Braille Scale Modelling 1

7/31/2019 Braille Scale Modelling 1

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- Introduction

- Forced Contrast

- Hairspray

- Salt

- Pigments

- Artist Oils

- White Glue

- The Excersise

- The Fallen King

- Bad to the Bones

- The Pigs of War

- Stridsvagn 104

- Taking the Scenic Route

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Table of Contents



Weathering has moved a long way sinceFrancois Verlinden and the likes of him did theirmasterpieces. I can remember how I stared atthose centerfolds in the Tamiya cataloguewhere Verlindens dioramas were displayed. I

could not dream that anyone would be able todo better than him, those models were sorealistic and it was unthinkable that we meremortals could ever achieve something remotelysimilar to those models.

Today by using fairly simple techniques we canall achieve the same quality and in some caseseven go beyond what the old masters did.

To create my models I use many differenttechniques to achieve the effects that I want. The picture above shows several of thetechniques that I use and I will try to explaineach and everyone as detailed as possible.

The techniques used above are:

1. Hairspray

2. Salt

3. Artist Oils

4. Acrylic Paint

5. Pigments

6. White Glue

Some of these techniques require a fair amountof practice before they are applied to a modelbut even with a lot of practice things can goterribly wrong so please try the techniquesfirst on either a scrap model or a piece of

plastic sheet to get to know them well beforeyou apply them to your model.

The most important thing, even more importantthan practice is the desire for experimentationand to discover new and interesting ways towork and above all to become a better modellerby daring to try out every new technique thatcomes along. It does not take very long beforeyou will have your own set of favouritetechniques that you use on all of your models.

With this booklet I would like to thank all of the modellers out there who have inspired meand thaught me everything I know today.

Thanks!

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When painting small scale vehicles the mostimportant thing for a successful paintjob is tomake sure that they have enough depth andcontrast. Without it the model will appear flatand two dimensional.

I use what I call the two meter rule whichbasically is that I put the model on a tableunder normal lighting conditions and backaway about two meters. If I can still see a gooddepth in the model at that distance it hasperfect contrast and need no further work.

To achieve this depth I use a painting techniquewhich I call "Forced Contrast" and it is verysimple to apply to the model.

Forced Contrast contains the following steps:

1. Airbrush a darker basecoat. I normally useblack because it gives the best shadows butyou could use other darker tones too. If youfor instance are doing a sand coloured vehicleyou could use a very dark brown or if thevehicle is green you can go with a dark green.

2. The topcoat is applied by spraying eacharmored panel or other large detail by itself starting at the center of it and movingcarefully out towards it's edges. Theeasiest way is to hold theairbrush fairly close whenstarting at the centerand slowly moving it

away from the modelwhen approaching

the edges of each individual section of thevehicle. By doing this you get less paint closeto the edges letting the black basecoat showthrough and that gives you instand shadowsand a perfect contrast.

On this Sherman below you can clearly seehow the technique works and how the vehicleshould look like once the paint has been appliedto the model.

The stronger you make the effect the harderit is to lose it when you continue with theweathering. If you make it too strong you mightend up with a vehicle that looks like it belongsin a cartoon so practice to find the right levelfor this effect that suits you.



One of the most popular techniques to dochipping is by using hairspray. It is fairly easyand if one follow a few simple rules there aresome very cool effects to be had.

For this Panzer IV I have used the hairspraytechnique and the steps are as follows:

1. Basecoat Black (Vallejo Air)

2. Two thin coats of hairspray (any brand)

3. Topcoat Yellow (mix of Vallejo Air)

4. Once the topcoat of yellow is done I fill acup with some warm water and find some oldstiff brushes, toothpicks and other items todamage the topcoat.

First I select a section of the vehicle that I willstart working on. It's a bad move to try to dothe whole vehicle in one go since water willreach places that I have not yet started to workon and that will make the hairspray dissolveand once it has done so, there's no way of getting the topcoat off in those places.

By dipping a stiff old brush in the warm waterand starting to carefully rub the area that I

want the chipping to appear I slowly dissolvethe hairspray between the two layers of paintand after a few seconds the topcoat starts tobreak and small sharp edged pieces of it startsto come off looking just like the real thing.

Depending on the amount of water and thepressure I apply with the paintbrush I can dovery small chips or large chips. By using forinstance a sharp needle I can do long scratchesand a toothbrush can be used if a lot of thetopcoat needs to come off.

This technique is very exact, you getthe chips exactly where you wantthem and with a bit of practiceit becomes very controllableand easy to work with.If you are very careful youcan use several layers of hairspray to achive veryinteresting effects.

The possibil it ies areendless with this technique.

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Here are some of the tools that I use for thehairspray technique.

Perhaps the most important of them all is thecup of warm water. I always have one at the

workbench so I can dip the brushes or whatevertool I chose to use when I do the chipping. Byusing warm water the hairspray dissolves alittle easier.

