5 Minute Weathering Technique Using a highlighter and chalks

[Herc Driver]

Hi Guys...

I got an email sent to me by a fellow "gauger" that mentioned using a highlighter as the base coat to apply chalks. Since I had five minutes and a highlighter I thought might work, I thought I'd try it out and ask what y'all thought.

As you guys know...Nscale is a bit challenging to weather as effectively as some of this hobbies larger models. I'm not that great at painting, and I've found that at this scale, it's very hard to avoid leaving a paint brush mark or brush line. So I've gravitated to using chalks, since I can get a consistent weathering effect. But I wondered about using the highlighter as suggested by another modeler. So today, I thought I'd try it.

I used a regular orange highlighter and some orange chalk dust, applied with a wide stiff bristle painting brush. Since this is Nscale, I went with a small version of a wide brush normally found in pastel painting kits...so this isn't your best silky smooth paint brush. Rather, I wanted the inconsistencies and lines that might be associated with a heavily weathered but not abused or neglected look. The orange marker adds a good rust color to the silver top of the car, and generally darkens the sides. (But I can already see that I added too uniform a coating of the marker in these close-up photos.) By blotching the marker, a deeper rusty color can be approximated. The bristle brush added lines, but repeated brushing with the chalks muted them. Overall...it's not a bad look for a "5 minute job," but with added colors more attention to the individual segments of the cars, I think a better overall look can be obtained. On the other side of this car, I'm going to use some white to bleed the lettering down, and some deeper red and yellow chalk to give a more varied rust look around the door slides and hinge areas that would of course get more wear and tear. Also, the ladder should get more attention with highlights on the top of the rungs. The roof ended up looking pretty good overall, but I need some prototypical pictures to figure out how these silver colored roofs normally weather over time. And I think I'm going to give a light wash of india ink prior to the process to add some black highlights before dulling it down with the highlighter and chalks.

Before...with a very light coating of white chalks:



After...with orange highlighter applied over the white chalk, with added burnt orange chalk applied.