Flory Washes Vs. Watercolours

A great modeler here named Eaglecash will have more to say on this subject.  I like using Flory wash because there's no penalty.  If you don't like results you can simply wipe it off.  The dark dirt is the most popular color.  Over a gloss surface it's a little easier to remove and stay in panel lines.  A flat surface gives a more overall dirty effect.  That's been my experience.  Clay based washes.  Use a dedicated brush for Flory.  

Thanks for the shoutout, Paul!  

As Paul said, its pretty much risk free, and the advantage to Flory versus water colors is that the clay pigments in it are extremely fine.  I tried water colors before Flory and I found their coverage to be inconsistent and a little grainy.  I recently used the Grime Flory Wash inside the gear wells on an Su-25, and found I could use the same brush I used to apply it for gently and easily removing just the right amount of it from all of the details inside the gear well while I intemittenly hit it with running water in my sink.  Gave the gear wells a nice, dirty appearance, without them being overly weathered.  What I'm modeling is a fairly new Su-25M1 that is being maintained extremely well, so I didn't want it to look like too beat up.

Thanks for the reply.

Watercolours are also risk-free, but I take your points about graininess and inconsistency. They will work fine on one model, then the next one will be a mess. I've also found that artists' watercolours seem to come off too easily, and you take off much more than you wanted to. Sometimes I've had to rewash areas several times trying (and re-trying) to get it just right.

In my experience, the wash phase has been where many of my best paint jobs have gone to die, whether by oil, acrylic or enamel. The ability to remove it is a definite selling point, and why I never abandoned watercolours, as problematic as they could be. Anyway, I've ordered some Flory washes (Dark Dirt, Mud Brown, Grime and Sand) and I'll see how it goes.

Thnks,

Ken  

No problem, Ken.  The artist's water color I tried before Flory seemed promising, but it was very sensitive to how long you left it on the model.  I left it on for only about 5 minutes and wasn't able to remove enough of it to get it to the appearance I wanted.  There's a spot on my F-16CJ near the left side of the nose that's just a little bit darker than the rest, because I used those water colors on that one spot.  The Flory you can leave on for months if you want to and it'll still come off like it was just applied.  Good choice on the color selection.  You won't be disappointed.

Adding a tiny drop of soap can help apply watercolors to the model. 

Another vote for Flory. You can also get some great looking streaks. Easily removed over a gloss coat, hard to remove over a flat coat unless you want the area stained.

Another plus for Flory is florymodels.org, where Phil offers lots of video demonstrations. The Classic Builds section is free to watch, as are the daily shows.