Weathering buildings and accompanying details, a continuous thread

[Jaz avalley]

Buildings, wether you build from scratch or buy a kit improve a kit or buy ready to plonk, they often look that little more realistic with a touch of weathering, allowing them to sink into the background scenery.

I often think if they avoid the floating look by just hiding the fact they just sit there is a massive improvement. The thing that usually stands out for me is that ready to plonk often has much better detailing than the paint job takes advantage of

even a small simple shed and coal bunker, can benefit from a little love

here I purposely left the shed floating because in real life they often are off the ground to stop the wood rotting, but I do give it a white mixed with grey for that aged unloved look, and a touch of thinned green at the base for the inevitable growth when not maintained properly.
The coalbunker has a metal lid with a touch of rust, and I broke my usual rule of letting water drip down as nature occurs in order to add different levels of cement,gray,coal powder,again a touch of green and sone coal.
The shed had wood effect poorly shown off by the manufacturers paint job but improved with a thick paint, the ground has its own texture,and as the tree is so close I added some model grass to up its level,then angled the photograph for a decent long view

here you see I added a dark shadow into the grooves before the highlighted grey

I used more loose ‘grass’ to embed the bunker

and the focus helps that the wall is not as well grounded

TIP if you usa a iphone or iPad or similar check when using your camera mode by touching the screen and see if a box appears,if it does this is a focus option allowing you to concentrate the focus on a specific small detail you want to sharpen the focus on,it will also usually soften focus further away, very helpful for modellers

 

[Jaz avalley]

To my mind trialling small pieces is a good start, less expensive, easier to improve, which helps you build confidence,
A simple telephone box

first set is just getting rid of the plastic finish, you can use dulcote or similar, I tend to jump to dirt

to my mind this looks better than the adjacent postbox which screams plastic

I like weathering,and often doing the same finish on nearby buildings improves the overall look

and then you have light, sone modellers like my self are lucky enough to have natural light,others not so much, and light tends to have a specific impact,and in some cases painting in that finish can help with the realism, here a dirty white infers reflections on the telephone box glass

here you see the postbox has had a similar upgrade, dirt on the main box,dark shadow in the letterbox hole,and some smudged black inferring lettering on the instructions panel.
close up you’ll still see any lacking in the model
but pull back and let it blend

And it starts to fall into a whole,where your eye is processing the whole picture

 

[Jaz avalley]

The postbox as mentioned in previous

reference for those not exposed to the real thing

the English are quintessentially twee lol,and knitted seasonal toppings on postbox is quite popular in my area,some ladies have a lot of spare time,I plan on modelling this little gem in the future.

 

[Jaz avalley]

I’ll go back to small ‘buildings’ and simple engraves but meantime a church upgrade,a lovely building but I gave it some little tweaks,and as it represents a real building reference pictures are specific

pristine from the box, excellent detailing

here natural shadows enhance the finish

the real building you can see growth on the roof and the layout

some transparent greens and browns for dirt and some static grass for moss
So no need to paint it in
rather than a birds eye view, a low level taken late afternoon offers more atmosphere, and soft lighting taking full advantage of the building and its setting

 

[Jaz avalley]

Then figures or machinery to add life and movement even though static, and deep shadows

 

[Jaz avalley]

A low relief, again does the job, but easy to enhance

recolouring the bricks

and highlighting the window frames

I considered green for the doors as it was popular in its day but I had a reference picture and copied that instead

cottone gave me safety ropes

the quality of the paint is slap happy but the upgrade works despite this

 

[Jaz avalley]

A quick and simple upgrade

..and no I don’t not break the model I bought it cheap as broken,and thus it needed an appropriate paint job,
dark brown and orange brown for rust and thinned black for dirt
i could have repaired but thought it added character,

I often test with water and look how it lies then add the colour to the wet water
as you can see very little ever stays pristine on my layout, plus a number of the items tend to be previous era items that are still in situ and as such will have aged

 

[TLOC]

Incredible scenes you are posting Jaz. Thanks for starting this thread…

Let‘s start here:

you show these 2 phone booths and say you ”tend to jump to dirt”. What do you mean and why don’t you always dull coat 1st? What type of “dirt”? The real stuff, chalks, paint mix, inquiring minds you know…

 

[Jaz avalley]

Rust is rust, dark brown orange brown thinned black my go tos
dirt is dirt black brown thinned and powder
growth is green various shades often with brown
and pigeon poop my friends is black and white, lol

signal box bought as abandoned with light weathering, but with the amount of damage portrayed it would easily take an upgrade…mmm…downgrade

as bought, respectable almost
heavy black is used in any areas that ought to have deep shadows,check the roof line
the roof was far too clean that was addressed immediately

after the full works thrown at it

I look at reference pictures to see where dirt accumulate and imitate

a paintbrush once the paint is used dipped in water is used to mess up the glazing

I often use a glue that can b e rubbed off if I do not like the result, I rarely handle them so rubbing off does not become an issue
modelled leaves

turned the signal box on its side dipped a little water between the bricks,literally touched a black paint brush to the water and let it. Spread
similar on the door

as a general rule of thumb less dirt etc high up, close to the ground or ledges or flat horizontal surfaces I go heavier, it wasn’t deep enough but I did consider a birds nest

