Painting brickwork - help needed please

[spikey]

My first attempt at a scratchbuilt factory building is almost ready for painting and I've ground to a halt.  The walls are Wills brick sheets (the thick "brick red" stuff), to which I'll shortly be applying a coat of Halford's white primer, and the intention is to paint all the walls in a "base" brick colour next, which I can subsequently modify as required with washes, dry brushing, picking out bricks in different shades or whatever. 

 

I've been faffing about experimenting with the Tamiya acrylics that I have to hand, but I seem to be incapable of mixing the colour I want, which I can only describe as Victorian brickwork more at the washed-out pale orange-y end of the spectrum rather than the red.  My question therefore is - does anyone make a paint which might be suitable straight out the bottle?  It doesn't have to be spot on as supplied: as long as I can modify it to taste by mixing in another colour, noting how much of that I add, and know that I can do the same with another bottle/tin of the same paint and get the same colour.

 

Must dry matt, and ideally it'll be an acrylic, but I can go to enamel if I must, and application will be by brush ...

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Using red oxide primer is better for red brick IMHO, white will give a different cast to the red brick paint.

 

Mike.

[brossard]

Agree, use a red oxide primer that is not acrylic.  I would leave that to cure overnight, then apply dilute acrylic cream and wipe off excess after it has dried for a while.

 

You can then pick out individual bricks with various shades of brown, even grey in the Iain Rice style.

 

For me though, I just use Scalescenes brick paper on card these days.  No way I can get my bricks to look that good by painting.

 

John

[meil]

2 hours ago, spikey said:

My first attempt at a scratchbuilt factory building is almost ready for painting and I've ground to a halt.  The walls are Wills brick sheets (the thick "brick red" stuff), to which I'll shortly be applying a coat of Halford's white primer, and the intention is to paint all the walls in a "base" brick colour next, which I can subsequently modify as required with washes, dry brushing, picking out bricks in different shades or whatever. 

 

I've been faffing about experimenting with the Tamiya acrylics that I have to hand, but I seem to be incapable of mixing the colour I want, which I can only describe as Victorian brickwork more at the washed-out pale orange-y end of the spectrum rather than the red.  My question therefore is - does anyone make a paint which might be suitable straight out the bottle?  It doesn't have to be spot on as supplied: as long as I can modify it to taste by mixing in another colour, noting how much of that I add, and know that I can do the same with another bottle/tin of the same paint and get the same colour.

 

Must dry matt, and ideally it'll be an acrylic, but I can go to enamel if I must, and application will be by brush ...

Precision Paints do Terracotta, Light red brick and dark red brick. Terracotta is typically good for pressed bricks that were used for GWR station buildings.

[gwrrob]

Believe it or not I used Humbrol orange mixed with the matting agent done by Precision as a base.

 

[spikey]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Using red oxide primer is better for red brick IMHO, white will give a different cast to the red brick paint.

Ah.  My thinking in using the white is that the Wills sheets are a very strong red, and I'm not aiming for a red brick look (at least not a new red brick look). 

 

1 hour ago, brossard said:

Agree, use a red oxide primer that is not acrylic ... For me though, I just use Scalescenes brick paper on card these days.  No way I can get my bricks to look that good by painting.

 

Might I ask why not acrylic primer?  Isn't that the safest aerosol on plastic?  Whatever, I know I won'r be able to match the Scalescenes papers, but - I have no colour printer and I don't really get on with card

 

Thanks to one and all for your input.

 

ETA - do those Precision Paints colours dry matt i.e. no sheen at all?

Edited March 7, 2020 by spikey
afterthought

[brossard]

I would use IPA to wipe off the cream paint.  IPA won't attack enamel or non-acrylic primer. 

 

I use car primer from our equivalent of Halfords.  The label says it is suitable for plastics.  I have used this for years on all sorts of models, plastic, brass and whitemetal.

 

John

[Rumblestripe]

Personally, I would just prime in automotive red oxide (Halfords in the UK is good stuff) then create your colour variations with dirty brown washes, dry brushing in lighter colours and, if you feel the need, pick out individual bricks in greys, browns and oranges.

 

Leave to dry completely for at least 24 hours.

 

Make a dilute wash of greyish cream, in acrylic I use a flow improver like W&N. Test it by spotting it onto the brickwork, it should run freely into the crevices and joints, if it doesn't, add more flow improver. Once you are happy with your wash, apply liberally over the brickwork then while still wet wipe off with diagonal strokes using kitchen paper or tissue so that the tissue stays out of the courses and leaves a nice distinct pointing. If you wish you can drybrush over the top of this to add highlights.

 

Add then you need to think about smoke staining, water staining, moss growth...

[zarniwhoop]

On 07/03/2020 at 17:17, spikey said:

Ah.  My thinking in using the white is that the Wills sheets are a very strong red, and I'm not aiming for a red brick look (at least not a new red brick look).

For the very little my opinion is worth, I agree with you that white is a better primer colour for many shades of brick (where red or brown is often not the predominant shade, although orange or yellow or pink or even cream might be).

 

I prefer enamels, but mixing shades is still somewhat of a black art to me (unlike mixing artist's acrylics for backscenes). I think the secret is to have a wider range of possible shades, and to mix freely, try on some scrap until the colour seems plausible, and then vary the shade in different parts of the wall. A while ago I googled for Warnham Red Bricks (a sussex engineering brick) and found PDFs from a 12":1ft supplier of various *modern* brick shades, some of which are related to historical shades. One of the PDFs also showed how the colour of the *mortar* affects our perception of the colour of the bricks.

