Just Rust: Take 2

On reflection, and given the very helpful and constructive criticism from Paul and Iain, I've gone back and had a second go at rusting a bit of rail and girder. While the powder based approach might work well for rail dumped in a bog for a few years I admit that it wasn't so good at representing rusting surfaces which tend to discolour without such serious pitting.

On this second attempt I again started with red oxide primer and then started to add shading using the same paints as before. At this stage I wasn't entirely convinced that I was getting anywhere but the addition of some weathering powders (rust and dark earth) seems to have pulled things together nicely. Not only does the texture look more convincing but I think the colour is better as well. Hopefully you all agree?

This episode reinforces the main reason I enjoy blogging and getting comments; without Paul and Iain's feedback I may well have just continued with my first approach and the final model would have suffered as a result.

Just Rust

I grabbed a few minutes today (spread out a bit) to have a crack at another experiment which I'll need for the bridge I'm planning for ExpoNG. I'm reasonably happy with adding rust as a detail to a model but I've never tried to paint an entire item completely rusty. There are plenty of rust coloured paints and washes available but the problem is you need texture as well as colour variation as a well rusted surface tends to be pitted. On the bridge I'm modelling there is quite a lot of rusty girders and flat-bottomed rail so I needed to experiment a little.

What you are looking at here is a piece of girder at the back (which is just 3.2mm tall) and a piece of code 60 rail at the front. Both have been treated in the same way. To get the pitted effect I first sprayed on a layer of red oxide primer before gently sprinkling on some light weight hydrocal casting powder (it was the finest stuff I had to hand that didn't want to clump) to the wet paint. I then knocked off most of the powder, allowed the paint to dry for a second or so and then sprayed a second layer of primer. This seems to give a really nice texture although I might have added a bit too much powder to the rail sides. Once this was all dry I liberally dabbed on some MIG Productions Standard Rust Effects which provided some nice variation in colouring and shading. I then dry-brushed on a small amount of RailMatch Light Rust (#2404), before some final dabs of a rust wash from Flory Models.

The photo is very unforgiving and from a normal viewing distance the texture is less pronounced and I'm fairly happy with how they look.

Painted Sheds

Having been side tracked by building some OO9 gauge track, I've finally gone back and painted the two N gauge sheds built from the Severn Models kit. Both models involved me trying a new technique in their painting.

I painted the walls and door of the wooden shed using my standard approach for aged wood which has worked well on the OO9 wagons I've recently been building. This seems to work well for N gauge buildings as well. When it came to the roof, however, I wasn't happy with the very flat look of painted brass. To add a little texture I painted it with RailMatch roof dirt and then blew on a small amount of polyfilla while the paint was still wet. Once the paint had dried I then painted it again to cover the white plaster. This seems to have given a nice surface, although I don't think the same would work in 4mm scale as the texture would still be fairly smooth.

I've never tried painting red brick before and the second shed caused quite a few problems. I tried a number of different approaches before I settled on something that mostly worked. In the end I painted the walls with RailMatch dark brick, and then used thinned down RailMatch weathered stone run into the mortar gaps. A final patchy black wash made things look nice and dirty. The corrugated roof was initially painted with roof dirt before a dry brushing of Model Color London grey. This gave a nice approximation of new corrugated tin which was then aged using repeated applications of MIG Productions standard rust effects.

While I did enjoy building and painting these sheds, the slight detour back to N gauge modelling has confirmed that I'm much happier working at 4mm to the foot scale so I don't think I'll be returning to N gauge at any future point.