What am I doing wrong.. Paint/Weathering

[nuno81291]

So I am digging into paint and weathering as my layouts future is up in the air. I am going over old cars I did to give me a cheap canvas to practice. I am primarily trying to do paint fades with Vallejo acrylics and my airbrush, and accumulated grime/dirt/dust. I have had very promising results to this point, and seal all that with dullcote.

Last night I took one of these to the next step to do rust streaking with oil paints. I used Windsor Newton WS oils, and grumbacher turpentine to do the streaks. In the process I must have pushed down too hard as I stripped some of the base weathering I had done. The result was so bad I committed to completely strip the car and start over.

Now I had done some of these streaks (with mixed success before) and wanted to posit to the weathering masters here what I may be doing wrong or what I should try to do to have better results that don’t mess up the base coat.

So basically I am asking, if I want to use acrylics from the airbrush the general process may look like:

Wash/clean car. Spray car with dullcote. Do acrylic fade, and accumulated dust/grime. Dullcote. Do any panel lines/washes (either acrylic or oil?) then do any pitting/spots with oil, then do streaks with oil and...?

It seems the non oderless turpentine dissolves the paint best, and the oderless stuff seems to not look as good. I will post some photos of my base weathering, and the car I ruined yesterday.

[nuno81291]

Here are a few examples of cars I did the acrylic fade and general shading to. The BN box car is the victim that I had to strip for the poorly applied oil streaks.

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At this point those cars are dullcote, acrylic, dullcote. I am afraid to go at them and will try the BN car fade first.

[Spades]

My go to:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=16573.0

particularly:

Here's another BN test which prompted me to try a variant of the fade recipe.  This time I wanted to go for a relatively worn woodchip gon that shows some of the yellowing that is so typical of old BN cars, such as:

http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=52976

First I tweaked the fade spray by cutting back on the Microscale Flat and upping the Polly Scale dust (which gives a good flat finish itself) and then added roughly equal dallops of zinc white and transparent oxide yellow.  I sprayed several light coats as usual, then gave the model a wash of light grime (thinned raw umber) and applied some Bragdon powder to the underside of the horizontal ribs.  I then applied another wash, this time ~1 part raw umber, ~2 parts zinc white, and ~3 parts transparent yellow.  (This is the first time I have tried the transparent colors in a wash.)  After applying some basic rusting, here is the result, with a stock model in the background:



[Trucks, couplers and brakewheel still to come...]  The yellowing is not quite as blatant as the prototype, but it is closer than the earlier BN boxcar was.

Cheers,
Gary

Also a great source of info is DansRailroad2011 on YouTube.

Still waiting for Gary to post a tutorial on well car weathering.  I just can't get it right.

[muktown128]

I think the weathering lon the BN and RBOX cars in the lower pic looks OK to me.  I like it.  Looks a lot better than some weathering jobs I've seen elsewhere on other sites.

[GaryHinshaw]

The fade and grime steps look good.  It sounds like the issue is the turpentine (whether odourless or not).  Can't you work the water soluble oils with a wet (with water) brush to avoid attacking the undercoat?

Still waiting for Gary to post a tutorial on well car weathering.  I just can't get it right.

Wow, that's a blast from the past.  That chip car is still one of my favourites, after all these years.  As it happens, I'm weathering some spine cars this week, and I have a set of well cars in the queue, so maybe I can post something on that before too long.

[nuno81291]

Thanks for the compliments, I have done cars with all sorts of techniques from brushed on oil fades, acrylic fades, pastel fades and now the Vallejo acrylics in the airbrush. I have to say it is all about layering, and as far as the fades go I am liking the airbrush.

Great idea to try water with the oils.. I didn’t give it a try as most guides I have seen used turpentine, oderless, or some even with iso.  

I think the issue I had was too wet a brush and too much pressure/ trying to correct the streak. The oil I find to be forgiving if you just let it set up a bit and go with a q tip.

The two box cars had atrocious weathering I have stripped, and am impressed how forgiving some of the techniques are. Here is a current victim covered hopper that I did the fade, and a first pass at some oils. I will hit the underbody with pastels at the end, but want to get more proficient with the oil rust streaks, that don’t muck up the work underneath! And the BN box car that I have stripped three times and have put a fade on...again [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Santa Fe Guy]

Spray with Dullcoat before using any oils for weathering is what I do and sort of a must to keep the acrylics spray paint safe.
Use odorless thinners and thin oils well.
Let the oils lightly run down the sides of the cars and settle into the crevasses.
Van Dyke Brown oil paint is a great first wash.
Dull coat again after oils dry and before next wash and so on.
Trust this helps.
Rod.

[wazzou]

The Winsor and Newton Oils I use are water soluble. 
I think those would be much more user friendly with the Acrylic this and that, than Turpentine

[amato1969]

@nuno81291 have you considered spraying a gloss coat prior to applying oil streaks/washes?  I have found this gives much more flexibility to adjust/remove the oil paint.

  Frank

[nuno81291]

Thanks everyone, the oils I use are the Windsor Newton water soluble.

I haven’t tried a gloss coat before oils, but I could see that helping. I have only tried dullcote after the acrylic work to try to protect it. It seems the odorless spirits I tried last night were less aggressive than the smelly turpentine.

I will be shooting a test piece to try all the types of thinners and gloss coat to see what seems the best for me. I do want to work this out as the Oil based rust streaks are very rich in color and seem to be heavily used by some of the modelers I have been trying to learn from.