My First Weathering Projects

[Omaha Road Man]

Just finished an accurail boxcar. Here's what is started as:

And once I was done:

I started off with a light airbrushing of grimy black followed by some rust colored chalk, a spray of dullcoat, some dirt chalk around the bottum, and then another coat of dullcoat.

For the trucks the wheels and trucks got a good heavy coat of grimy black, then rust chalk on the springs sealed with dullcoat. I'm fairly happy with the result, especially for one of my first projects.

 

[NH Mike]

Looks pretty good. Weathering is one of those things you can experiment with techniques and colors and with very few exceptions it won't be wrong as long as it is logical. Even rust comes in different shades depending on the metal it is attacking and how long it has been rusting away. Lately I've been using a light mist of burnt sienna with an airbrush to simulate dark rusted areas followed up with some random streaks of Floquil rust applied with the dry brush method..

 

[The Minuteman]

Nice job for first time out. Remember, you can not go to over board. I mean, I have seen some petty dirty frieght cars, so just about any job is a good job. Also, when using the chalks you can wash it all off if you are not happy with it. But once you lock it in with dul coat, it's yours. Great job thought. Just my 2 cents,

 

[Omaha Road Man]

This is actually project #3. First one was a hopper that didn't go so hot-did quite get the hang of drybrushing and the model did, in fact, get too weathered. Next one was a second hopper that actually turned out really nice but its black so doesn't turn out very well in a pic. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[UP2CSX]

Looks pretty good overall. The roof needs to have a fairly regular pattern of rust. The usual places are in the flat areas between the ribs. Roof walks rarely get as rusty as the roof because of foot traffic but they get dirty, so mixing in some light gray with the rust usually comes out better. The rust streaks on the side should roughly match the rusted areas on the roof. On prototype cars, the ends are rarely as rusted as the sides and roof because they spend more time coupled to other cars and are more protected from the weather. What you do commonly see is a steak up both sides above the wheels that looks like a combination of mud and dust that get's thrown up by the wheels as the car moves. It looks like you did that but the effect, at least in the picture, is too rusty. Another nice touch is to paint the tackboards a very dark gray, almost black. The tack boards are made of wood and the paint was rapidly worn off as trainmen stappled and removed car lading information. Pasting a few scraps of paper on the tackboards also makes it look like the remains of previous car lading sheets are still stuck on the tack board.

You're off to a good start. Keep looking at prototype photos and try to match the weathering paterns. You'll soon have it down.

 

[Trucklover]

I'd say that is an excellent start for your first weathering attempt. Great work!