N scale boxcar roofs

[Coxy]

G'day Guys,

Looking for some feedback, good bad or otherwise, on some N scale boxcar roofs I've been attacking lately.  Here are a few examples with links below each to the pic on my Flickr site.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxsj/4259413561/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxsj/4260155790/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxsj/4260085426/

More pics of other roofs on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxsj/  (I added some layout shots recently so you may need to browse through the first page or two to get to the boxcar roof shots)

Some of these roofs have been redone four or five times so the actual process that was used is pretty lengthy and not well documented as it is an accumulation of lots of attempts, many of which were failures.

(Disclaimer: As a newbie to weathering, and to this site, what follows may have been covered previously and may also contain inaccuracies as I have not exhaustively tested the method. Your mileage may vary. )

Where I ended up as my preferred method though is very simple.  Basically, I work in reverse. First I get the basic unrusted roof color the way I like it via a little airbrushing, washes or chalks to dull, fade and/or grime the basic roof color. There are lots of good options for this.   Next, seal the roof.  The unblemished roof will then be rusted over with gouache washes in alcohol (consistency of skim milk), the usual burnt umber, raw umber and burnt sienna to create the "generally rusty roof" effect.  I let the gouache dry and sometimes it takes several applications to get it looking "right" like rust patches.  The subtle variation that results across and at the edges of the "rust" patches is spooky the way it appears as the gouache dries.  Gouache has the most excellent rust patch texture and color once it is dry. The roof often looks too heavily rusted at this stage but the next step is to remove rust to "expose" clean unrusted roof.

Gouache is nice for this as you can come back to it with a brush wetted with rubbing alcohol, or probably water too, and rework or remove the gouache exposing more of the basic roof color underneath. For example, I exposed the ribs by rubbing a q-tip wetted with alcohol back and forth on the top of the ribs that I wanted to be unrusted. In some cases I did this days after the gouache wash had dried.  A little alcohol runs down to the base of the rib reactivating the paint as it goes.  The q-tip wicks up the liquid paint leaving a little more roof "unrusted".  Flat parts of the roof can be wetted and blotted with the q-tip as well to create other unrusted patches of roof. You can go back and forth adding paint via washes and removing paint with wetted brushes or q-tips till it looks good.  I like the approach because it is very forgiving. If you mess up it is easy to add more paint or remove it and have another go.

Once done, hit with dullcote or other matte varnish to seal the effect. It is good practice to do this to protect the paint effects as they are very thin and will scratch easily during handling.  Some of the chalk work I had done on the sides of some cars disappeared as a result. (Incidentally, I'm seeing less and less value from chalk in my opinion. Granted, you can get chalk to look great on a car but then it washes away with the matte coat. Perhaps I need to spray very lightly first but putting on multiple matte coats is also a pain. Just my $0.02)  Some of my roofs looked too shiny when done as I had not dulled the basic roof color so last night I hit them with dullcote and then matte varnish when the dullcote ran out. The aluminum roofs look much better now they have been matted down.

One note regarding the sealing step after doing the basic roof color.  If possible it is better to not use dullcote/matte because that finish will go chalky if alcohol is used in the next step.  On the other hand, this is not critical because the final matte coat at the end of the process corrects any chalkiness. It's just a pain to not be working in WYSIWYG.

The method seems to work well in N scale (have not tried HO or others but it should work), is easy and forgiving and quick.

Sorry to run on here. All feedback appreciated, especially the honest useful kind regularly served up on this forum!

Cheers,

Coxy

[tom mann]

This looks pretty good.  If you worked from proto photos, please post those to get more relevant feedback.

The NOPB looks particularly nice.  You may want to paint the silver roofs gray/tarnished black before the rust effects are applied.

[ednadolski]

Looks pretty good.  These are mostly moderate-to-heavy, some boxcars with lighter applications would be nice to balance it out.

