Update to my website

The brick work as photographed looks good to me. Following comments may be helpful.

a) The pictures: have you set your digital camera to its highest resolution? The lower resolutions are offered only because the mfrs are too cheap to provide a 256MB or larger memory card with their cameras:

b) The technique: Your theory is correct: that is (in my words), paint the base brick colour, then flood a thin wash of mortar colour (not white, please!), which will settle into the mortar lines. Repeat if necessary.

However, this works best with craft paints, which are thicker (and flatter) than model paints. IMO model paints are worth the cost only on rolling stock, where you wish to preserve some fine detail. On buildings, there isn't that much fine detail, and besides, you want them as background, so muted colours and muted effects are best. Also, theer's no such thing as "brick colour." There are amany, many brick colours, and memory is a poor guide. IMO it's best to use photos for guidance.

I also wash and dry-brush various weathering effects: rust/dirt streaks (as washed from roof, exterior pipes, window sills etc by the rain), and "bloom", the whitish patches caused by excess lime (?) in the mortar coming to the surface. I've picked out a not exactly rectangular patch brick patch where a window was supposedly bricked up, using a lighter, more intense, brick colour. Etc.

Lately, I've started taking pictures of brick walls: the camera trains your eye to see differences and patterns that you didn't notice before. EG, a brick/stone wall next to a parking lot where building once stood always shows signs of the building that was torn down. Without a photo, it's tough to make this look convincing.

One thing to remember is that on painted brick mortar lines do show up, faintly, as dirt and smoke settles into them.

HTH

Hi Wolf

Yep - it's set to the highest resolution and is also set to "Fine" rather than "Standard" on the image quality setting too.

I've tried that before and it didn't work for me. It would always spoil the brick colouring I'd done earlier. That's why I decided to remove a stage by spraying the model with the mortar colour first before drybrushing on the brick colour.

Couldn't agree more. I'm playing around with various shades of red at the moment. I bought 3 shades of acrylic red plus can ligthen and darken to suit to get a bit of variety. I'm also playing around with an off brown/stonish brick colour as well.

MRN

Did you resize the pictures for posting on your website? That can introduce artifacts, especially with narrow lines, closely spaced grids, lacy patterns, and such.

HTH

I do the following with brick (or other stone) walls to get the mortar to be visable:

Paint the bricks whatever color I want, including sometimes painting individual bricks with slightly different colors: brick wall are almost never a uniform shade. I used Polyscale colors because they are non-toxic and once dry, reasonably water proof.

Then I use poster paints (blended to get whatever shade of mortar I want: never pure white: it is too bright!. You can get a convincing enough grayish mortar with white, black, and brown). I paint that over the entire wall; not too thick, but enough to make sure it sinks into the mortar lines. When it has dried a bit, I use a non-textured sponge (the side of an artificial one, the part with no holes) to wipe off the poster paint. It is very water soluble, so only a bit of dampness on the sponge removes it from the flat surface of the brick and leaves it in the mortar lines.

You can dry brush or use chalks to add rust, dirt, whatever. You can also dull coat the whole thing if you want to make sure nothing rubs off (I don't do this, but then I don't use chalks, either).

Ed

in article snipped-for-privacy@news.x-privat.org, Model Railway Nut at snipped-for-privacy@HomeHere.invalid wrote on 12/15/05 1:22 PM:

I like that the sound of that poster paint trick. Thanks for the tip!

You have a really outstanding website in progress. We can all learn from your modeling. Thanks for sharing.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire

You have a really outstanding website in progress. We can all learn from your modeling. Thanks for sharing.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire

If you go to my website (see sig. below), I've posted three pictures of a building on which I used the poster paint grout technique. The white grout was too bright, so I'll tone it down later (probably with a black wash), but you can get the idea of how it looks.

Ed

in article BFC7501C.11D1C% snipped-for-privacy@unearthlylink.net, Edward A. Oates at snipped-for-privacy@unearthlylink.net wrote on 12/15/05 4:53 PM:

Sussed it out. Actually I was in a model railway forum and read a thread about digital photography and model railways with a solution! ;)

I took some pictures in macro mode and they've come out much better.

MRN

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