If the hairspray should dissolve by accident inplaces that you not yet have started to workon it can be extremely hard to remove the topcoat of paint. A tip here is to use some decalsoftener but it should only be tried in extremecases,

Then there's the tools and shown here is justa selection of what can be used for making thedamages and chips in the paint. It's basicallyup to you and your imagination to chose whattools you think work best and feels mostconfortable to work with.

I have tried steel wool, needles, all sorts of paintbrushes, scalpels, sandpaper and a wholebunch of other things,

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The hairspray itself is something I bought atthe local supermarket. The amount of differentbrands are staggering so I bought this cansince it was one of the cheapest ones and itseems to be doing the job without any

problems.

When it comes to how long you can wait afteryou've applied the hairspray and the top layerof paint I can only say that I have not foundthis to be very time sensitive but the soonerthe better would be a good rule to follow.



The salt technique is probably the mostunpredictable effect of them all. It's veryrandom and it is very difficult to apply it inexact positions. Using salt is however good if you look for an effect to be placed over an

entire vehicle in a random fashion like on thisISU 152 which was given the salt treatment.

Here are the steps for the salt technique:

1. Paint the model in a slightly darker versionof the base colour.

2. Spray a very thin mist of regular tapwaterover the model. Be careful not to flood themodel completely with the water. If thathappens you can soak up the excess with somesoft tissue paper. The surface should just havea very thin film of water, too much and thesalt begins to melt. The point of using the wateris to create a surface where the grains of saltcan get stuck. If you don't have enough water,the grains will be blown off when you do thesecond coat of paint so it's a fine balance thatrequires some testing before you actually tryit out on your model.

3. Sprinkle regular fine table salt over themodel in the areas that you want the effect tobe seen. I chose to do it over the entire model

since it's very difficult to control where eachindividual grain of salt lands.

4. After the water has dried the grains of saltsticks to the surface and will act as a mask forthe next coat of paint which in this case is alighter version of the first coat of green.Depending on how much difference inbrightness you have between the twocoats of paint you will get a more orless prominent effect of the chips.

5. Once the last layer of paint has dried it istime to carefully rinse the model using sometapwater and a very soft brush. By carefullyremoving the grains of salt theunderlying darker paint willshow through and createthe illusion of randomchips all over the vehicle.

This technique is a veryquick way of gettingyour vehicle to lookused and abused.



Pigments are very useful for us modellers andthere's a lot of different ways they can beapplied to the model. The most common wayto apply them is to rub them in to the surfaceof the model with a brush. There are howevermany other ways to apply them and I will showa few of them here.

By tapping a brush loaded with pigments I cancreate a snowfall of pigments over the vehicle. This is great if you want some random dustand grime over an entire vehicle.The downsideis that it's not very exaxt. If you make a mistakeand the pigments wont fall there you wantthem, just blow a little and they will be removedletting you to have another try.

To fixate the pigments you can use a large softbrush and carefully press the pigments intothe surface or you can fixate them with variousfluids like thinners or window cleaner.

If your aim is to have some structure on thedirt, then the wet fixation is to be preferred.Byusing a small paintbrush carefully add thethinner next to the pigments and let the fluidsoak the surface around it. The pigments arethen joined with the surface but keeps someof it's structure. This is ideal for mudspatter.

There are many manufacturers of Pigmentsand many of them can be found within therealms of modelling but you can also findpigments and chalks like the ones I use inregular artist supply shops. The cost for "artist"pigments and chalks are usually lower thanthe brands aimed at modellers but if you arelike me and want to experiment a little bit withdifferent chalks and textures of differentpigments I recommend that you check out yourlocal art supply shop and see what they haveto offer. I can say that I visit the arts shop more

frequently than the hobby shop...

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By gently tapping the brush loaded withpigments we create a snowfall over the model.

By pressing carefully with a large soft brushthe pigments are applied to the surface.

Wet application is very good if you want to

keep some of the structure in the pigments.



Rust streaks placed below grab handles orwhere the chipping is severe can be a veryeffectful but as with all effects they should beapplied with moderation and a fair amount of logic to look convincing.

Artist Oils are perhaps the most versatile thingin the modellers toolbox. It's best characteristicsare that it is slow drying and is very easy toblend from one shade to another

Depending on the amount of thinner we mixwith the oilpaint we can have everything fromsubtle filters that alter the appearance of acolour to strong washes to enhance linesbetween panels, boltheads and other detailsthat needs more contrast.

We can also fade colours with them thanks totheir amazing blending abilites.

What I will show here are a few other effectsthat are very easy to do with these artist oils.

To create rain marks and rust streaks just place

some small blobs of an appropriate oil colourstraigh from the tube with a small brush at thelocation where you want the effect to be shown.

