Any tips on weathering planes and armor?

Hi Max. First, please let me say that you're likely to get a lot of very good responses to your post, and many far more expert than mine. Still, I'd like to share a few things that I learned, along with a few of my own ideas.

When you're applying a wash it's important to lay a coat of gloss on first. By doing this you're assured of better flow with your wash, and the added bonus of being able to tidy up areas that got too much. From what I've seen by other modelers the popular wash colors are black, raw umber (a dark brown), and raw or burnt sienna (typically a caramel brown). These tend to cover almost any subject. Be sure when mixing washes you are only adding enough paint to tint the thinner. My approach is to mix my colors with the necessary amount of thinner in small glass bottles. This way I always have some ready-made in each color. All I do is mix it good before applying it with my brush.

I'm told applying oil washes to enamels might lift the paint in worst-case scenarios. While this hasn't happened to me, I acknowledge it could happen since so many expert modelers make the claim. Apply a gloss laquer coat first, if using enamels. It apparently resists invasion from the oil wash.

Some other great advice I was given is to use the cheapest thinner possible. Cheaper by nature is less powerful, and is therefore less likely to attack your paint job.

Different builders are going to tell you different things. I prefer applying my wash with a fine-tip brush, to minimize cleanup. As for other weathering techniques, I was already having wonderful experiences with powders before I discovered wash. One doesn't replace the other...rather they compliment each other. For soot, rust, grime, and dust you can use the powders. I believe these, unlike washes, work best if applied to a flat finish. I say this because while the wash needs a smooth slick surface to flow, the powder needs something finely coarse to cling to. Weathering powders are available from most good hobby shops, but if you're counting pennies chalk pastels are sufficient.

I too am sorry for making this so long, but I wish you the best with your efforts. One thing I've learned is that model building is a perpetual learning curve, and I always discover new and exciting things to try. Trial and error is part of the game too. Take care, and good luck.

Randy IPMS Houston

We're living in a world that's been pulled over our eyes to blind us from the truth. Where are you, white rabbit?

Max, it's not amateurish but ultra-clean aircraft usually are only seen in museums and just outside the factory doors. A little dirty thinner goes a long way.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Randy

First off thanks for your help with that post.

I do apply a gloss coat of future before to apply the decals and after to seal them in and avoid yellowing later on, so the gloss coat is there before applying the wash.

Ok i have always heard to avoid the black but i do have the other colors you mention. That will be my first thing to try to stick to the

2 or 3 colors you mention from now on. I had often heard to try to match the base color as closely as possible to the wash one.

Believe me after i did a wash on my Italeri M13/40 tank which was too heavy on pigment, i learned my lesson i thought, but it seems that yesterday when doing the wash for my Fujimi Corsair, i still over did it and i was carefull, probably used about the size of a sunflower seed for paint for 3 quarters of a drinking straw of thinner, i guess seeing the result on the model it's still way too much. I will use a needle (Wife will be wondering where her needles go!) from now on to get the paint so i get very little and will increase the thinner part too.

What is your ratio paint/thinner?

I'm told applying oil washes to enamels might lift the paint in

No worries here i don't use enamels, too messy to clean up for me, i prefer acrylics and am used to Tamiya colors.

I have heard that too and use whatever is cheapest (Currently using "Klean strip" brand premium paint thinner.)

You see i had heard of two ways of doing it, one to apply the thinner only where needed and the second to put it all over the model for uniformity. The second worked better for me so far as in solution one, it would look really as if some areas had something on them that others didn't have (The wash).

I guess i will learn to work with oils first and when i know more what i am doing, i will move on to other technics. One thing I've learned is that model building is a

I guess it's good for other things in life too, this wash has just been getting the best of me for several models in a row and i get a little frustrated sometimes but i'll get it, i'll keep trying new stuff.

