Brawa Tnomehs 30 bananen

Sometimes I got the question asked do you work on commission after they see my work at shows. Well shure I do ! This time someone came to me at the expo at Leuven Belgium with a bright yellow boxcar for bananas. Sometimes I wonder if the manufacturers of rolling stock know anything about scale and color. Boy this car was bright, so bright yellow it almost hurt the eye. This made it a real challenge for me, tone it down a little with a couple of fades using the Ammo transparator medium for the first time. Couple of drops of white, bit yellow and a lot of transparator and thinner shaked well in a dropper bottle before spraying it on the car. After letting it dry for a day and a next coat with a satin varnish I put it away for a week to determine wat I would use on this car. Well decided to go with a wash for DAK, a bit brownish color for the pinwashes, wich let pop out the detail nicely. After that some streaking grime and a light spray of tracks primer on the undercarriage before I hit it with several pigments. Couple of rust tones to the springs and wheels set with streaking rust softened with odourless thinner, metal pigment on the buffers. Grease added to the bearing pods and puffers. Black and metal pigment combined with grease gives a nice result for the thick grease on the puffers in the real world. Pigments for dust on the undercarriage set with odourless thinner with the airbrush, manipulated with a brush and finally set with pigment fixer..

German Gmhs 53 Boxcar part 4

It has been a while since I posted something about progress on the Gmhs 53 boxcar. Well it’s almost finished now after a lot of filters, oil shading , grime, streaks and dust.Still need some grease on the axle bearing pods and a bit of rust on the suspension but for the rest I’m pretty satisfied with the result, dirty and dusty but not rotten.

A Lenz kesselwagen.

Traveled to a show in Hochdorf Switserland this weekend for some demonstrations of weathering techniques. As always I did have the problem what to bring and what to show so I ended up with 4 crates of material and 2 crates of rolling stock. My friend and Team Mitropa mate Erik Wieringa arrived after a 1,5 hour drive at my place where we enjoyed a coffee, packed the car and left at 8.30 AM. After a long drive we arrived at Hochdorf  at 6.30 PM where we set up our gear for a 2 day show. The first day I did some fading on boxcars, added some oil paints on the German Gmhs 53 and started on the tank of the Lenz kesselwagen. Gave it a light fade with a light grey wash and some dark faded rust on the top with Ammo tracksprimer so I could get started on chipping the next day. With a lot of questions of the audience you never get as much work done as you wish, but hey that´s what you´re there for. Think I got the chipping done at the end of the day, started with a light grey color and finished over that with a Ammo chipping rust color. With the show closing at 4 PM and packed at 6.30 PM we decided to drive home. Leaving at 6 PM we finally arrived at my place ar 2.15 AM where we unpacked my stuff and Erik went home for another 1.5 hours. Respect mate !

A German Gmhs 53 Boxcar part 3

Again a bit of work done on the German boxcar in scale 1, drying times are a modelers worse enemy !! Added two filters to tone down and blend the colors a bit, the harsh contrast is still a bit annoyance to me. Used a filter from AK for wood, wich has a brownish orange tone and afterwards I went over with a heavily thinned brown wash from the MIG productions line. Always easy to have a lotta stuff on hand. Let it dry for a day or so I went on and started on the doors with artist oil paints. Winsor and Newton oils blended with Ammo odourless thinner. Used a burned umber to try to get the brownish tone back this cars original have, with a bit of fade that is.

A German Gmhs 53 Boxcar part 2

It’s always a bit of a struggle weathering cars. The hardest part is where to stop. In this case I wonder if I didn’t go to dark on steel beams on this car. After fading with a mixture of clear matte varnish, airbrush thinner, white and rust wash I made the decision to darken all the beams and other lines on the car with a dark grey wash. Maybe I should have used a lighter tone, maybe not. Maybe I can enlighten the overall appearance with some filters or try it with some oil paints. Well I finished these base layers with an overall spray of varnish and it’s ready for the accents, streaks and other funny things that appears on boxcars used for quit some time. We see how it works out.

A German Gmhs 53 Boxcar in scale 1

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Already weathered a couple of German boxcars in 1:32. Untill now all of these had a different year of build, slightly different design but do look almost the same. Plywood walls, aluminium or PVC roofing. Now on the bench a type Gmhs 53, what else, first year they build and delivered them hmmmmmmm let’s say .’53 ? And with the Europ codes on the side it’s not that old. Changed it in ’61 to RIV codes I believe, correct me when I’m wrong. So let’s say this one slipped through and didn’t get the new codes. Customer rides between ’55 and ’70. Faded yeah , red-brown paint fades in 11 years time. Heavily rusted , guess no. Well maintained but never been painted again..maybe a small touch here and there but we’ll see how that turns out. For now I painted the frame with 2 primers, AMMO trackrust and rust, nice dark brown, brownish colors like all the soot and dirt that goes on a boxcar frame. Added a couple of acrylic washes with a mixture of dark grey and rust thinned 50% with acrylic thinner just to darken it and enhance the details. Gave the springs a light rust wash, can’t remember but I think around 5 layers. Remounted the upper body and started fading it, mixture of mat varnish, white and rust wash thinned  50% and spray painted layer over layer in random patterns. For todays last treatment I started with a grey acrylic wash and added some shadows and darkened the seams and the roof a bit. I’m a lucky guy for this one, can go as far as I want the customer says..

Painting time again

Well guess I figured out the white balance thingies. Use an Expodisc 2.0 and must say not cheap but a great tool, and some white, grey and black cards. Did run these pictures through Lightroom and most of the time the white balance is pretty good but I just had to increase the exposure.With that set it’s time to concentrate on the models again. Added some streaking grimes to the roof and a couple of pinwashes to enhance the details, bit of wheel splatter too..let the fun begin.

Thoughts

Well this white balance issue still bothered me so I decided to download the trail version of Lightroom CC and I must say I really like it. Still had an ongoing O scale project and I decided to work a bit on it and take some pictures afterwards.Can’t tell too much about all the steps I took because of my publisher but I can show a couple of pictures taken in RAW and edited with Lightroom CC. Added the yellow boxcar as some kinda bonus with one of the featured settings used. Think I can make the copyrights a bit smaller..

A white balance struggle

For a couple of days now I have this struggle with setting the white balance good for the new Nikon D5300. For years I do use the pre setting on my D60 and never had trouble like this or at least I can’t remember that. So uesed to the camera that I layed down the grey cart, pointed shot and measured the white balance for decent pictures. Now with the upgrade in hands I can’t find the right settings or not used to the camera I oversee something in the menu or the settings. Well for now I found a setting with 2 stops overexposed when shooting farder away. But see for yourself and make a comment how I can improve..I added 3 pictures one with the white balance setting and the exposure the meters in the camera says, and 2 with one stop overexposure each.

And to stay into the weathering stuff, these are shots of a new project on the bench. Scale 1 , or 1:32. Started to unscrew the undercarriage from the box and removed the wheels. The frame already has its first coat wich is a mixture of 2 brands primer, both Ammo by Mig and AK interactive make a good darker brown color primer wich I prefer to start with. Oh yeah, they are both named tracks primer..

Test and try a bit

Well lets test and try a bit, about pictures and so on. Will Flickr work on these pages ? Lately there are a couple of new things that arrived at my home. Combined a couple of things and gonna work on a new small layout for shows in wich I will show my weathering. Already started on some cars in 1:45 but this week a small Ger man Köf II arrived. Made by Lenz from a starter kit but hey it’s a great model. In between there’s still the G30 from Brawa …had some fun with powders and Ammo washes..