helo weathering

Before I had an airbrush I use to use pastel chaulk. I even used it after I had an airbrush. I found you can do pretty good weathering with the pastels. I would use a small piece of 80 grit sandpaper and rub the pastel back and forth until I had a nice little pile of powder. I would then use a nice soft brush to apply it to the aircraft or helicopter. I used varying sizes of brushes depending on the effect I wanted. Remember pastels will lose a shade or two when you spray the clear coat when you are finished the weathering, so don't be afraid if the weathering looks a little strong because it will blend quite a bit when you spray the clear coat. The browns and tans work great for making the model look like it needs a bath and lighter shades of green will give panels the effect of fading. I also always used the black for engine exhaust stains down the tailboom.  Goodluck with your weathering.

Charlie

I am atotal novice, but I used regular pastels from Hobby Lobby for my 1/72 gunship. I think they worked great and were very forgiving. here are a couple of pics so you can judge for yourself.  I used various shades of brown and earth colors to make the Vietnam red mud that was everywhere and blacks and greys for the exhaust staining.  Good luck withy the weathering and please post pics of the finished build.

    Ray" border="0" />
 

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I'm not brave anough for oil, that was done with chalk pastels shaved with a hobby knife in a cup and mixed to the desired color.  it wipes of easy if you get too much on and looks more like dust and exhaust stains to me than any liquid media I have found.  as I say, I'm a novice so there may be better advice to be had.  just my 2 cents.  good luck!

    Ray
 

...would oil pastels work?  Are they the same as pastel chaulk?

No, they are not.  Oil pastels are more like crayons; waxy.  You have to use the chalk to get a dry powder to apply.

Two other techniques you can apply is the filter and the "dot" filter. 

A filter is similar to a wash in that it is super thinned paint that you apply to a large area, the difference is a filter is thinned so much (90% thinner to ~10%paint) that it looks like tinted thinner.  It's the same principle of photographers using colored screens to alter photo colors, use different colors like blue, red, brown, etc give subtle tonal variations in the paint scheme, which is how real paint looks.  You can even apply them to one panel to differentiate it from the others. Just use a wide brush and quickly brush the area to be "filtered".

 The other technique is the "dot" filter.  For this you need some oil paints of various colors.  On my huey I used blue, yellow, tan, red, etc.  Take a pointy brush and put dots of paints in different colors in random patterns on the target area (it's better to do smaller areas with this technique instead of trying to do the entire kit at the same time).  Next take a wide brush dipped in clean thinner and blend the dots down.  Keep blending them down, stopping to clean your brush and get fresh thinner, until most of the paint is gone.  Then move on to the next area.  It sounds silly, but this technique will give you very realistic looking paint jobs.

 If anything isn't clear let me know and I'll try to explain it better.  Happy weathering!

Howdy sawdeanz,

 I am in complete agreement with Altered_Sight regarding what he referred to as "dot" filtering...it is a technique that is a tad hard to get used to at first blush because when the "dots" are first applied, your subject matter looks a little like something straight out of Sesame Street with all of the primary coloured dots, but, once melded and mixed together with the underlying base colour what you actually get more of is increased depth more so than any weathering persay.  Sure, it does give the surface a more 'used' look, but what you wind up with is a surface that looks more realistic than just a flat-toned OD for example.

Another method {if I may?} that you could easily employ on your Huey and would not only compliment whatever weathering method/s you apply but would also be quite accurate is;  using the edge of Post-It notes and slightly off-colouring certain panels on the skin of the ship, or even applying uneven patches here or there that are also off colour representing ship strike repair {bullet holes}, replaced panels, jury-rigged panels covering old attachment points for smoke-generators, pys-ops speakers, etc.

 .....just a few {hopefully} helpful suggestion ; - )

Semper Fi,

Tread. 

PostScript:  Hey rotorwash, really sweet 'C' ya got there {or is that an 'E'?} : - )  Is that the 1/48th scale kit?  And, where did you get that Marston Mat looking ground cover on your kit base?

rotorwash wrote:

I used various shades of brown and earth colors to make the Vietnam red mud that was everywhere and blacks and greys for the exhaust staining.

Don't make the common mistake of applying too much "red mud" weathering. There isn't anywhere near as much red soil in Vietnam as Hollywood would have us believe.

Much of the fighting was done on the lowlands which are comprised mostly of sedimentary rocks. With the notable exception of limestone, sediments characteristically form brownish, greyish and yellowish soils.

Also remember that Vietnam has two distinct seasons - the dry season and the rain season. During the former, there's little mud but plenty of dust and during the latter, it's exactly the opposite.

These are points most modellers don't consider, but they will have a big impact the accuracy of the weathering on your finished model.

Thanks for you comment.  I DEFINITELY don't use Hollywood for my refs and woe to the modeler that does!  Relied mostly on dad's and other's accounts of conditions. He was stationed at Bien Hoa.  Most sediments can take on a red hue with a little Iron in the soil.  Here is a pic from Bien Hoa showing limestone and red soil together:

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Here's another of Bien Hoa air base.  To me the whole place has a reddish brown hue:

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Here's another pic from Katum showing red dirt everywhere as well:

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Here's the level of dirtyness i was going for. I know this one is really dirty cause it was just hooked up in a rice paddy, but I figure that the non-slip black on the roof would be pretty dirty most of the time from maintenance.

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hope that helps explain my choices of pastels.  It's really all I have to go on.  finally, here's a geologic map of Vietnam and while the south is mostly QAL (Quaternary Alluvium) you can see that there are quite a few Igneous rocks as well, especially up north.  These are the source of the iron that stains the sediments in the south I believe.

Ray

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Tread,

  Thanks for the compliment.  Just noticed your post.  It was the Italeri 1/72 kit and I used both the B and C kits to make my dad's Bravo model that had a Charlie model tailboom replacement.  You can go here if you want to see the in progress pics: /forums/932538/ShowPost.aspx

Ray