Weathering Time

Okay,

Time to get started on some model railroading projects, last night I decided I wanted to work on doing some light weathering on a ready to run car, so I picked out this Athearn Roundhouse 50'FMC Box which was a faded paint and re lettered from Golden West to SP. I love that Athearn has made a few cars like this, already faded and re patched in SP markings. So all I needed to do was add some dirt to it. 

Athearn Roundhouse 50' FMC pre faded

Now, many people seem to go extremely crazy with weathering, while yes you can see some really beat up cars for real, most cars are not that bad. After all if a car is that beat up from the weather, its either something that is now going out of service or is headed to be repainted, not all the time, but I am guessing most of the time anyway. So I wanted to not filth this one up too much as I also will be using this for operations on my layout, I still need to see the car numbers.

So the first thing I did was add some weight to the car as it was a little light, just added a few 1" 1/8' hole washers (I uses these for metal basing for wargaming figures). I then took the car body off and shot it with a flat clear coat to knock down the shine of the factory paint, I also did this on the trucks minus the wheels.

The main culprits for the filth 

Next up came the Vallejo colors, on the roof I used Vallejo Environmental Rust, its a great paint as it adds some grit to the rust, I applied it with a brush then streaked it while still wet with a sponge (or in my case leftover pieces of foam packaging from a Flames of war blister!).

I then took the Vallejo Black Wash and some water and lined all the raised areas on the model like the ribs on the side of the car. I start with a thinned down wash and slowly add more black to it. I added some of the wash to the whole panels in some areas just too mix it up and add variety. 

Once this dried, I came back with Vallejo Brown Engine Soot and with the trucks and under carriage and lower part of the car body with a dry brushing/stipple effect, once again using my sponge to streak some areas. And as the black wash, I applied it to areas on the roof and some other areas of the car panels. I also applied this color to the inside of the wheels making sure to not get paint on the points of the wheel sets.

Last color was Vallejo Engine Grime which is a grayish color that I applied as a dry brush on the underside and lower area of the car body as well as the trucks. I also once again applied some to car panels and streaked with a sponge.

And here below is the finished product, took me about an hour to do the whole car as I had to wait for some of the wash to dry between coats of paint.

Finished dirty car!

I really like how this one came out, its not overdone with grime and filth and it looks very realistic and right. I now have about 60 more cars to work on, but I will vary it up and work on other projects. Also you will notice I did not use my airbrush on this project, I have seem many airbrushed cars, and to my eye they look a little too perfectly weathered, almost cartoony to me. Dont get me wrong, they do look great, but they tend to all look similar and not real. I feel I can get a better natural effect with a regular brush instead of busting out my airbrush, now i may on other cars, but right now I will continue with a regular brush.

TK