Blue brick 4mm scale

[bob hughes60]

I will need to paint plastikard to resemble blue brick on my 00 layout..

Does anybody have a "recipe" that I can start with either acrylic/enamel mixture or off the shelf colour?

Many thanks

Bob Hughes

[Jol Wilkinson]

I will need to paint plastikard to resemble blue brick on my 00 layout..

Does anybody have a "recipe" that I can start with either acrylic/enamel mixture or off the shelf colour?

Many thanks

Bob Hughes

 

Phoenix Precision Paint do an Engineers Blue Brick Paint P954 http://www.phoenix-paints.co.uk/precision-paints/general-dirty-colours/general-building-colours.html

[Mark Forrest]

Here is a section of the retaining wall on Foundry Lane which was painted using the Precision Paints Engineer's Brick:

 

I would imagine we'll be finding plenty of use for it on Black Country Blues too!

[Andrew Bartlett]

Here is a section of the retaining wall on Foundry Lane which was painted using the Precision Paints Engineer's Brick:

DSCF2805small.jpg

 

I would imagine we'll be finding plenty of use for it on Black Country Blues too!

I am quite new to the hobby and this may sound like a silly question!!!

 

How did you get the weathered/white look between the brickwork-???? I'd like to replicate that sort of thing but with platforms!!!!

 

Andrew

[Mark Forrest]

I am quite new to the hobby and this may sound like a silly question!!!

 

How did you get the weathered/white look between the brickwork-???? I'd like to replicate that sort of thing but with platforms!!!!

 

Andrew

Hi Andrew, not a silly question at all.  Basically it's washes of thinned down white paint.  Personally I'll only ever use enamel paints for this sort of thing as I find acrylics dry too quickly.  From memory (it's been a while since I did Foundry Lane) I did as follows:

 

Painted the whole wall in engineers brick colour

A thinned white/grey wash for the mortar

Cleaned off excess mortar with white spirit and (in places) a bit of T Cut to polish the brick work giving a slight sheen

Added streaks, always working downwards, with very little paint on quite a fine brush

 

Worthwhile practicing on an off cut of embossed brick sheet.

 

Hope that helps.

[sjgardiner]

I am quite new to the hobby and this may sound like a silly question!!!

 

How did you get the weathered/white look between the brickwork-???? I'd like to replicate that sort of thing but with platforms!!!!

 

Andrew

 

There is no such thing as a silly question, be you a newbie or an experienced modeller or anywhere in-between.  I know this is slightly off-topic for the question, but people who demean those with less experience for daring to ask a question drives me crazy (with the sad consequence that people don't ask questions and don't feel welcomed into the hobby).  I see far too much of it in online forums especially.  We all started somewhere, and whatever your status as a modeller (i identify as somewhere in the middle of the skill/experience spectrum), no one should ever be afraid to ask a question, no matter what to help them learn.  And those of use who allegedly know more should always be willing to answer and help.  Pay it forward, helps get people into the hobby by making it more inviting, model railroading is a big tent, there is room for all interests and skill levels and there shouldn't be walls between people because we have different interests/levels of detail/skill etc!

 

Hi Andrew, not a silly question at all.  Basically it's washes of thinned down white paint.  Personally I'll only ever use enamel paints for this sort of thing as I find acrylics dry too quickly.  From memory (it's been a while since I did Foundry Lane) I did as follows:

 

Painted the whole wall in engineers brick colour

A thinned white/grey wash for the mortar

Cleaned off excess mortar with white spirit and (in places) a bit of T Cut to polish the brick work giving a slight sheen

Added streaks, always working downwards, with very little paint on quite a fine brush

 

Worthwhile practicing on an off cut of embossed brick sheet.

 

Hope that helps.

 

And a good answer, i second what Mark said.  Practice makes perfect, and using off-cuts or leftovers to practice on is a great way to learn.  That way when you apply the technique to your model, you hopefully are closer to the look you want.

 

And, when working with plasticard, its relatively cheap to re-make the wall if the effect doesn't work, or you can strip the paint off and start over completely on the same parts.

 

Good luck Andrew with your modelling endeavours!

 

Stephen

[Roger Sunderland]

Hi Andrew

 

For brickwork I currently use a basic enamel wash of the main brick colour. Next step is to get some emulsion paint, the tester pots sold by DIY chains are perfect, any mortar colour will do, usually under the name of "stone" or suchlike. Water this down to the consistency of semi skimmed milk then add a drop or two of washing up liquid. Using an old paintbrush, about size 0, stipple thmortar mix onto the brickwork. The washing up liquid helps the mix flow and capillary action does the rest helping it flow through all the mortar courses. When the emulsion is almost dry, take a cloth and wipe any excess off the brick face, the mortar colour will stay in the courses providing you don't press too hard and work corner to corner not up and down or side to side.With a bit of practice you can get some lovely effects such as a lime bloom on the bricks. Finally dry brush, using enamel again, to highlight any areas you want using varying shades of the brick colour and lastly, if appropriate some subtle weathering.

[Alister_G]

Hi Bob,

 

By way of a contrast to Mark's and Roger's excellent answers, and to provide you some further options, I prefer to work with acrylics, rather than enamels, as I find that for matt finishes they are much better - matt enamels still have a sheen to them once dried, in my experience.

 

Here's a blue brick tunnel portal that I built using SE Finecast brick sheet:

 

 

Before painting it, I used an offcut of the brick sheet to experiment on:

 

 

You can see on the sheet there are various different colours used, all from the Humbrol Matt Acrylic range.

 

On the left the mortar is Matt White (No.34), whereas on the right I used Engineer's Grey (No. RC413), and on the bottom I used Olive Drab (No.66).

 

The blue for the bricks is PRU Blue (No.230).

 

My method was to do an allover coat of the mortar colour, and then dry brush the blue on top. For the actual portal, once I'd got the basic colouring, I went over it with dilute washes of the three colours to get some tonal variation and weathering.

 

Finally I used a dilute wash of Humbrol Rail Colours Dirty Black (No.RC401) for the smoke blackened effect above the portal.

 

Hope this gives you some ideas,

 

Al.

[Stuart Birks]

Just to mess things up even more - I use the same method as acg_mr of putting in the motar colour then drybrushing, but I use enamels. The most important thing which both these photos show is that you don't want just one colour. Bricks, both engineers and normal have quite a variation of colour. When drybrushing I have a base colour and then some pallets of light and dark grey and with normal bricks perhaps some orange and brown. Then keep dipping the brush in the different colours and use the wall as a kind of mixing pallet. When finished with the overall coat of slightly varying colours go back and pick out a few individual bricks.

 

The other important thing as Mark says is to get some bits of sheet and have a go and see which method you get on best with. There is no right or wrong way as long as you are happy with what you end up with.

 

Stu