City Dirt

City Dirt - gray brown grime from the street

A loose colored powder from the pigment range by AK interactive. The shade aims at what settles on vehicles in a city: a mixture of dust from paving and asphalt, soot from traffic and dried water. Compared with earthy pigments from the countryside it is noticeably grayer and cooler, so on a model it does not look like mud from the field but like dirt from everyday use.

Which surfaces it belongs on

The typical places are tires and their sidewalls, wheel wells, the lower third of the body, sills, fenders and bumpers. It also serves well on trucks and commercial vehicles, buses, fire engines and on the surface of the diorama itself: curbs, paving, manhole covers. On military vehicles it suits machines deployed in built-up areas, where there is no earthy soil but dust and soot are everywhere.

At what stage of the build it is applied

The pigment is the final step. The model should have its base coat, decals and dried washes finished and ideally also a matte varnish for the powder to hold on. It is applied dry with a soft flat brush, rubbed into the surface, and the excess is tapped off. With city grime, less is more: the aim is a fine deposit through which the original color of the paint is still visible, not a continuous layer. It can be fixed with a pigment fixer, which will darken the shade a little.

Who it is for

• Modelers of civilian cars, trucks and buses.
• Builders of city dioramas and scenes with a road or paving.
• Modelers of military vehicles deployed in built-up areas.
• Anyone looking for a neutral gray brown dust instead of markedly earthy tones.

This is a very fine powder: do not inhale it, do not work in a draft and consider a respirator and eye protection. Keep out of the reach of children and always close the jar carefully. The volume and the composition are given on the packaging.