Ed

[Philip H]

As a newbie to weathering,

Coxy,
As you and I have discussed previously, newbie though you claim to be, you've done excellent work.  Certainly bette rthen anything I've got rolling right now.  Keep it up, and keep posting.  Someone needs to give Tom Mann a run for his money.

[GaryHinshaw]

I like it Coxy, especially the Conrail roof.  The ribs in the last shot look a wee bit shiny to me, but that might be prototypical.  In any case, you've inspired me to pick up some gouache and have a go with it.  Is there a peeling effect on the roof of the car next to NOPB car?  If so was that intentional, and how was it done?  How about some more on the distressed logo on the side of the light blue (Chattahoochee?) car.

Best,
Gary

P.S. Have you tried Bragdon powder in place of chalk?  A much better choice than chalk in my opinion, but still only for specific situations.  It will not disappear under clear coat at least.

[Coxy]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Some answers...

Tom: I haven't been following particular protophotos at this stage, that would imply a lot more control than I currently possess! These are just experiments and I keep messing with them unless they do a good impression of rusted galvanized stamped metal roof. Then I stop and take pics. Usually within about a day, and sometimes only hours later, it just looks like paint on plastic to me so I give it another go.

I like the NOPB car too. I spent a heap of time putting teensy flecks of dark rust on the ribs and was happy with the look but people who looked at it (all non weatherers) insisted that rust would be on the flat not on the ribs. Having failed the "does this look okay?" test, I concluded that there was still too much orange color on the roof panels which were too clean relative to the rusted ribs. Apparently, it was just a sloppy burnt umber wash away from looking decent!

Good catch on the "silver" roofs. I totally agree that they have to be dulled up front.  The rusted effects just get in the way and got darker when I hit the aluminum color with some matte coats. Even then it didn't matte it down enough.

Ed: Agreed, especially in N scale. Having only recently gotten the hang of taking paint off during weathering it's been kind of inevitable that these cars would end up on the heavy side!  Less is more and that is certainly my objective going forward.

Philip: Thanks for your comments and also for taking the time to provide feedback on my Flickr site. Much appreciated. I'm quite a few tubes of paint away from approximating Tom's work - and that's with the benefit of being able to just follow all the generously provided advice and examples from Tom and many other talented contributors to this field!

Gary: Agreed on the shine per the note above. On my list of things to do differently.  It is very interesting that you noted the peeling paint on the Golden West Service car. I only noticed that after I had taken the digital pic and it reminded me of the value of not just relying on my eyes to assess the effects. So, I can't claim it was intentional but I do kind of like the look.  I can tell you it is paint residue that came off the rib when rubbing with the q-tip and the stuff that came off had an almost rubbery or latex like consistency to it.  It is likely either Liquitex soft body acrylic paint that I had washed on or it is Golden airbrush paint transparent raw umber hue which had been airbrushed on prior to that. My bet is the latter.

Here's how the GSVR car roof looked before I goaucherusted it.  (The chalky look on the roof is from dullcote on the surface reacting with the alcohol in the gouache washes.)



Or, it may also have been like this! I have two GSVR cars in the pool and haven't been following too closely which one got which treatment...



Either way, I would bet that the effect could be exploited to create some realistic looking peeling paint by first applying the acrylic or Golden paint layer (whichever it is) then rub it off after doing the rust effects.

The Chattahoochee car has had very little done to it other than the roof. I took some really fine wet and dry sandpaper and taped a strip of it around the end of a stir stick so I could get it in between the ribs on the car and just carefully sanded the cross logo, the "cushion service" text and the map logo. The side was then dullcoted. Here are the warts-and-all shots...





On reflection, I probably should have wet the surface that I was sanding. It had come out a little rough looking so I was hoping the dullcote would obscure where the sanding had been done. I was figuring the next stop would be fading on the car sides. The scheme seems pretty new. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1741442 Interestingly, most of the CIRR cars I found had a simple boxcar red coverage, not the nice blue one on the model.