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This effect can be used on all surfaces to createmore life and irregularity. A single colouredvehicle will look very boring if there's nothinghappening in the paint.

To create an irregular painted surface the basicsare the same as when you do the rain marksand rust streaks. There are however twodifferences and the first one is that we useseveral colours instead of using only one forrain or rust effects and when we fade thecolours we move the paintbrush in a moreuncontrolled manner instead of in a downwarddirection like when we fade in the oil colors.

Once we have placed out all the blobs of oilpaint it's time to fade them in and to do thatwe use a soft wide flat brush dampened withthinner. As I said earlier, the rain and rusteffects are often vertical effects so therefore

we slowly drag the brush in a downward motionto fade the oil into subtle streaks and marks.

For the irregular effects a soft stabbing motionworks quite well but other techniques work just as well. Experiment and see what worksbest for you.

Another thing that needs to be tested beforetrying this out on a model is the amount of thinner on the brush. It should only be damp,not fully loaded. If it is it will just remove all

the oil paint in one wipe. I keep a cloth nexton the workbench so I can wipe off the excessthinner from the brush.



Perhaps the most interesting effect is to makemud spatter with the help of artist oils.

I have a large flat brush which I have cut downthe bristles to about a third of their length toget some more stiffness in it. Another tool thatworks well is a tooth brush which also have agood stiffness in it's bristles.

This technique requires a lot of experimentationwhen it comes to the consistency of the oilpaint.

If the paint is too thick you will get small lumpsand if it is too thin it will be like airbrushingthe model so experiment with different typesof paint thickness and also with various toolsto get to grips with this effect.

Another tip is to make some protective masksto cover those areas of the vehicle that youdon't want the spatter on. I just cut some fromregular printer paper and hold in place whileI do the effect. The reason for this is that itbehaves a bit like real mud spatter, you neverreally know where it's going to end up so it's

better to be safe than sorry.

The same rule applies here as it does with thechipping. Use both light and dark colours tocreate life in the mud and also to simulateeverything from wet to dry mud.

As I mentioned earlier, the thickness of thepaint controls the appearance of the effectquite a bit. Having a thin mix will let you createsmall drops that will look like the spatter fromwhen driving into a hole filled with some dirty

water. A really thick mix is more like real mudand with this we can build up textured layersof muck and filth on the vehicle.

The number of methods for doing chippingeffects are quite a few but I think one of my

favourite low tech ways is with artist oils. Itgives the same control as with hairspray butdoes not look as realistic since the edges of the chips are rounder compared to the hairsprayversion which have sharper edges but withsome oilpaint straight from the tube and on asmall brush we can still make some prettyconvincing chips. Be carefult not to use thesame colour all over the vehicle. Alternatebetween some darker and lighter shades tokeep it more life like.

Another good thing is if you make a mistakethe oilpaint can be wiped off with aclean brush dampened with some thinner.

I would also like to recommend that a practisesession should be had in order to learn howthe effect works. The factors of paint thickness,strenght of the bristles on the tool we are usingand the force we use to drag our finger over

the bristles all play a part in how this effectwill work so I will say it again, practice beforeyou start working on your model.

With a little practice you should very soon beable to hit what you're aiming for.

To apply the effect is simple, load the brush orwhat ever tool you chose with plenty of paint. Then do a "test shot" on a piece of paper tocheck that the consistency of the paint iscorrect by dragging your finger over the bristleswhile aiming for the paper. If it looks ok youare good to go.



White glue is perhaps not the first thing thatcomes to mind when you are about to weatheryour vehicle but it is actually quite useful whenyou want to make thick layers of dry mud.

I use a standard white carpenters glue for thiseffect which I bought in the local hardwarestore. The bottle contains 1 litre of it and thatshould be enough for quite a number otvehicles. I also use this glue in a mix with wallfiller and small stones and sand to make mybases and they become virtually indestructiblethanks to the addition of white glue in the mix.

White glue is a slow drying glue that is greatto work with for an effect like this. The firstfew minutes after being applied the glue stayswet and soft but after that it becomes moreand more rubbery until it hardens. It's thesefirst couple of minutes that we are going totake advantage of when doing this technique.

I have cut the bristles of a fairly large roundbrush which I use for all steps of this technique. The shape of the brush and the hard bristlesare one of the key factors in order to succeed.

It's also very important that you wash the brushdirectly after you have finished the jobotherwise the paintbrush will be ruined.

As the first step I grind up some pigments invarious mud colours, ranging from light to darkand have them ready in separate cups on theworkbench.

Then I start to dab on white glue on the areasthat I want to build up the mud effect on. I usequite a lot of glue but I apply it carefully so Ionly get glue where it's supposed to be sinceit's a bit messy to remove if I by accident applythe glue to unwanted areas of the vehicle.

