Weathering brick

Rob, There are a number of ways. One is to spray the sheets with the color of the mortar. Usually a tan or lighter gray shade. Generally the mortar does not stand out too much so white may be a little bright. Not far from where I live is an older brick house where they used a white mortar and the mortar lines still jump right out at you so there is always an exception to the rule. After the mortar color dries off for a day or two dry brush the brick color lightened with white on the brick faces. After that dry brush a slightly darker brick color very lightly over a brick here and there. Next a very thin wash of black or dark brown. The wash should tone everything down and give a weathered effect. If there are areas of brick trim around windows or doors a lightened brick color very lightly dry brushed around the edges will help bring out the detail. Quicker but not as controlled results can be had painting the plastic sheet the brick color and then giving it a wash of mortar color lightly wiping off the brick then following with thin wash of black. Bruce

I like the technique in this MR article.

Realistic brick and stone buildings in 7 steps Model Railroader, August 2004 page 86

using paint and cosmetic sponges ( BRICK, "RENNINGER, KATHLEEN", STONE, STRUCTURE, SUPERDETAIL, MR )

I like the technique in this MR article. Basically, you paint the building with a motor color. Let it dry completely and then use comsmetic sponges to stipple on paint.

Eric

Realistic brick and stone buildings in 7 steps Model Railroader, August 2004 page 86

using paint and cosmetic sponges ( BRICK, "RENNINGER, KATHLEEN", STONE, STRUCTURE, SUPERDETAIL, MR )

I made a mistake once and got some wet plaster of paris onto a kit with brick walls. When I wiped it off, it looked like mortar. Intentionally doing this, and toning the white made it look even better.

In addition to the other suggestions: Take a whole lot of pictures of brick walls of all kinds. Empty lots use as parking lots often give you a lovely large expanse of brick on one side or the other. If using a digital camera. set it to its highest resolution, so you an print a nice large print without getting those detail-robbing jaggies. Take some closeups, too. BTW, doing this will train your eye to see things you never noticed before. :-)

For painting, this is what I do. I use acrylic colours, never enamels, partly on account of the danger from the solvents, but mostly because acrylic is a forgiving medium. If you don't like what you've just done, you can wash it off immediately.

a) First wash all plastic parts in warm soap (dish detergent) water. This removes the last traces of mold release agent, which fights with all type of paint.

b) Overspray the brick with a _light_ coat of red or brown primer - this kills the shine, creates a suitable earth colour tone, and adds tooth. If you want brighter brick colours, spray or paint on an appropriate colour before the next step. It does not have to be uniform or even.

c) Make a wash of acrylic paint. Choose greys, light pinkish browns, even dull yellows. Mortar is _not_ white - it's basically grey, and often has other colours mixed in. You want a basically medium to light grey mud colour with some brownish or pinkish or yellowish colour tone. The wash should be very thin - basically coloured water.

d) Flow the wash onto the brick sheets, tilting the sheets this way and that to get even coverage.let dry for a minute or so, and blot gently with tissue or paper towel. Don't press into the mortar grooves - you want the mortar colour to be there.

e) Let dry, and repeat until the mortar effect is just visible - mortar should not contrasty. (I;ve seen walls whose owners painted the mortar white - I guess they like to shock their eyeballs. :-))

f) Now drybrush dark and medium greys, rusty browns, off-whites streaking these from the ends of window sill, below utility boxes, etc. This is where all those photographs come in handy: it's difficult to remember abstract, random patterns of weathering. Let dry.

g) Paint molded on sills, window frames, etc.

h) Apply any posters, painted on lettering and other signs now.

i) Make a very thin wash of black (some people use India ink for this step), and flow it over everything. The purpose is to blend everything together. If you can see the black, it's too much. If you can tell the difference between black-washed wall and untreated wall, it's just right.

General principle: avoid uniformity and string contrasts.

Special cases:

1) Modern brick walls are usually made from deliberately varied brick. Touch up individual bricks to create this effect - but it's tedious as can be to do this. I don't know of any easy way to reproduce this effect. 2) Bricks of other colours: some brick is beige or brown, some is even blue. Rely on photos to help you mix an appropriate colour, and paint the brick sheet. Use photos to guide mixing the mortar colour wash, too, then proceed as above. 3) Painted brick: sometimes brick is painted. In such cases, everything is the same colour, but the mortar lines may be visible here and there because of weathering and dirt. Again, use photos to guide you. 4) Sometimes stucco breaks away from the wall and reveals the underlying brick. But stucco is another subject, and I have no experience with it. 5) Removing signs, awnings, porches, etc reveals unweathered underlying brick, small rust patches from bolts, etc. This is a nice effect to copy. 6) When a bulding is torn down, the walls of the adjacent buildings will have interesting evdince of their former neighbour. Another nice effect.

HTH&GL

If you're modelling new buildings, that'll work. If you look at old brick buildings in a large city, you'll find that the mortar has become very dark from pollution. Especially where coal and oil were used as heat.

The bricks themselves are often quite darkened, but for some reason not as much as the mortar.

I just use the ever-popular black wash on my brick buildings.

Here's something that worked well for me.

Get some inexpensive white liquid shoe polish, the type you need to buff to a shine. Add a few drops of dark grey or brown paint (water soluble) to suit, and flood it across the wall surface, Using a damp cloth or paper towel, gently wipe it off of the brick faces. Let the portions in the cracks dry, then spray the entire surface with clear flat finish. After all is dry, dry-brush a darker color of your choice on the raised brick faces to get the varying weathering on the brick faces.

Why, you ask, shoe polish? If you apply it and don't brush it to a sheen, it gets a grit texture I've never achieved with paint. That may seem like a minor detail, but I believe it's noticable when the building is complete.

Regards