Have not tried Bragdon powder. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.

Thanks to all again for your comments, it's late, time for a few ZZZZZZ's

Cheers,
Coxy

[GaryHinshaw]

I like this look Coxy.  Do you remember how you got to this point?  You might have said, but I'm not sure... :

-Gary

[Coxy]

Gary,
I think I have pieced together the history of that GVSR car (via some forensic Flickring!). It is a series of experiments so I wouldn't suggest anyone try this entire sequence but there are some parts that are easy to do and give good results.

The process for the GVSR boxcar stated with some light passes of Golden's Transparent Airbrush Raw Umber Hue on the roof and sides. In retrospect, the sides and roof should have been faded first but I was just messing with the Golden paint and the GVSR boxcar was handy. The GVSR car is in the middle.


The Golden Transparent Airbrush Raw Umber Hue sprays on beautifully and dries with a satin finish which I was a little disappointed in as I was looking for a flat finish. (BTW, the Golden paint is the stuff that shows up at the end looking like peeling roof paint). The cars either side were also sprayed with Golden.

The next step was several dilute acrylic burnt umber and raw sienna acrylic washes in 70% alcohol. The washes were allowed to air dry before the next one was applied. I just kept putting them on till the tones looked right. It was pretty slap-dash.  The washes eventually yielded the dark color with some light rust tones as seen in the shot below. I could have stopped here. It is not a bad look.



A lot of the silver roof was still visible after the initial Golden treatment and the above washes toned the galvo look down leaving it dark with yellowy patches. (Gary, this is the look you liked so the summary would be Golden Transparent Raw Umber Airbrush Hue, followed by acrylic burnt umber and raw sienna washes in 70% alcohol, leave till dry. Seal when satisfied with the tones.)

Next, this car got caught up in a flurry of Dullcote practice with a rattle can. I was mostly just experimenting how to get a really even finish on weathered and unweathered surfaces by varying the number of coats and how closely I held the can to the model. In the shot above, it could already have been dullcoted.

After Dullcoting, I applied another acrylic wash in 70% alcohol and of course the Dullcote/alcohol combination produced the chalky look below. Also not a bad look.



(In reference to my previous reply, it turns out that the car looked both of the ways I had suggested!)

By this stage, I had purchased some gouache paints and tried them out on a bunch of cars. On one car I removed the gouache from the ribs with a q-tip wetted with 70% alcohol and did the same to several other cars including the GVSR boxcar.

The GVSR car still had the Golden paint on it below the gouache and acrylic washe layers and a dullcote layer.  The Golden paint come off easily with a little rubbing from the damp Q-tip, taking the washes and dullcote with it. This left patches of the original, untreaded roof. It also left tiny "crumbs" of Golden paint which you can see in the photo below.

I took a lot but not all golden paint off. My goal was to leave some dark patches as they were and to strip back ribs and adjacent paint then redo with thin gouache washes. I was hoping that this would cause the roof to look like there were some heavily rusted patches and the rest was on its way but not as badly rusted.

With the golden paint removed, the exposed galvo patches received some burnt umber and yellow ochre gouache washes in 70% alcohol. After each wash dried, I rubbed back the gouache to expose more of the galvo color, mainly on ribs. You can go back and forth as much as you like at this stage - strip back with the q-tip then add more gouache wash till it looks the way you want. A brush or sponge can also be used as the q-tip.

Here's where I ended up:



So the important parts of this process to get the end look are really to dull and seal the roof. Then use multiple gouache washes in umbers and a little yellow ochre and perhaps a little raw sienna thrown in to warm things up a little. Let each one air dry and then use a q-tip wetted in 70% alcohol to remove what you need to in order to lighten up areas or leave ribs un-rusted.

Hope that all makes sense.

P.S. I am realizing that there is value in better documenting my experiments by leaving better annotations on my photos!