Wow!

Great job Nick. 

Are you sure that is

Are you sure that is extreme?

Nice

Great work nICHabod.  Hope you are getting some more ready to drop on us. 

Fantastic!

I'm headed out to my workbench right now and am going to try some of those great methods.

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Wonderful

Love the step by step. That’s the real strength of this media……lots of great steps, no stopping a video.

Wow!

Thank you Greg!

Nick Campbell

Nice

Thank you Steve! Man, I hate to say it but it will be months before I even have a place to model. I've had my stuff in storage since May when we sold our house and although we bought another one then, it needs a lot of work and the process has taken far longer than anticipated. We are hoping to be in by March/April of 2022 and if we are, I'll be setting up a modeling area soon thereafter.

Nick Campbell

Fantastic!

You are very welcome Rick! I am humbled and happy that a modeler of your caliber could find anything useful in the article. Your modeling is TOP-NOTCH and I always enjoy seeing you post up!

Nick Campbell

Wonderful

Thank you Mark! Glad you enjoyed the article.

Nick Campbell

80+ hours?

what an amazing realistic weathering job. I especially like the graffiti as it's more realistically reflective of the simply bulbous, ubiquitous and sort of stupid nonsense graffiti one sees on railcars, rather than all cars having the huge bursting colorful designs. Truly a tagged hopper.

But the article left me wondering, intimidated...that I'll clearly never approach such weathering perfection. I can't imagine spending 80 hours on weathering one car. So much to do elsewhere. And realizing that my aspirations for realism will always fall woefully short of this.

But the hopper, amazing. I guess that's why they called it extreme.

Coolest explanation

I've been weathering models  and researching techniques for a few years and this is by far the coolest, best, more complete explanation of how to weather a model. Thank you so much for sharing it this way.

And your work is superb!

Cheers from Chile

confused

can you explain "gauche"?  I google it and its seems the term is used for techniques, a type of paint and even a brand name. lol

thanks

80+ hours?

Thank you for the kindness Shawnee! Yeah, 80 hours is a lot. I start my stopwatch whenever I sit at a model and do anything. So, that 80 hours includes assembling/painting the Sergent couplers, removing and re-installing the end cages, any things I break and have to repair or mistakes during the weathering process I have to re-do...plus all the weathering including the time I sit holding a blow dryer up to dry paint faster. I am also attempting to create a model that will be photographed up close so there cannot be any unweathered areas (like the backside of any detail such as a railing) that when photographed from an unusual angle could reveal itself. There were a lot of steps that the magazine left out when they edited down the article I sent. If you could see all the photos and accompanying text it would give you a better idea as to why the process takes so long. When I modeled that hopper I had a layout that was nearly complete so all I had to do was weather my trains. Now I have only a very basic (just track on cork on plywood) layout mainly to test run the engines/cars I super detail and weather. So, I'm not having to split up my modeling time.

Nick Campbell

Coolest explanation

Thank you for the kindness Mike! I'm glad you could glean some useful information from the tutorial....all the way in Chile!

Nick Campbell

confused

I'll be happy to! Gouache is a water based paint that once dry can still be manipulated hours/days/weeks/months/years later by simply wetting it again. It never affixes permanently and that is why you have to put on a coat of clear matte or gloss paint to seal it for permanency. I like to use it for mud splatters and grime in certain areas because of this ability to be endlessly manipulated until I get the right look. It can also be wiped off easily to start over if needed. Just like acrylic paint, oil paint and powders, it has it's advantages and disadvantages and would never work for every weathering effect.

Nick Campbell