[DCB]

Spraying Wills brickwork with Matt Black then wiping some of it off gives a nice shade of soot encrusted Victorian industrial building brick as it would have appeared in the 1950-2000 era.    @gwrrob's station looks great for a rural Victorian structure well away from smoke.  There are some on the old MSWJR just that colour to this day.

[Nelson Jackson]

This is how I have achieved brickwork on my models. Indeed there is no correct way, but this is how I have done mine, 

1) Spray whole model with red primer

2) Whitewash the whole model for mortar

3) Dry brush your selected colour onto the model in a diagonal fashion (I prefer enamels as they dry slower and tend to dry flat without any sheen from the dry brushing)

4) Usually at this point weathering takes place, I first of all use a weak brown wash for the mortar and use various browns and oranges for picking out the different bricks (via the dry brushing again). 

 

Hope hope this helps! 

Nelson. 

[saxokid]

8 minutes ago, Nelson Jackson said:

This is how I have achieved brickwork on my models. Indeed there is no correct way, but this is how I have done mine, 

1) Spray whole model with red primer

2) Whitewash the whole model for mortar

3) Dry brush your selected colour onto the model in a diagonal fashion (I prefer enamels as they dry slower and tend to dry flat without any sheen from the dry brushing)

4) Usually at this point weathering takes place, I first of all use a weak brown wash for the mortar and use various browns and oranges for picking out the different bricks (via the dry brushing again). 

 

Hope hope this helps! 

Nelson. 

Very nice work here Nelson..

[37403]

On 26/03/2020 at 01:24, Nelson Jackson said:

This is how I have achieved brickwork on my models. Indeed there is no correct way, but this is how I have done mine, 

1) Spray whole model with red primer

2) Whitewash the whole model for mortar

3) Dry brush your selected colour onto the model in a diagonal fashion (I prefer enamels as they dry slower and tend to dry flat without any sheen from the dry brushing)

4) Usually at this point weathering takes place, I first of all use a weak brown wash for the mortar and use various browns and oranges for picking out the different bricks (via the dry brushing again). 

 

Hope hope this helps! 

Nelson. 

This is really nice looking. What paint manufacturer and colour do you typically use for stage 3 and 4?

[Nelson Jackson]

On 19/02/2021 at 23:00, 37403 said:

This is really nice looking. What paint manufacturer and colour do you typically use for stage 3 and 4?

Thank you for your kind words, it was mostly Humbrol Enamel that I used for the various shades of brown and orange. The wash I can’t think of off the top of my head, but I will certainly have a look and get back to you. 

[Penrhos1920]

What colour do you use for the dark purple engineering brick?

[Zunnan]

On 24/03/2021 at 22:20, Penrhos1920 said:

What colour do you use for the dark purple engineering brick?

 

I'm a bit late to the brick party, but my preferred recipe for Staffordshire blue brick is attained via the method prescribed by Nelson Jackson so I'll format in much the same way with a few additions.

 

1) Spray whole model with red primer, certain brick and tile colours may benefit from a different base colour such as grey primer.

 

2) Whitewash* the whole model for mortar. Different building uses will use differing mortar mixes, engineering solutions like railway structures use a much stronger mortar which is different to that used in building construction. For buildings like houses and small factories I find mortar is quite close to my own skin colour, so I use a wash of flesh tones such as Humbrol 35.

 

3) Dry brush your selected colour onto the model in a diagonal fashion (I prefer enamels as they dry slower and tend to dry flat without any sheen from the dry brushing). I have experimented with several orange, terracotta and rust tones for red brick. Experimentation is key with a scrap or two of brick plasticard prepped with stage 1 & 2. Sometimes just the mortar wash is plenty with a bit of the mortar wash removed lightly from the brick surface. For 'Blue Brick' I tend to go for Railmatch Roof Dirt as the dry brush brick colour.

 

4) Usually at this point weathering takes place, I first of all use a weak brown wash for the mortar and use various browns and oranges for picking out the different bricks (via the dry brushing again). I personally don't add a second wash here, I have on occasion had the thinners used in further washes react with previous layers. I'm not saying it doesn't work, my preference is just to not do so. Weathering extends to dry brushing differing brick colours, water staining, lime and salts leeching. Further steps can also include adding natural greens/browns to mortar coarses to represent moss growth.

 

 

Clee Hill winding house. Halfords red primer with a wash of Humbrol 35 left to flash off for 20 minutes. Wash removed gently with HMG thinners. Lower courses and brick paving picked out using Railmatch roof dirt. Individual bricks picked out with Railmatch light rust and Humbrol terracotta, very close to the red oxide primer colour but subtly different. Rain streaking due to lack of guttering on the real thing following prototype images. Roof was done similarly but on a grey primer base with a suitable slate grey dry brush.

 

 

 

Two Staffy Blue brick bridges done using red oxide primer base with a different mix of mortar but still based on Humbrol 35, slightly greyed for the stronger mix mortar. Mortar wash was not removed at all in either case, Railmatch roof dirt was lightly dry brushed diagonally directly on to still tacky mortar wash and then left to dry for an hour or so before darkening the bricks further with more roof dirt dry brush layers. This first pass on still tacky mortar lifts the wash from parts of the bricks, and also keys the surface a bit for later coats of brick colour. I find less layers leaves the red primer showing through in patches which is fantastic when trying to achieve the sort of Staffy Blue which has those red inclusions/imperfections, but leaving the mortar wash in place also leaves you with bricks that have the appearance of other deposits and imperfections; more pronounced on the plate girder bridge in the above examples. Weathering and water staining then added on top using concrete colours, whites, blacks etc.

 

The blotchy platform edging isn't something I'm particularly pleased with! It was a rush and a botch with a second wash after the platform had been installed, hence my reluctance to second wash. Its out of sight normally though so I ignore its existance!