Switcher Above: Walkways collect dirt and grime over time. You can simulate this either with your airbrush or using Bragdon Weathering Colors.
EMC FTs Upper right: Before weathering a black roof, it is best to repaint the roof with Weathered Black and then add fad- ing using your airbrush with a light gray color such as Grime. Exhaust soot can be added around the stacks.
up the layers of wash gradually to gain the effect you want. Here are a few key points to successfully applying washes: • Make sure all your brush strokes are vertical. You are try- ing to simulate the effects of grav- ity on rainwater and snowmelt. Water always runs down surfaces vertically, dragging accumulated dirt along with it. • Only use washes on surfaces where water will run, such as ver- tical surfaces on the nose, hood sides, frame, curved roof surfac- es such as the cab roof of an Alco RS-3, or the angled roof of the cab of an SD45. You won’t see streaks typically on the flat surface of a roof or walkway. • In general, it is better to pull
the brush from top to bottom — that is how weathering happens in the real world. However, if you are weathering a hood unit with walk- way handrails installed, it is dif- ficult to do this. In this case, drag the brush upward from the walk- way up to the edge of the roof, be- ing careful not to leave puddles where your brushstroke ends. • In my experience, using
solvent-based washes typically doesn’t soften the factory paint, so long as you don’t flood the surface. Your brush should be damp, but not dripping with the wash. One nice thing about us- ing solvent-based washes is that if you need to correct a mistake, the wash will allow you to change an effect without disturbing the un- derlying paint even after the wash has dried. If you are using acrylic
64 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
washes, once the wash dries, you cannot change it or remove it. • The number of applications of wash depends on how heavily weathered a unit you are trying to simulate. The first application will typically not result in much streaking, but generally dulls down the toy-like appearance of an out-of-the-box diesel. Remem- ber that even though the model manufacturers may match a mod- el’s colors exactly to the proto- type, when you view a prototype photo, you are looking through layers of atmosphere that sub- due the color intensity. And for the prototype, even after only one trip, a new unit will accumulate some road dust, grime, and ex- haust soot, dulling its new paint. • If you are weathering a black unit, such as an Espee Black Widow F-unit, the black washes will have some effect on the let- tering, but won’t impact the black paint. For black or dark-colored diesels, try using a wash with Reefer Gray as the base. You have to be especially careful because the gray streaks tend to be more pronounced than lighter-colored units using the black wash, so build the wash layers up slowly, letting each application dry before adding more.
The Car Body — Blending the Weathering
After you are satisfied with the wash step, there are a few more techniques with the airbrush to blend and soften the distinctive
effects of the wash on the unit. Be- fore doing any airbrush work on the car body, you will need to de- cide how to protect the cab win- dow “glass” and headlights from the weathering paint. Even the most heavily weathered unit will have clean windows and head- light lenses. If the window glass is already installed, there are two methods, and both work well: Using tiny pieces of masking tape, cover all the “glass” areas and the headlights. Instead of try- ing to cut out a perfect size for the opening, cut out smaller piec- es and fit them together into the edges and corners of the “glass” using tweezers. It isn’t necessary to do a perfect job — just good enough to protect the majority of the surface from weathering paint. Another method is to use a product made by Microscale (the decal people) called Micro-Mask liquid masking tape. It is a clear, gel-like substance that you paint on the window “glass” with a fine brush. It dries into a film a short time after application. After you have completed weathering, you simply peel the material off the “glass” like a piece of clear tape. This technique generally works quite well, and when removing the film, be careful not to scratch the plastic windows. Using a sharp toothpick, you can first lift one edge of the mask, then using tweezers, carefully pull the mask off the window. From here, there are gener- ally three or four colors that are used to blend and finish the basic
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100