Best Of Fading fast...

[GaryHinshaw]

Hi James.  For what it's worth, I personally find color to be a very mystifying subject...  Re the yellow, I was basing that on an impression that yellowing is a "typical" by-product of fading, and that including it will tend to give a warmer result than plain white, especially over a warm color like (SP) brown.  But your prototype photos should really provide the ultimate guidance.

That said, I suspect that if your lettering is noticeably yellow after just the fade coat, you are probably using a heavier application than I am.  I dug up a photo of my woodchip gon after just the spray fade and this is what it looked like:



Note that there is almost no sign of yellow in the lettering at this stage, but there is visible fading.  The more obvious yellowing in the final result came from adding some raw sienna and a lot of transparent yellow to the wash.  But I was really trying to emphasize it at that point.  You can see a similar effect in the BN boxcar I posted in p.1 of this thread.

I would suggest finding an old scrap SP car and trying the fade on one side with just white and on the other with yellow+white to see what you like (but several very light coats in both cases).  Then go over them with washes and see what you like after that.  Please post photos if you can.

Cheers,
Gary

P.S. Glad you found the WW fluid.  It's sold in gallon jugs here - and that will go a long ways in N scale!

[James Costello]

Well, the subtle change was hard to pick up in the photos, but here's a couple trying to show the creamy white text:





The smooth sided gon has had a couple of extra passes than the rib sided version.
I do think my dollops of paint were too big though.

I'm going to leave these two as they are for a comparison. I've got a brew on the go now with less white, no yellow and with dust that I tested on a container with good results. Unfortunately rain stopped play before I could move onto the gons, so we'll see what the weekend brings.

[ednadolski]

Has anyone ever tried a fade brew using artists acrylics colors such as "unbleached titanium", "parchment", or "antique white"?   I don't know offhand if these would be as transparent as the Zinc White.

Ed

[GaryHinshaw]

James - those chip hoppers look just right to me for this stage in the process.  But I agree that photographing this stuff is tricky and doesn't necessarily show what your eyes see.  My experience with pure white on some browns is that it can take on a purplish cast, so you really have to experiment.  Here are some old shots from when I first started trying this:





Both examples are just Zinc White, flat finish and thinner, the first shot shows a light application on the left side, the second shot is a heavier application on the right side.  I think the first looks ok, but the second has the hint of purple or blue I was talking about.  (But the lettering is nice and white.)

BTW, be careful when you start applying washes to those cars.  Make the wash pretty thin to start with because it can go on pretty hard with all that flat fade coat underneath.

Ed - I have not tried those colors, but I'd be curious too.  When I was researching this last year I came across some very interesting info on the Dick Blick site:

http://www.dickblick.com/products/m-graham-acrylic-colors/

If you scroll down and click on a color, then click "pigment info" you get all kinds of cool stuff about these paints.  This is where I first learned about zinc vs. titatnium.  (It appears that the M Graham line does not have these specific colors, but if Dick Blick stocks a line that does, they probably have the pigment info for it.)

[GaryHinshaw]

By the way, I think I have a new application for the transparent red iron oxide paint.  I've been playing with auto-racks and wanted to rust up the roof on an older one.  First, here is the inspiration:

http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=10489

and here is the result, with a comparable stock model in the background:





To start with, I used a standard fade and wash on the body.  To do the rust, I made a thick wash of the red paint to about the consistency of half&half (thick enough not to run down the side of the car when applied to the beveled section of the roof).  I then painted it on the roof panels where I wanted the rust to appear, working one panel at a time.  Before the paint dried, I mushed a blend of Bragdon Powders into the paint (weathered brown + dark rust).  The paint acts as both a binder (the powder adheres much more to the painted portion) and a tint, and the transparency allows a hint of the underlying 'metal' to show through.  The rust on my model is not nearly as dark as the prototype, but I think it's promising enough to play with some more (and it seems ok for lighter rusting).   I'd like to try adding some opaque burnt umber to the paint, and/or some soot color to the powder mix to make it darker.

I think this technique is useful for cases where you want large, well-defined areas of a pre-painted model rusted, like boxcar roof panels, sections of hopper roofwalks, etc.  For most cases, the methods in Tom's book are better.

Comments?

-gfh

P.S. I need to work on my brush control a bit more...

[Philip H]

I did the reverse here - applying a wash of artists silver paint (diluted 50/50 in 91% isopropyl) to the brown roof of this car:



I'd say it worked well.

