Another building finished for my layout project

Yes, the mortar is a bit bright, butothersies, you have a realistic variation in tones IMO. I would try a very light wash of dark grey-brown, or even black. Amazing what a bit of over-all toning down will do! If it looks like it will tone down that bright mortar as desired, try another coat. Maybe vary the colours of the 2nd, 3rd, etc washes, and avoid applying them evenly.

Have fun!

Looks good. I would try to weather the brick mortar like was already said. And I would also look for a way to weather the roof. Believe it would have been a tin roof and those never stay painted and weather substantially.

I weather brick mortar by using black and thinning it down with thinner where it will run free like water. Once applied with a brush it will run through the joints. Then I wipe it off when it has set for a shot time but that's a judgment call. You might want to try it on an area that will be less seen. That process also works well for roofs, but try it out on something other than your model.

That brick is a good job.

Best stuff I'ver ever seen is by a guy, Mike Rebeiro, who manufactures plastic kits.

Take a look at this site, where he gives away his detailing recipies and techniques.

I actually have some ink washes from the Games Workshop range including a red and some shades of brown. I might give them a go and see what happens. I've found a small plate layers hut kit - the model is really quite small - that may be the perfect practice material for this. It would ony cost £2-3 to replace should I want to.

I'll give it a try and let you know how I get on.

Cheers,

MRN

I have good luck doing mortar lines with powdered chalk. I spray the entire brick piece with red auto primer. That makes a good flat red brick color. Then I powder some ordinary white school blackboard type chalk and work the powder into the mortar joints with a brush. Looks good as long as you DONT DULLCOTE it. The Dullcote "marries" with the powdered chalk and makes it invisible.

David Starr

Another option is to paint it with a good quality brick color and let it dry thoroughly; then flow on a thinned wash of some craft (as opposed to model) store paints in a combination of white, black and a bit of brown that gives the mortat look you want. Let it dry just a bit then wipe teh raised (brick) surfaces with the smooth edge of a lightly dampened artificial sponge, or cloth over a straight edge, etc., leaving it in the grooves; finish up with weathering powders and a dulling sealer coat.

Pretty good Shaun. Keep goin'.

But one question you can ask yourself - OK, two maybe - is "Do I want Generic Layout Brick Colour" or "colour specific to a particular building or area"? If you want the late former, any of the hints offered will work fine. I once did a "ninety year old" warehouse flat out of two bashed Heljan breweries, using the "spray with dark red, flood with mortar (Tamiya JNR Grey in my case) then spray the whole thing with dirty thinners with some extra black dissolved in it" method. Looked OK.

The latter method means field trips and thinking with your artists smock on. Where is the building. How old is the building. What neighbourhood is it located in. When (ie, time period) is the building. Given my palette of paints here, what can I use to replicate what nature/development/pollution have done? A digital camera is your friend here. Some modellers use them to aid in detailed research to accurately model the prototype, down to the last coiled hose on a tap. (Fuse wire works good for that :-) ) But not really my interest, I'm more for the artist than the historian/engineer. I just dislike paint-by-number approaches.

If you are modelling the "Right Here, Right Now", put those snaps you took on your monitor. Print 'em out if you find a well-lit side showing lots of lovely colour details. Put it next to your model and start experimenting - you say you are using acrylics? Great! The solution to the biggest stuff up is only as far away as your nearest tap. Now try. A good rule of thumb is it should take as long to paint your building as it does to build it.

But I suppose the biggest message is - have fun! OK, I'm off my soapbox now.

Let us know how your next project turns out.

Regards

Steve

Hi Steve,

I've tried a variation on what you suggested. I used a coat of ink wash (a Games Workshop Flesh one) but didn't worry about wiping it off afterwards. What I did was to drybrush another coat of the brick colour on. I think the results are a little better than the first attempt and I've gone back and applied an ink wash to the factory building as well.

The first kit I tried the wash on was a weighbridge office and there's a pic of it online at:-

What do you think of it compared to the first effort of mine?

MRN

Definitely better than the first model with the nearly bright white mortar; hard to tell about the "first attempt at drybrushing . . . theory 2" since there doesn't seem to be a higher resolution image of that, but the color does look better in that one. Did you apply and DullCoat or similar spray? There seems to be a little shine about it, and shininess is almost always a big factor in a toy look.

The only thing about the latest one is the size of the bricks and thickness of the mortar lines, and that's not an effect of your painting. Is such large brickwork and thick mortar prototypical of UK construction, or just what the model manufacturer settled for?

The fourth and fifth images down at the

site that Jim McLaughlin referenced (go to the "Painting Without Paint" page) are some of the best looking aged brick I've ever seen.

Cheers Steve

I'll bear those in mind for my next buildings that have brickwork. I wanted to see if I could actually paint a brick building and still have the mortar show through. Now I know that I can I'll be looking to refine my technique in the future.

Well, I've actually had a bit of a building frenzy and have now finished all the kits that I've stored up recently! I'll put the pics up on my website pretty soon.

I've now bitten the bullet and am attempting to scratch build a generic train washer from the 70's-80's in the UK. It *should* be fairly straight forward to build the main building as it's only a corrugated mettal box with a sloped roof also of corrugated metal. The detailing doesn't look too bad either. A ladder up to a gantry over the brushes, some pipework and some lights seem to be all that's required from the prototype photos that I've got. I'll let you all know how it goes.

MRN

The NGS N Gauge Modern Area Group website can be found at:-

My own layout project website can be found at:-

Hi Steve,

I'm going to show my ignorance here and ask what is Dullcoat? Is it a trade name for a finishing product or a type of finishing product? I've never heard of it before but several people - inlcuding on this side of the pond - all recommend that I finish my model with it.

I think it's more of a factor of my painting skills as the gaps between the bricks on the model are actually very thin! ;)

MRN

The NGS N Gauge Modern Area Group website can be found at:-

My own layout project website can be found at:-

I should have spelled it their way: DullCote