VEHICLE WEATHERING 6 EFFECT SET

Mud, tar and earth tones

Oil paint has one irreplaceable quality on the modeling bench, namely slow drying. While acrylic is untouchable within a few minutes, oil stays workable for hours, so a dot you have laid down can be blended into a smooth transition, lightened or wiped off altogether if the result does not match what you had in mind. For random grime on a vehicle this is an ideal quality, because the final look is decided during the blending.

The six tubes are aimed at ground vehicles. The opaque titanium white serves for lightening and for a dust veil, the dark asphalt tone saturates the deepest recesses and imitates oil seepage, burnt umber works as a universal brown wash into every crevice, raw sienna adds an earthy cast, and the pair of muddy shades, light and dark, covers the deposits on the chassis and in the wheel wells.

Layering works best. First a thin brown wash into every crevice, then, once it has dried, a dust veil from above, and only at the end the muddy deposits on the underside and the wheels. In that order each step keeps its place and the individual layers do not mix into one uniform sludge.

From a dot to a surface

Small dots of the various tones are placed on a dry gloss surface, left a few minutes to become tacky and then drawn vertically downward with a brush wiped dry. They are thinned with odorless mineral spirits, which will also remove the residue as long as the layer has not hardened.

It pays to squeeze the paint out onto a piece of cardboard first and leave it lying there for a while. The paper soaks up the surplus binder and the brush then picks up a thicker paste that leaves no greasy ring behind.