Hi al,
first "Happy Thanksgiving" to all... (our turkey's are still save until Christmas,lol)
Ok, today, since it was getting to cold outside waiting on the postman with my Mini Natur order from Germany and with time on my side (went through surgery on my left elbow last friday and home from work for at least another 2 weeks..., but, thank you, feeling better already) I felt it was a good time to do a weathering job on my concrete ramp.
I'll try to explain in a few steps how I do it (it is my way and in no way a general rule). You can use this method also to make concrete roads.
For starters, you don't need alot but wat is important is that you start out with woodland scenics road system top coat, concrete (ST 1454), as a base coat. Paint it on with a brush, don't worry, it takes a few passes, let dry in between the coats (to speed it up, you can use a hairdryer). Once that is done leave for a couple of hours to dry, to be on the safe side.
Weathering time, "yéha",
all you need is 3 oil artist colors and some turpentine (white spirit works also) for this job. Lamp black, raw umber and titanium white. I use oil artist colours from Winsor&Newton (series1), their pigments beeing smaller then the general oil artist brands making them flow better. How I know that? Well, in a former life I was a model figure painter.
Before we can start the weathering we have to brake the base coat's tention. Just damp your brush with some terpentine and go over the all structure. If it looks too wet, just dap it of with a cloth.
Now take some lamp black and raw umber and make a wash together with the turpentine. Just go easy on the raw umber. it should be a 80(lamp black)/20(raw umber), 90(lmap black)/10(raw umber) mix., you should end up with a light to very light tea consistence. Load up your widest brush with the mixture and go over the entire structure. Making sure you let the brush flow over the strutcure instead of kinda like painting your weathering mixture. It takes some practise but at the end you'll get a feel for it. If some spots are to heavy loaded, just take a cloth and dap (never whipe) of the excess. If it looks to faint on parts, just load a little more and go over it again. If you are done with this, let it sit for a couple of minutes so the excess turpentine can evaporate leaving the oil colour behind, don't wait to long since the drying process already starts here. With the same weathering mixture load up a small pointed brush. Now look for cracks in the concete and by just putting the brush in a corner of a crack, the paint will flow into it (capillary action). Weather downstreaks on the structure are done with a small pointed brush, just spot on some colur (the same mixture, now with far less turpentine) and with a wider brush just dragg the paint downwards. Don't worry if you can't get the effect the first time, it is a try and error thing. But with concrete abouth anything goes.
The ramp's tire marks are done with plain lamp black dry brushing. Just load a wide brush with a small amount of paint, now wipe it of on a household paper cloth ( here you have to use household paper clotch. The paper infact drains the oil from the artist oil paint, leaving you with a dryer paint, used as such the drybrush paint won't leave streaks).
The wood beams on the ramp in my case, and here I use titanium white, are done at the end. Just go over them with a wash of the lamp black, raw umber (...have a smoke...) and then "lightly!!!" dry brush the wood. This is a 2 days job. The next day you can come back on the wood with the drybrushing. If you would try to do this in one stroke you'd end up with a grey smear looking on the wood. The longer you wait , the better infact.
That's abouth it, takes longer to type then to do infact.....don't be afraid to experiment.
The ramp itself is a bash from Cornerstone's open-air transloading building kit.
ok, pictures (wish I had a better camera).........hope you like them and thank you for your attention,
The ramp before weathering, with the WS road system concrete top coat...
The ramp afher the weathering and drybrushing......
The pictures don't realy do justice to the ramp, but you get the general idea. (going to take some pictures outside when it stops raining, so the details will show up better)
Here are a couple more pictures from on the workbench (under workbench lighting)
rail side
done.....
Jappe
CEO, U.P.-Willamette Valley Sub aka U.P.-Eureka & Willamette Valley Branch
----------------------------------Ship it now, Ship it right---------------------------------------------
Don't ride behind me, I will not lead you, don't ride in front of me, I will not follow you, just ride next to me and be my bro......
