This section contains paint recipes that I have found useful. The "pipettes" referenced are those sold by Testors for handling small quantities of paint. When used for measuring I fill them to just the top of the vertical tube, not into the bulb itself.
Over time many people gather several recipes for various shades of paint. Shades can vary from brand to brand, and are perceived differently based upon lighting and individual eyesight differences. Because of this it is important to experiment with any recipes you use to see if they can be improved upon. They usually can. When I settle on a shade that I feel is appropriate I document the mixture on paper, then put a thick dab on a 2 x 2 piece of white cardboard. These are marked with a unique number for reference back to the recipe, and placed into a 35 millimeter slide sleeve. This makes it easy to choose the appropriate color for the task at hand.
Paint |
Thinner |
Thin Ratio |
Spray Pressure |
Solvent-based |
|||
| Accu-Paint | AP-100 (if needed) | Generally not necessary | 15 to 30 psi |
| Floquil | Floquil Airbrush Thinner | 75% color, 25% Thinner | 12 to 20 psi |
| Scalecoat | Scalecoat thinner | 50% color, 50% thinner | 10 to 20 psi |
| Scalecoat II | Scalecoat II thinner | 50% color, 50 % thinner | 15 to 20 psi |
Water-based |
|||
| Modelflex | distilled water (if needed, but not recommended)) | Generally not necessary | 18 to 22 psi |
| Pactra Acrylic Enamels | denatured alcohol | 50% color, 50% thinner | 25 to 30 psi |
| Polly S | Polly S Airbrush Thinner | 60 to 70% color, 30 to 40 % thinner | 25 psi |
| Polly Scale | Polly S Airbrush Thinner or distilled water | 80% color, 20 % thinner | 20 to 30 psi |
Fine point permanent marker pens make excellent "paintbrushes". They can lay down a very small line, don't smear once dried, and are available in a variety of colors. The ink is very thin, so you don't get the build-up that you would with thicker paints. This makes these markers much better for painting fine detail, perfect for items such as locomotive railings. The silver and rust colors come in handy for spot weathering.
I use the "Sharpie" brand pens, but there are many other brands available. They are carried in many hobby and office supply stores.
General Wash Recipe
This wash is great for weathering non-porous surfaces, such as plastic. I use various colors (mostly black, earth, dust, and rust) to weather rolling stock and buildings.
- 2 Testors pipettes (about 5 ml) of acrylic paint ( I use Polly S) per 1 oz container.
Black Wash
This is a general purpose wash that can be used on any porous surface. It is good to darken roads, rocks, ballast, etc. I use liquid detergent (dishwashing liquid) to allow the water to soak in. Alcohol also works well, but is sometimes hard to take when free air is not easily available.
- 1/2 teaspoon India ink
- couple drops of liquid detergent
- 1 quart water
The basic mix can be modified by using sepia colored ink to produce a rustier effect.
Brick
- 1 Container Polyscale Boxcar Red
- 6 pipettes roof brown
Rust
The best source of rust coloring is real rust itself. Rust is very common in the prototype world, and usually almost as common at home. One way to grow your own is to leave some metal items outside in the weather, then scrape off the rust when you need it. Railroad spikes work well for this, I have several muffler clamps I scarfed from a local muffler shop.
Another good way to grow fine rust dust is from steel wool. Take a steel wool pad and a glass jar, put some water in the jar along with a couple of steel wool pads, let sit for about a month or until the water is evaporated, and the steel wool is nice and brown and dry. Take a wood dowel rod and smash the steel wool into a powder.
Rusty Black
50% Engine Black
50% Rail or Roof Brown
Thin 50% for use as a wash. This works good for painting locomotives. The thinned version is very effective at weathering detailing (fans, grills, etc).
I have also heard that mixes of Engine Black / Earth and Engine Black / Mud are useful, but I have not tried them yet.
Steam Locomotives
John Allen's paint mix for steam locomotives
Warm Black
70% Black
25% White
5% Boxcar Red.Vary the ratio from engine to engine, so as to not have everything look the same.
From "Model Railroading with John Allen".
Staining Wood
A few drops of black shoe dye in 1/2 cup of alcohol makes a good stain. Immerse the wood in this mixture, or daub on if piece is too large. Various mixes of black and brown dye will work, depending on effect desired.
Weathered / Light Wood
This is good for representing lightly colored wood, such as often used for pallets. It can also be used to model wood that has spent a great deal of time exposed to wind and sun. I brush it very lightly onto the top of my track, it does an excellent job of bringing out the molded on wood grain.
Miscellaneous
1 oz Mixture table
This table is used when the result desired is exactly 1 oz. Recipes that call for an entire 1 oz of paint won’t fit back into a 1 oz bottle when diluted, so it is sometimes easier to do it this way. I used milliliters as the base unit of measurement as that seems to be about the right precision for the job. However 1 oz translates into 29.57 ml, nit the easiest increment to pour into a bottle. For this reason the numbers below are not extremely precise, but seem to be "close enough for government work", as the saying goes.
Dilute % Paint Thinner 9.4 % 27ml 3 ml 10 % 26.75 ml 3.25 ml 15 % 24 ml 5 ml 20% 23 6 40 % 17.5 ml 12 ml
Techniques
Reverse-Painting
This is a good method of painting detail parts, such as those that come with craftsman kits, as well as figures. It helps prevent hiding detail under a thick coat of paint, while producing a realistically grimy appearance. It is especially useful in the larger scales where fine detailing can be applied and appreciated most easily, but will work for all scales. In fact it is almost essential to bring out the details in smaller items, it's just that these details often go unappreciated if they are too small. I have used it on my N-Scale layout with good results.
Traditionally when painting objects one first applies the paint, then the weathering. This technique derives it's name from the suggestion that this process be reversed. The problem with painting finely detailed objects is that surface tension caused the paint to tend to ball up. the only way to counteract this is to use excess force in shoving it around with a brush. This causes the paint to cover over fine details, and to frequently overflow the area you wanted it to cover. To over come this problem use thin washes of paint that will easily follow the contours of the detail. The full procedure goes something like this:
- Spray paint the object with a thin coat of a grimy color. Make this coat as thin as possible, be be sure that it covers the item completely. Allow to dry thoroughly.
- Take a good quality brush with a fine point, and dip it into some thinner. Touch the tip of it into a jar of paint so that only the tip of the brush picks up color. Let the paint flow over the area to be covered. It will flow into the details, forming a nice thin coat. Allow each area to dry before painting an adjoining area.
- Repeat the above step for each color needed.
- When the primary coloring is complete Use a larger brush to cover the item with a light coat of a thinned black / grimy black wash.
The above procedure will produce an item with a realistically varying highlights and grimy areas.