Practice? Practice? We don't need no stinkin Practice


SpaceMouse

Fun Lover
Well maybe I do. I started my first waethering job on my favorite engine, my B&P. Here is the prototype.

bp2000adm.jpg

bp2000ars.jpg


I was trying for subtle weathering, but I got a shade heavy handed. There's actually a shot of BP2000 this dirty, but I wasn't after it. O wuld also be a little more subtle in the nose, but I'm not sure you'll see what I mean.

Now I apologise for the shot. The camera and I are in an adjustment pereiod. It's a loner from one of the kind people here.

gp3801.gif


gp3802.gif


gp3803.gif


gp3804.gif
 
Not bad, turned out better then some of my weathering! Anyways, I have some weathering on hand soon too, there's a little bit of dirtyness on my GP7 thats missing, and some diesel fuel...
 
Thanks. Glad I got the first one under my belt. I have a whole caboose load if I can ever get a printer that will do decals.
 
Looking good Chip. Was your sprayed-on grunge oil or acrylic based? What did you thin it with?
 
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CSX_road_slug said:
Looking good Chip. Was your sprayed-on grunge oil or acrylic based? What did you thin it with?

I mixed the color from Createx acrylic for airbrush. No thinning.
 
Chip, I cropped, straightened, sharpened, and brightened your pictures. I can tell more about the weathering now. I use Picasa from Google. It's a free download, and works well.
 
Now, I will comment about your weathering job. First of all, for your first job, it's phenomenal. It looks similar to the prototypes. I'm not saying you copied it exactly, but you did well. If you haven't Dullcoted it, I suggest trying that to dull down the orange and yellow. It's way too bright.

Overall, I give you 3.9 stars.
 
SpaceMouse said:
I'm still trying to figure out what he meant by crisper paint. Anyone know what he means?


McFly, the paint has dirty stuff on it and doesn't look crisp... :D


Don't know, the paint looks great to me. :cool:
 
SpaceMouse said:
I'm still trying to figure out what he meant by crisper paint. Anyone know what he means?

My guess is the comment could point to one of two things:

The black around the grilles is a little rough. This is especially noticeable in the 3/4 view.

The spray pattern/mist size is a little large. Increase your air to paint volume ratio so that the paint doesn't come out so quick. It will also cause the paint to go on a little dry, but with some practice, that can be controlled easily.

Many of the weathering fellas avoid airbrushes like the plague, probably because of the feathered, misty look, which is really good for mimicing only one or two weathering effects found on the prototype. But, there's really much more that can be done with an airbrush in skilled hands.

Since this is your first effort, I think it's important to point out probably the most important thing you accomplished: you did not overweather the model. Overweathering is usually the first weathering crime committed (I'm guilty of it many times over). This weathering is not overdone and is not distracting. You could improve upon it, but if this is your starting point, you have a bright future ahead of you. Good job!
 
Chip, I'm the too heavy-handed champion of all time. I figure if a little is good a lot will be great and that's about as wrong as it can be when weathering. Personally, I don't see where you went overboard, it looks fine to me. One day I'll get the nerve to do one of my locomotives.
Jarrell
 
RCH said:
My guess is the comment could point to one of two things:

The black around the grilles is a little rough. This is especially noticeable in the 3/4 view.

The spray pattern/mist size is a little large. Increase your air to paint volume ratio so that the paint doesn't come out so quick. It will also cause the paint to go on a little dry, but with some practice, that can be controlled easily.

Many of the weathering fellas avoid airbrushes like the plague, probably because of the feathered, misty look, which is really good for mimicing only one or two weathering effects found on the prototype. But, there's really much more that can be done with an airbrush in skilled hands.

Since this is your first effort, I think it's important to point out probably the most important thing you accomplished: you did not overweather the model. Overweathering is usually the first weathering crime committed (I'm guilty of it many times over). This weathering is not overdone and is not distracting. You could improve upon it, but if this is your starting point, you have a bright future ahead of you. Good job!

I argree with the size of the paint. I've had the airbrush for 6 months and I just got it working half-way decently. The breakthroug occured when I removed a pressure valve/guage. The thing would drain the pressure to 0 before replenshing. I got a new pancake compressor for Christmas to replace one that ODed. When I ran the airbrush off that instead of the Badger with the funky guage, the spray became consistant.

Because the effect of the airbrush was what I was after, I used it. But I could have done it better for sure.

As for the crispness of the air vents. That looks better in person. It was some of the hardest painting I've done. Took a long time and I was very careful about painting all of the grill. In fact, I had to mix some color to the body color and recut the edges to make it smooth. At this point it was too stark a contrast and I used a grey wash to soften it. But the edges are clean.

Increase your air to paint volume ratio so that the paint doesn't come out so quick.

Okay, I'm listening. How do you do that?
 
Well, you can increase or regulate the air pressure on your air brush, right? My Paasche H has a plunger for the air and a screw underneath it to limit the vertical travel of the plunger. You can also control the amount of paint coming out of the brush either by a screw tip (if you're using a single action) or by pulling the air plunger on a double action. If I want to paint "dry" I increase the amount of air that comes out to "full" and limit the amount of paint that comes out to just a trickle. You can do this a number of different ways, but I tend to paint at 25-30 psi out of a tank compressor and do any "fine" controlling of the airbrush at the airbrush.
 



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