Some weathering experiments

[Santa Fe Sammy]

I tried some different freight car weathering techniques over the past Thanksgiving holiday.
I used washes of acrylic paints to fade the factory paint before going back and adding rust streaks and etc.

A simple fade on a newer (at the time I model) car:


A fade with a little rust:


A few with heavy fade and a lot of rust to represent older cars:




I’m pretty happy with the overall results but I am open to constructive criticisms to help me improve. I do plan to go back and add some additional weathering to some of the cars.
The silver sharpie I used to give the wheel rims a polished look was more of a white color so I plan to go back and add some color over that to get rid of that effect.

More pics can be found here:
www.pbase.com/sammy1974/rolling_stock

Thanks for looking!

[Rudy Garbely]

Looks good to me! What did you use to make the rust streaks?

[mrlfan]

Well you asked for comments so here I go. The Santa Fe car is nice but I would have had to do a complete weather job on it,like paint it MRL blue or Cascade green just to make it classier and just plain look better. The BN car is just perfect looking and the weathering you did on it made it look even better. ;D The GT car really looks good to me. The streaks are awesome. Good job man. Now get to repainting the Santa Fe car.
Your buddy Hoover

[mountaingoatgreg]

Glenn

WEATHER YOUR LOCOMOTIVES...THIS CENTURY!!!!

Sammy

These look pretty good I think youare on the right track with your techniques. Maybe adding some dark colors to some of your rust spots will make them pop a little more. The BN car has to large rust spots that could have some more depth added. Keep up the good work!

[DRGW 5398]

Well Sammy, I think they look really good, what I like to see is varied weathering like that, helps the overall appearence.

LOVE the BN and GTW car, great work. More photos please!

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Thanks a bunch guys for the pointers! I do plan to go back on some of the cars to add some more layers so we'll see how that goes. Doing this in stages by building up the layers seems to be the way to go.

Greg,
I saw Hoover at the OKC show today - he had a whole box of Testors gloss coat under one arm and a box of NuFinish polish under the other arm. I asked him what the deal was and he said he was going to go home and weather his MRL fleet with those materials. I told him "good luck" and he went on his way.......

[mrlfan]

Sammy, now that was some funny stuff. I am glad I wasn't drinking any Pepsi when I read this. ;D Greg hiw many times do I have to tell you. The MRL is a clean, and classy railroad. We take pride in our appearance. All in due time, I have to build and paint 21 more Kato Sd40's and 19 GP-9's. Time to stock up on more MRL blue paint.
Hoover