DUST & DIRT PIGMENTS SET

Dust and dirt in one package

Dust is the most frequent trace that use leaves on a model, and this set offers it in four forms at once. It holds a light dusting, the dirt of an industrial district, alkaline settled dust and the deposit typical of a cargo compartment. The difference between them is not only in tone but above all in how they act: one lightens, the second dulls, the third adds gray and the fourth clogs a surface with a reddish layer.

The powder shades come into their own best in layers. First the lightest tone is rubbed over the large areas so that the model loses its unnaturally clean look, then the darker variants are stippled purposely into rivets, panel lines, the surroundings of hatches and the hinges of doors. Anyone working with vehicles will appreciate that the same quartet also suits muddy fenders and the undersides of aircraft parked at a field airfield.

How to achieve a convincing layer

A dry powder holds on a flat surface far better than on a glossy one, and so before applying it pays to even the surface out with a matte varnish. Fixing is done at the very end, because after it further adjustments are no longer easy. Anyone wanting a gentle transition can load the powder onto a stiff brush and simply tap it out above the model so that it falls from above.

The shades can be mixed with one another and with the pigments of other ranges and thereby build up exactly the color of earth or dust that a given landscape and season call for. The set is thus not a closed quartet but the basis of a palette of your own, which a modeler extends according to the setting being built at the time.