This past weekend I sat down and applied the weathering techniques to about a dozen buildings. There were some successes and some lessons learned during this long session. First the original article that I consulted used Kilz as the primer, this is a very strong white primer. I ran into some issues with it where the water based fabric dye and the inks were actually repelled by the primer in spots. You can see this effect on in a number of the buildings, most notably on the railroad station, they look like little white blotches. It didn't happen on a consistent basis either, one building wouldn't give me any problems while another would drive me to frustration. I tried roughing up the surface before applying the fabric dye and that didn't seem to help. What worked in the end was rubbing in the first coat and sometimes subsequent coats in with my finger. I have no idea why but I'm not going to question it either. I think the problem may stem from to thick a coat of primer. The Kilz really comes out in quite a strong burst and you only want a light coat of primer on these buildings. My preferred priming technique (which I use for my miniatures as well) is to spray from right to left starting the spray of primer before I get to the building and not releasing until I have passed beyond the other edge of the building. This avoids a heavy coat of primer right at the leading and trailing edges.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the results. I'm going to go back in and fix the areas where I have the white splotch problem and darken up some areas that I feel came out to light. I haven't done much work on roofs at this point either. I love the wooden shingles from Builders in Scale but they are a bit expensive, so are the paper ones from Wild West Scale Model Builders. I downloaded some texture files from Clever Models that I can print out on my color printer and I would like to try those. In the long run I think printing my own will be cheaper, despite the cost of the ink! I purchased S Scale texture downloads for the roofs along with some other textures to be used on the inside, particularly for floors for the Knuckleduster and Gamecraft models. I probably won't work on these again, at least in any significant form, until after Genghis Con XXXIV which is coming up next week running from the 14th - 17th of February.
I took some pictures during the process over the weekend, but the light wasn't very good. I took some replacements the other day on my desk where the lighting is much, much better. At this point I can't get all the buildings lined up on the workbench, I'll have to find a place with better lighting and a table and try to lay out the town. I have been doing some sketching on what I want the boards to look like, but I haven't stumbled on anything that says "build me" yet.
On to the pictures!
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| Battle Flag - General Store and Gunsmith's Shop |
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| Battle Flag - Saloon and Sheriff's Office. The Saloon is definitely lighter than the Sheriff's office, I think I will go back and darken up the Saloon, Gunsmith and General store. |
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| Battle Flag - Photographer's Studio, Undertaker's Building |
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Gamecraft Miniatures Old West One Story Building - 28MWEST006 |
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Gamecraft Miniatures Old West One Story Building - 28MWEST006 |
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| Knuckleduster/Tri-City Laser Inc - Barbershop, General Store, Small Shop |
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| Sarissa Precision - Railroad Station, the white blotches are particularly evident on this building. I'll have to go back and fix that. |
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| Sarissa Precision - Railroad Station, more white blotches and the freight door is way to light and needs to be darkened. |
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| Sarissa Precision - Railroad Station - shot of the platform |
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| Sarissa Precision - Mix of Small Heroic and Medium Heroic buildings . From the right, Small Heroic Plus, Small Heroic Plus, Medium Heroic and Small Heroic. |
