Weathering Washes ?

[train1]

I have not ventured into the airbrush realm yet - but I have used chalks as part of the weathering process to my satisfaction.
My question is -
Is there a recipe or home-made suggestion from our modelling panel for a generic 'wash' that could be applied ( without an airbrush ) by painting with a brushor sponge. The objective is to fade the stark 'new' colour of some rolling stack. And do many cars at once. In my head I'm thinking like a whitewash which could be used in any pallette colour.
 Then if neccessary perhaps a dry chalk could be added later and a finish of dull cote.
Cold weather is here, and I'm looking for some projects to work on.
Thanks in advance
Thoughts ?

[Dave V]

Rich Yourstone was the guy who introduced me to craft paint washes...  Get yourself some of those cheap-o acrylic craft paints you get at Michael's or AC Moore.  I did a thread back in 2008 that stepped through the process:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=15617.msg132064#msg132064

It works well enough, but honestly I began to really want to learn airbrush weathering, and the key to that is a good dual-action internal mix airbrush with compressor.  In the meantime, I hope my old thread (whose results were quite amateur) will help inspire.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Smirnoff vodka and craft paint, but not the super cheap craft paint, the stuff one step up.

I make up a batch of a few shades of brown, weathered black, black and rust. Then I go through a bunch of cars at once.

I brush the wash on, work it with my brush, and let it dry.

[central.vermont]

Ed,
Do you take a shot of Smirnoff before you start or after to make it look really good when done. 

Dave,
Thanks for bringing up that old topic, it was one that I was looking for just a few days ago!! 

train1,
I hope your not thinking of weathering that -9.

Jon

[train1]

train1,
I hope your not thinking of weathering that -9.

Jon

AbsolutleyFNnot !
 This loco is one of my absolute favs of the many I have had custom painted by the best in my modelling world.
A big thumbs up for you all - I can still remember throwing this paint scheme idea at you.


Thanks for the info Ed and Dave !

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ed,
Do you take a shot of Smirnoff before you start or after to make it look really good when done. 

Jon

Both

[TrainCat2]

Both

Well THAT explains his straight decal lines

[mcjaco]

I started using Indian Ink for washes years back.  A couple of years ago, I decided to try something else.  I just use ModelFlex staight out of the bottle and thin it a bit with water with a drop of dish soap. 

I wanted to fade the yellow stripe on this Soo Line unit, and give the impression the maroon was wearing through.  I just used Soo Line Maroon, watered it down, just slightly and started washing away.



I got such good results, I kept going with other colors on the model.  Forgive the picture.  It's a bit dark.  I need to color correct it.

[wcfn100]

I use my regular airbrush Polyscale paints.  It's certainly more expensive than craft paint but these washes don't require much paint so it's not worth it to me to keep extra paints around just for weathering.





Jason