Subtle Weathering

Rangatron

Hi

I personally prefer to not do any heavy weathering on my models, because it may ruin the model. What are the best things I can do to weather tanks/vehicles with subtle effects?

 

Thank you

 

Can you elaborate?

Rangatron,

I kind of have the same views on weathering as you do. When it comes down to painting and finishing a model, most of the time it seems I screw it up at some point. More weathering means more chance to mess up. So while I think some people can really pull off a great heavily weathered model--such as Karl, who posted above, and many others--I haven't quite gotten to the point where I'm willing to go as far.

In my limited knowledge and expertise I think there are a couple of caveats that are involved in answering your question straight up. I'd imagine those would include vehicle type, nation, time period, and the campaign location where the vehicle is serving as you depict it. While I cannot answer your question in terms of all of these caveats, I can try for a couple.

My favorite model that I've built would be this AAVP. I built it to be a stateside vehicle that was conducting training, thus I wanted mainly just some sand on it. I used some drybrushing, pastel "chalk" for the horizontal surfaces, and a very light airbrush spray for the vertical. The one that shows up the most is the latter.

I took an acrylic "sand" color (since this is an amphibious vehicle) and diluted it with water moreso than I usually would. Coupled with a lower pressure in the compressor, the coat was lighter and more subtle. I built up more coats at the bottom of the vehicle than the mid and top until it looked right, but so that it was still subtle enough to where you could see the details underneath.

There are many other techniques that you can use, however, I have not mastered them. You may get some great weathering ideas by searching the forums for builds of the vehicle you have in mind, and perusing the WIPs by different posters. A lot of WIPs have the techniques that are used, and some (again Karl comes to mind) post great tutorials on how they weather.

IMO simple simple answer. Learn from the pros here.

Second part. Go slow and and keep adding layers as you go. Hard to be wrong that way.

Josiah, that is a really great looking track.

I'm a big fan of turpenoid and oil paint washes. I have not yet become any good with dot filters; looks like my doggie pooped. but I'll keep trying. It's only a stupid kit after all.

I wish all modelers would be like test pilots, do it until your brains are scattered all over.

Thanks for the mention, Josiah----and G's right; that's one fine looking AAVP!

i like it. it looks dirty but well maintained.  if you think you have gone to far weathering, you are probably right. if you want to up "going to fa"r to an art form, paint dinosaurs.

 i did a 1/72 WW1 MK-IV and tried freehand camo, followed by 4 different color washes and a pin wash. took a first at regionals which surprised me.

I did this truck a couple of years ago. Look closely at the top of the trailer and you can see the exhaust staining. Its just flat black paint. but as I sprayed it with the air brush, I pulled the a/b away from the trailer as i went further back. just like the exhaust would do on a real truck. The exhaust itself is cotton sprayed black  But I'm not an expert or a pro, you don't have to be.

Heavy or light weathering aside, take an old model, or go get a new inexpensive one if you have no older builds you care to sacrifice, and use it or them for a test platform for weathering techniques. You can try them out first on it without worrying about ruining any expensive new kits that you have spent vast sums of money on already.