 

[Jaz avalley]

Incredible scenes you are posting Jaz. Thanks for starting this thread…

Let‘s start here:

you show these 2 phone booths and say you ”tend to jump to dirt”. What do you mean and why don’t you always dull coat 1st? What type of “dirt”? The real stuff, chalks, paint mix, inquiring minds you know…

I have dulcote, but I have no patience and I would have to paint walk away let it dry then cone back, yes I know that is the sensible way, lol
i often leave paintbrushes dirty in enough water to stop them drying out,and sometimes take sone time to return not being an organised type of person,so the water has evaporated more darkening the colour, with weathering I mix colours a lot so rarely clean between changing colours so I often have a rather smelly pot which resembles a dirty rag colour, and I often use that as my first vote rather than the dulcote, this can take days or occasionaly cough weeks to nature as walking up and down stairs with the brushes to clean them out is not sonething I do often, but this can be imitated, when you have a small bottle with barely enough paint for a decent job I am not above dribbling in other colours, browns,orange browns dull greens blacks are all favourites.
if towards the end I think it too shiny I like powders which I wet brush or dry brush on as they make different textures, and I like citadel paints because of their special finishes, technical ones especially, although I regularly use layers and work them like camo. That is 3 colours a green a brown a transparent black, I paint like a demented woodpecker touching retreating touching covering the area for a percentage of the work but not a nice smooth 100 percent, once almost dry or comp,etely dry I repeat, and then again with the third colours,
so
a
abc all three
ab 2 of 3
ac 3of 3
B
bc
c
and then I may repeat so some areas have between 1-3 colours but between 1-2 or even 3 layers. Avoiding any type of obvious pattern.
on a loco I tend to go for harder wearing colours and a finishing vote for protection
on static building I am not so bothered, as I rarely man handle them

paint of one description or another is my preference as I like painting but I will mess with anything that takes my fancy
old eye makeup, soot or charcoal from the woodburner stove (not near track or engine parts unless embedded in a decent product so it does not dry fall off and become dust,real coal,real soil, I would use chalks although I don’t really own any except fit an expensive drawing set which I have owned for decades but just cant bring myself to crush…faints.
over the years cheap kids acrylics on sale after Xmas have featured heavily despite the fact I have a very expensive range of proper Railway colours lol

 

[Jaz avalley]

tower before left and after a bit more colour was added,pure black to the depths and washes elsewhere and sone grasses then a touch of static grass, the brickwork got a deeper colour, transparent browns and greens usually my favourite citadel colours, but Vallejo would have been a good substitute

 

[Jaz avalley]

Ruins, a square tower, I started painting before i thought to photograph

again the grout was given a darkening treatment colour runs through the grooves quite easily
a general darkening
then sone glue and grass

happy with the initial result I continued in like manner

again acting near where the building will need to sit into the layout

I even added some colour to the greenery

grass was added on the flat horizontal surfaces, grass seed blown in by the wind gets everywhere

then the process of building up the ground to hide it

even with the grass I use the power of three (minimum) the action of camo colouring is always a happy choice for me,sone birch seed for levels, and sone small green bushes

 

[Jaz avalley]

a number of ruins I’ll not go through each piece lol

 

[Jaz avalley]

A plain grey diesel tank
painted blue, then white added to fade the paint, before dark brown and orange brown begin the rusting process

paints in the picture are likely culprits
i now do. This as a matter of course
as it helps me remember at a later time what I used, pictures re-mace a thousand words….

 

[Jaz avalley]

Before I finished the tank I came across this happy item, adding a wonderful texture
a product I can definitely recommend
enhancing the initial paint work with an excellent finish

 

[CambriaArea51]

Nice job Jazz, only one problem, you have to be named Tom to have a continuous thread.

I'll have to see if that rust effect is here in the US.

 

[Jaz avalley]

Nice job Jazz, only one problem, you have to be named Tom to have a continuous thread.

I'll have to see if that rust effect is here in the US.

I believe it is American

 

[Jaz avalley]

Otherwise I’ll photograph the ingredients

 

[Jaz avalley]

calor gas bottles, often outside houses or businesses
these plastic ones came in a terracotta finish
i repainted a grungy orangey shade, then sone out of focus white naming, then sone thinned black for dirt, do not photograph too close they add detail, and are best not used as the prime focus

you can see it’s not a smooth finish paint,

and the labelling is tough

the dirt emPharisees any detail

out of focus your mind knows what to expect and fills the detail

they become an incidental

each substandard detail adds to the overall effect

 

[Jaz avalley]

Now still stretching it a building or a structure
a Hoist, plastic kit,
painted yellow, then dirtied
the chain did not hang well so I added a weight to straighten the ‘ropes’, again add water see where it settles then touch with dirt colours that then bleeds in nicely

the weight
I even used some actual railway modelling paints

embedded in ballast

accompanied by detailing