Thanks for the help

Max

I've only just begun to weather my aircraft. I decided to approach this problem in stages; right now, I do simple weathering such as chipped paint, exhaust and gun stains, and cockpit/wheel well highlighting. I keep my tools simple as well; silver artist's pencil for chipped paint, Tamiya smoke for stains. I've just started experimenting with pastel chalks for panel shading. I finished a 1/48 Hasegawa P-38, od over gray, in which I did some panel shading with the chalk -- got the tip from FSM. Right now I'm very satisfied with the results, and it's hard to botch things with the materials I'm using. Perhaps eventually I'll move to more sophisticated things...

Cheers,

Hi,

I build mostly aircrafts and even the most clean one has some sign of weathering (unless it just left the factory or the paint shop) so I usually make an enamel wash and some dry-brushing.

First of all to make a good enamel wash you need a "barrier", such as a clear gloss (acrylic) otherwise the thinner could damage the paintjob. Always use a gloss, not a flat, because the wash could be "trapped" by the rough finish and darken the model a lot. After testing some acrylic clear glosses I prefer the old microscale/superscale gloss (it's tough and doesn't yellow).

Always test clearcoat and thinner: for example some thinners (like testors airbush thinner) are too hot and will dissolve everything. I use Humbrol thinner; anyway odorless white spirit (turpenoid?) should be safe enough.

Then you need to apply a very thinned wash (well, in fact it should be more a dirty thinner than a thinned paint) with a soft brush. You don't need to flood the model, it must be just barely wet. If the wash is well thinned it will flow through panel lines and engravings while leaving only some slight shades on flat surfaces. Don't rub too much on the same area or you could eat through the clear coat: if there's too much paint on some spots, clean the brush with a towel and use it as a sponge.

Hope this helps

I rarely weather anything--some aircraft really were clean and well-taken-care-of, though many did show the effects of weathering. Anyway, being worried about 'amateurishness' is probably better directed to the basics--leaving obvious seams, glue blobs, fingerprints, major misalignments, and even then, if you're satisfied...

I'm uncertain what look you're really after, but two things come to mind that you might experiment with. First you may have too much pigment in your wash, which will tend to make the results much more obtrusive. It makes more sense to have a relatively little color to the wash--if it seems too faint, you can probably rewash to add more pigment, but if you start out with too much, there's no way to reduce it short of removing it all. The other issue is what colors you are using for the wash. I've never tried anything but grayscale and near-grayscale tones, which has worked fine--the addition of blue, for example, risks value changes you may not intend. However, there are instances where US Navy aircaft weather to a slightly purple look from the original blue, so what you got might not be unreasonable.

Mark Schynert

Gloss sea blue did tend to go purple near exhausts, probably from the heat. One color that does work well is Payne's grey when mixed with Mars black and titanium white for a wash on ships, also works over Panzer grey.

I can't comment on weathering aircraft except to suggest that it is better to underdo the effects.

When I did a lot of armour modelling years ago, I used a simple weathering technique that might give you some ideas.

I painted the vehicle in the required colours and applied and sealed the decals. Then, I dry brushed a dull silver to represent areas where paint had worn away. This was best underdone although it was partially covered by later stages.

With the paint and decals dry, I applied a very thin wash of yellow-brown watercolour. This was a brand called Pelikan Plaka and was permanent when dry. The wash was little more than dirty water and covered the whole model. It represented a build-up of road dust and general dirt. When this first wash was dry, I might add a second wash of the same colour if I thought it needed it.

The effect was now rather flat. The wash unified everything but tended to suppress detail. The next stage was to bring out the detail. I used a thin wash of a red-brown Plaka and brushed it around major raised details such as hatches and cupolas or prominent seams. This was again a thin wash and represented slight rusting. It was particularly effective on green colours but had to be applied sparingly.

The next stage was to outline engraved details and the edges of hatch covers using a thin black wash applied with a small brush to give a narrow line.

After that, I would sometimes use dry brushing with a slightly lighter shade of the basic vehicle colour to bring out additional detail.

I used this technique on 1/76 and 1/72 scale models with fair success. You may be able to adapt it to other scales and substitute acrylics for the Pelikan Plaka which is now rather expensive and hard to find.

In any event, good luck with the models.

Gordon McLaughlin