There's no time to sit and admire the nice andshiny white glue that has just been applied,the clock is ticking so I start right away to applythe pigments with the same brush as I usedfor the white glue. I stab the pigments into thewhite glue, quick decisive stabs, in and out. Ialso reload the brush with new pigments oftenand alternate between the different tones. Asthe glue dries, the stiff bristles of the brushcreates a rough texture into the glue which isvery similar to real mud.

Once dry I can leave it as it is or I can applywashes and varnish to make it look wet.

Here I apply liberal amounts of white glue tothe rear of the vehicle.

Stab stab stab, This part has to be done veryquickly since the pigments accelerates thedrying of the white glue.

I keep on stabbing until I feel that the white

glue has dried and that I can see the roughtexture clearly.



To show some of the techniques I will paintand weather a 1/72 scale Revell Le Clerc whichis a perfect vehicle for these kinds of excersises.

1. The first step is the black base coat.

2. The Forced Contrast technique is used toapply the green layer of paint. Note how visiblethe shadow effect is between and around theseparate panels of the vehicle.

3. I have added some extra contrast to someof the smaller parts of the vehicle by using abrighter shade of green. This will however notbe seen since the vehicle will be painted white.

4. Before the white paint is applied I airbrushtwo coats of hairspray which is left do dry fora couple of minutes, then the white is applied.

5. The white coat of paint is carefully damagedwith a stiff old brush to create chips andscratches all over the vehicle.

6. Here I have done some detailpainting andadded the decals. I never use gloss varnish forthe decals, just a lot of patience andbucketloads of decalsoftener. Once they aredry I spray a coat of matt varnish over theentire model to blend them in.

Well so far so good. Now the model is readyfor the next steps...

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Now all the painting is done and we have amodel that is ready for some weathering.

7. To tone down the very bright white colourI apply a very thin filter made from artist oils

and low odour thinner. The colour I chose forthis filter was Raw Umber because it both looksdirty when applied and pulls towards yellow.

8. Some Raw Umber and Buff Titanium artistoils straight from the tube was draggedvertically from top to bottom on the side armourand the sides of the turret with a flat brushdampened with thinner to create rainmarksand streaks.

9. With the airbrush I spray a very thin mix of a light brown Vallejo Air to dust the model.Iconcentrate on the rear of the vehicle but therest gets a light coat as well. Even though themix was very thin we can still see that the

dusting has changed the tone of the vehiclefurther towards yellow which is where we wantto go since the vehicle will be set in a verydirty environment.

10. Some panel lines and other details hasbeen enhanced with some dilluted Vallejo blacksince the dusting with the light brown haslowered the contrast of the model a bit. I havealso done some mudspatter in the rear of the

vehicle using various artist oils. The runninggear has also recieved it's first wash made upfrom Raw Umber and Lamp Black artist oils.

11. The last step is to add pigments. I've addedthese both wet and dry. The running gear getsa liberal wash with pigments mixed with windowcleaning fluid and the rear part of the vehiclegets pigments sprinkeled carefully on thesidearmor which then is fixated with thinner.Further adding of pigments with a large softbrush binds it all together.

This vehicle was because of my extremeimpatience finished in just one afternoon sothe end result can be much better if you takeyour time with each step and don't rush thingslike I normally do.

I wish you good luck with your future projectsand I hope to be seeing some beautiful bangedup and dirty vehicles in the near future.

Happy Weathering!!!

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The Fallen King

The King Tiger was painted using the Forced Contrast technique for the yellow and also for thered barell. Several artist oil based washes was used to create the grimy look of the vehicle. Thechipping and other damages was done with artist oils of various colours. The mud and dust are

pigment powders which were applied both dry and wet.



Bad to the Bones

The Panzer III was first painted using the Forced Contrast technique in a dark grey colour.Hairspray was used to create the very damaged sand yellow colour which was also appliedusing the Forced Contrast technique. Artist oils was used for making additional chipping and

was also used as washes to make it more dirty. Dry and wet application of pigments was usedto create the dust.



The Pigs of War

The Sherman was painted using the forced Contrast technique and had several thin washesto create the "been through a lot" look. Pigments was applied both wet and dry with special

care taken around the running gear to make it look really dirty.



Strv. 104

This Swedish tank is actually one of the few camouflage painted tanks that I've done. It startedwith a light green basecoat applied using the Forced Contrast technique and rest of the coloursin the camouflage was brushpainted on. The dusting was done with both the airbrush and asmall amount of pigments. A thin wash was applied to bind the colours together and to give ita dirty but still well kept look.



Taking the Scenic Route

All vehicles were painted using the Forced Contrast method and the hairspray technique. Artistoils were used for washes, additional chipping and mud spatter effects. Pigments was applied

both dry and wet for dirt and dust effects.

Documents

Braille Scale Modelling 1