Over one weekend, I changed the color and look of this 2-axle side board freight car (Märklin article number 4728) from this to this Honing My Weathering Skills No, I did it not out of frustration but have long planned … Continue reading Practising Weathering: Heavy Weathering and Graffiti on Freight Car
I needed a street sweeper vehicle for my Loewenherz park and found a nice Wiking Unimog street sweeper. Unfortunately, I could not find the same article number as the one showed up on the Internet has a different cab design (Wiking Unimog U20 (Art. No. 064639)) It looks too shiny and clean for a hardworking street sweeper vehicle and definitely perfect candidate for weathering. First step is to remove all parts and give them a clean wash. I use wet towel for the quick cleanup. It contains mild alcohol. All parts were carefully painted and weathering based on a reference … Continue reading Practising Weathering: Wiking Unimog Street Sweeper
Acrylic paints dry up relatively fast when out of the bottle. Modellers use wet palette to keep the paints from drying during use. I gave my favourite salad container a second life (btw, Walter Popp’s salads are delicious if you can find them). Materials and Instructions for Wet Palette You need the following: Trace the bottom of the container on the packaging foam and cut to size. Stick double tapes on one side and press the foam to tbe bottom of the container. Cut baking paper to the size of the packaging foam. You can make many of these as … Continue reading Weathering 101: Wet Palette to Moist Acrylic Paints
Airbrush modellers talked a lot about the need to prime your models before you start painting. So I did this simple test: two plastic spoons were primed with Vallejo Surface Primer black (left and right); the difference is the dilution with airbrush thinner. The left spoon 50 primer/50 thinner, while the one on the right 60 primer / 40 thinner. Priming the Test Spoons The brown spoon was not primed and was airbrushed with Vallejo Model Air hull red. Primed spoons “Scratch my Back” Test One of the primed spoons – the 60/40 one was sprayed with Vallejo hull red … Continue reading Weathering 101: Always Prime Your Models
In the past few posts, I showed how I weathered the tank locomotive BR 74 854 and Roco flex track. Now, I will explain how I bring them together. Building the Exhibition Plinth The 30cm flex track serves to hold … Continue reading Practising Weathering: Bringing All Together
Not all cobblestones are dull or shiny grey. It is definitely interesting to add some colors to cobblestones. And this was what I did for my layout. One section of my Loewenherz railway park is covered with cobblestones. These are … Continue reading Practising Weathering: Bringing Colors to Cobblestones
All this while I have been using acrylic paints with paint brushes to paint and weather my models, figures and tracks. Recently I got a handheld airbrush compressor and this gives me more flexibility to setup my tool for airbrushing. … Continue reading Practising Weathering: Aging Railway Track
Note: I am starting a series of “Practising Weathering” posts. The aim is to show my techniques for weathering models and layout. Are you the type who buy and run your model locomotives and rolling stocks in as-is condition i.e “pristine” plastic condition or do you weather them to make them more realistic to the era and theme of your layout? There is not right-or-wrong answer here. I guess it depends on the taste and interest of individuals. I wanted to explore other aspect of model railroading hobby – weathering. To me, weathering is making the models – rolling or … Continue reading Practising Weathering: Removing The Plastic Shine
Well-used concrete sleepers (Foto: Jimmy Low (c)) Unfortunately, Märklin/Trix does not produce flex rails with concrete sleepers, which is a pity since they are selling Era IV-VI rolling stocks. As far as I am aware, Roco (42401), Piko (55150), Weinert (74003) and Peco UK (SL-102) produce them. I took 14 concrete sleepers from a section of the Roco flex rails. I used a sharp blade to remove extra plastic sprues and filed the excesses. To make the sleepers look worn and partly damaged from use, I filed selected parts of the sleeper to give it a chipped or worn look. … Continue reading Weathering Concrete Rail Sleepers
All this while I wanted to keep my models “squeeky” clean. After seeing some beautiful weathered models, I think it is time to make them “realistically” well-used and dirty. Vallejo and AK Interactive offer great acrylic paints and accessories for weathering. The Vallejo Model Air (for airbrushing vs Vallejo Model for paintbrushing) Railway Colors (Europe) seems like a good starting point for me. It has the necessary colors that I would need. They are: 71.001 White71.014 Gunship Green71.019 Camouflage Dark Green71.028 Sand Yellow71.037 Mud Brown71.039 Hull Red71.049 Sea Grey71.057 Black71.062 Aluminium (Metallic)71.069 Rust (Metallic)71.076 Skin Tone71.078 Yellow RLM0471.080 Rust71.084 Fire … Continue reading Dabbling Into the World of Weathering
germaN:87AC :: Steam Experience Across Germany 