Gloss coat before weathering and streaking

I do prefer to start weathering on a gloss base but it can depend on what your useing and what type of weathering your doing. If you useing oils or enamels it would be best to seal in the decals to protect them and if your useing enamel paints you must apply an acrylic clear before useing these type of weathering products.

If useing pigments, these are best applied after the final mat coat.

Thanks Bish. I’m going gloss oil pin Dot and wash panels. The matte and then mud.  After mud should I matte again

I do oil pin washes over acrylic clear gloss coat so the wash can run freely into the recessed details. For filters, DOT weathering, streaks etc I like to use oils over an acrylic flat coat because I find the flat finish makes the oils blend better than over gloss which in my experience seem to come right off, making blending a bit difficult.

During the last model show I attended, they had a weathering seminar where the instructor used DOT oils over a Tamiya X35 acrylic semi gloss to weather individual NMF aircraft panels. He expained the X35 gave enough tooth for the oil paints to bite but made it easier to manipulate than over clear flat. I really liked how the effect looked over the sealed Alclad.

If the kit has decals, a gloss coat should be applied before decals are applied.  As far as weathering, some should be done after a solvent resistant clear coat, other forms of weathering can be done over dull finish (drybrush, pastels, etc).