08-15-2010, 06:55 PM
P5se Camelback Wrote:Are all of the paints that you have been using of the acrylic craft variety, even for the colored washes?
Yep, all cheapie craft paints like Apple Barrel, FolkArt, and Americana... it's all the same stuff, probably even all comes from the exact same factory, just different labels on the bottles. Oh... FolkArt also has gold lids instead of white. 8-)
P5se Camelback Wrote:Have any of your washes been of the alcohol/india ink variety? Like maybe the black one?
Never used India Ink, so can't help you with the high sheen issue. I'm kind of scared to use the ink, it sounds too unforgiving, but that is just my assumption. With the craft paint washes, I know I can easily wash them off if I do something crazy. I have tinkered with using windex as the dilution medium instead of water, to break the surface tension, but I need to do more experiments with that.
P5se Camelback Wrote:... And now, since this took so long to type out due to my soon-to-be-replaced double-debouncing keyboard, I see that you have started using powders ... and suddenly, information is randomly retrieved from lost segments on the cranial hard drive ...
Artist's Tip: Pastel chalks powdered by "shaving" with an industrial (single edge) razor blade, with a pinch of baby powder added and stirred into it makes the pastels "blend" more smoothly with no streaks (on paper) and less likely to smear prior to "fixing." My best guess is that they would stick to surfaces better as well due to the talc in the baby powder.
About five years ago, I bought a set of Bragdon weathering powders. There were 8 colors in the set, in those fairly big clear plastic, horizontally square vertically rectangular containers and the set was 28 dollars. At the time, I thought that was hugely expensive, but the LHS owner said they would last me a lifetime, and he was right. A little goes a long way, and I've barely made a dent in them. It was a good investment in my opinion.
On the bridge, I did use powders already, on the side of the concrete sections... after doing all the initial work with paint and colored pencils, I used black powder and a damp brush to create the vertical streaks as on the prototype. My typical technique for weathering all my stuff, is craft paint to do the "overall" look, maybe colored pencils if warranted, then various craft paint and water washes to bring out the smaller areas, then a black wash to tie everything together, and then the powder to create the special effects. Then a shot of dullcote, and if I feel like it, a bit of drybrushing with antique white or ivory to bring out the edges, then more dullcote to protect the item.
Oh... for already painted rollngstock, I start with the washes...
On that note, I hugely believe in the dark washes and the drybrushing on just about anything... very important for bringing out the smallest details.
I appreciate the questions, hope I gave some insight into my rudimentary techniques!
Oh... a couple of other techniques for fading already painted stuff... One method is to get some clear waterbased varnish at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. Delta Ceramcoat makes the stuff. By mixing in small amounts of paint, you can create a translucent paint that will alter the original paint color. Of course, this also fades out the lettering, but that is probably a good thing.
Other method is to do the same thing except use pump hair spray as the medium. Takethe top off, pour some hair spray in a bottle, and then mix in a little paint. Again, this creates a translucent paint.
I need to experiment more with the last two, to get it perfected.
Three Foot Rule In Effect At All Times