  Note that this is really, really, really drybrushing – if you think there’s no paint at all on the brush, there’s probably too much.  . The picture below shows the effect we are looking for on part of the floor.

When it’s done we should have something that looks a bit like this:

There’s no need to wait before moving on to the next step – the drybrushing means the paint is dry pretty much as soon as it has been applied. So next take the “Wood Warm Light Color” (UA 715) from the weathered wood set and repeat the drybrushing, to give something that looks like this.

The next step is important and takes a new colour not from the weathered wood set. I use “Lifecolor Unfitted Freight Grey” (UA818) because I’ve got some handy, but any medium grey will be OK.  Generally, the older wood gets, the greyer it becomes, so this is an important step in defining how old our wood will look.  So repeat the drybrushing process, but adding a bit more grey if we want older wood.  I’ve gone for a not-too-old look here:

As well as going grey, older wood take on silvery highlights, and these are then added by guess what?  More drybrushing - this time with “Wood Cold Light Shade” (UA718) from the weathered wood set.

The final drybrushing stage is then to add the darker highlights (if that makes sense) using the “Wood Warm Dark Shade” (UA713) from the weathered wood set, to give us something like this:

Because this is going to be the floor of a plate wagon, I felt that a bit of pre-weathering would be appropriate, and so I’ve just worked in some MIG Black Smoke weathering powder to darken the effect, using the grotty filbert brush.

And that’s it really.  All the drybrushing and powder work on this floor took me about 35 mins, so it’s not too time consuming.

Just remember  - the most important things are to make sure that the drybrushing is really, really dry, and remember that if you make a mistake, just rub it off (I use my finger) and have another go.

Any questions?