Question about weathering a BN E8A

[mclarenf119]

Working on weathering my Kato BN E8 to match these photos (only have #9943 right now, but plan to scour ebay for #9942), and I've been back and forth looking at this photo to try and figure out what color I should use to create the paint chips on the faces of the locomotives. Thought I would come ask the pros what they think is best, since most other E8 photos I find don't seem to show any chips like this. I'm torn between what looks like either white primer/base coat showing through or if the sun is shining bright on bare metal.

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Any help is appreciated.

-Eric

[wcfn100]

Looks white in this photo.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/117950591@N02/20647930392/in/photolist-2eZsd1x-xsA3kS

You can see what bare metal looks like on the pilot.

Jason

[mclarenf119]

Looks white in this photo.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/117950591@N02/20647930392/in/photolist-2eZsd1x-xsA3kS

You can see what bare metal looks like on the pilot.

Jason

Ah! This is great. It really does make it clear that this is white, and this pic really shows well all the details that I would like to add later.

Thanks Jason!

[tom mann]

The bigger question is what technique would result in the most realistic pattern.

[peteski]

The bigger question is what technique would result in the most realistic pattern.

The salt weathering (used by the military modelers) might result in the desired effect. Like it is described in your weathering book.  Just use white as the base paint. But the salt grains shoudl be small.  I just recently read an article (in FineScale Modeler Magazine). where the modeler used Sweet-n-Low instead of salt.

[mclarenf119]

I'm definitely going to file away that salt technique for later. Unfortunately, I don't have an airbrush and also don't want to use rattle cans. My plan, since this is a fairly small area, was to use a pin needle and/or sharpened toothpick to dab the chips on. It will probably take some time, but again it seems confined to about 1/2"-3/4" square area, and I will practice to see if I can achieve the effect first. Thanks for all the input guys.

[eja]

maybe put some white paint on a tooth brush and, using your thumb, splatter it on randomly ?

[mclarenf119]

maybe put some white pain on a tooth brush and, using your thumb, splatter it on randomly ?

I was wondering if this would be another way to go about it. I might test it and see how it comes out. I would like something more random to simulate the real random chips, so hopefully this works and I can go back and touch up with the toothpick.

[Maletrain]

The pattern of the paint chipping does not look random in Jason's photo link.  So, I think I would use the pin technique to get the linear effects and the edge effects around the hatches.  Toothbrush spatter just doesn't seem right for this.