[jsoflo]

Gary,
I have been following this thread with great interest as your results are fantastic. I began using your technique and I have been happy with the results. I mixed transparent white with the orange and yellow and was quite happy- although I admit that I have had a hell of a time getting the oranges and yellows to completely dissolve in the WW fluid and white for some reason, resulting in some "spotting" (though this could be an airbrush issue). Nonetheless I have been pleased with results. More recently I have been working with just the white, and a comment on the "purple-ish" hues on brown boxcars, I agree with the result, but something I had noticed on many brown proto boxcar photos is such a hue, again this could be a lighting issue, but I definitely see it on CN and Central Vermont paper industry boxcars.

I also wanted to add that the technique using weathering powders with a fluid (paint or ww fluid) is a technique Pelle Soerberg (sic?) uses in his book "Done in a day" that I tried on a MT rack, and while it yields results I found it very hard to control as it goes on VERY thick and fast and does not leave much time to adjust despite adding more WW fluid to try and bust it back down, did you have a similar experience?

great modeling, and of course, my best!
Jan

[GaryHinshaw]

Ed - I did a little digging on the Blick site and I'm guessing the colors you are referring to are Liquitex brand.  Here is the info on Unbleached Titanium:

http://www.dickblick.com/items/00617-4344/#colorpigments

and on Parchment:

http://www.dickblick.com/items/00617-7384/#colorpigments

I didn't find Antique White.  The above two both contain titanium white (and lamp black in the former) which will make them fairly opaque.  There may be other brands I didn't notice though.

Phillip - that looks like a good way to go when the base color is the body color.   It has a nice subtlety.

Jan - I wasn't aware of Pelle's article, but it is a fairly obvious thing to try.  If anything, I actually had the opposite problem: the powder did not really go on thick enough for my liking (for this particular car).  It's also hard to get much variation in rust coverage within a patch.  It's kind of 'on or off' depending on where the liquid is, which is ok for applications like this.

BTW, I'd be curious to see some shots of those bluish cars you referred to.

Cheers,
Gary

[jsoflo]

Hi Gary,
Well put about the lack of variation in the powder application, that is a better description than my original note on how it went on, I ended up with a large total application on one end of the rack by moving too fast and treating the wet powder like a paint that could be thinned out quickly and by adding more fluid within minutes.

As for "bluish-purplish" hue to certain boxcars, the majority of the cars I speak of I see on my CP Rail video of the D&H northend, of a particular train near Rouses Point. It seems you see this sort of fade more on boxs from the WC, CV, CN, MMA, and CPAA (maybe due to the paint tones used?)Looking through photos I am not sure that blue/purple was well described by me but here are some examples of that whitish blush fade into some kind of graphite/maroone/purple fade that I was referring with maybe the wrong words:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=988074
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=828224
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1116087
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1635146
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1645836

You think this has something to do with where these boxes typically run? less sun and sandy dust and more snow, cold, moisture?

my best,
Jan

[tom mann]

That blueish tone can be achieved with a light fade coat of Grimy Black.

[Philip H]

Jan, One wonders if the bluish tone relates to how the paint reacts to all the salt thrown down in winter . . . . .

[up1950s]

Geez , this is the fist time in a very long time I have gone into the weathering forum . You guys are cutting edge with this .   

[Subwayaz]

Wow there are some really outstanding results with products I didn't know of or had ever tried.  Thanks for the education.

[GaryHinshaw]

Wow there are some really outstanding results with products I didn't know of or had ever tried.  Thanks for the education.

Thank you Subwayaz.  I didn't know about these paints a year ago, until I botched a fade job with regular (thinned) white paint and thought there must be a better way. At times like that, Google is your friend.

My next quest along these lines is to find a decent way to make diesel window gaskets black without making a hash of it. Anyone have a method they like?  Paint, Sharpies and decal stripes all have their drawbacks, so I'm looking into black artist pencils - and there are a lot of different types that look promising.

Cheers,
Gary

[Subwayaz]

Wow there are some really outstanding results with products I didn't know of or had ever tried.  Thanks for the education.

Thank you Subwayaz.  I didn't know about these paints a year ago, until I botched a fade job with regular (thinned) white paint and thought there must be a better way. At times like that, Google is your friend.

My next quest along these lines is to find a decent way to make diesel window gaskets black without making a hash of it. Anyone have a method they like?  Paint, Sharpies and decal stripes all have their drawbacks, so I'm looking into black artist pencils - and there are a lot of different types that look promising.

Cheers,
Gary

Gary I've never done Diesel window Sills but I have done Caboose window sills and I use those really fine/skinny artist brushes.  They almost look like an eyelash if you know what I mean.  I'll take a picture of one tomorrow and post back here for you.
Hey got to pay it forward some way.
Thanks for sharing again
Glen