Getting down and dirty

[Gwiwer]

Plucking up courage to weather ones' own stock can be a daunting aspect of our hobby. We may be aware of the superb workmanship displayed from time to time within this and other sites and from the highly-skilled commercial weathering people. And we may wonder how we can ever reach such heights of skill and realism.

 

We might with some justification wonder if it is worth the risk of ruining our own stock on the workbench through inexperience or other cause particularly when a locomotive costs in the region of £100 - £200 and even a humble freight wagon can be above

£30.

 

I had never until recently attempted any such venture, being more than happy with those custom-weathered items I have been able to buy from numerous sources. Some of my stock is factory-weathered but the vast majority is rather too clean and shiny for my liking. Now as a now more matured modeller with developing skills I intend to challenge myself and gradually learn the weathering techniques required for a fully-professional look.

 

With an airbrush due in the mail any day (Paasche VL set for the afficianados) and some pen and powder work already under my belt I thought it might be a good time to start an occasional topic to show the weathering rather than illustrate the layout itself.

 

I stress I consider myself to be an absolute beginner in this field and am open to any and all comment and feedback. I hope, in the course of this topic to perhaps also inspire other modellers to take courage and to make a start to see what they might be capable of. We don't know until we try.

 

Here is my application of weathering powders to increase the effectiveness of Hornby's factory weathering on their Hymek. This already has a fairly decent factory spray of track dirt but has had a brown powder brushed over most of the loco, into the vents and grilles and more thickly onto the bogie detail.

 

 

 

Cross-posted from the layout topic here is the effect of similar treatment on a Heljan "Western" which was not factory-treated so all the weathering here is my own with a little black but mostly brown powders. This model has also had an application of fine black mapping pen to darken the grilles as well and the front end has yet to be completed. The vans are professionally weathered and are not my work.

 

 

 

By way of showing how little can sometimes achieve a realistic effect here is a TPO van which has had nothing more than a touch of black mapping pen inked into the door frames and rubbed in with a cotton wool bud to resemble dirt in the corners and mouldings. Little touches like this - which can take only a few minutes - can sometimes give an effect which is so subtle it's hard to pick but which has visitors asking what has been done to make the vans look "used".

 

 

And the same technique applied in a Sprinter class 150/2 doorway

 

 

Finally for now a development of that pen technique led me to marking closely-spaced lines along the lower bodysides of the Sprinter and smudging them together with a tissue and the cotton wool bud. Almost all the ink is removed in the process, which must be done before it dries, but enough is left to give a grimy film. The left-hand coach is treated, the right-hand one is as-new.

 

[Taz]

Particularly impressed with the 150.

That is a technique I hadn't come across before.

Noted for future reference. Thanks

[mudmagnet]

I like the idea with the mapping pen. I assume that this gives you better finer control than painting using a fine brush. I have used a draughting pencil (0.3 / 0.5 / 0.7) to produce fine lines to represent joints in panels.