Weathering: Pigments vs Acrylics vs Oils

[Bung]

 

What do you use the starship filth for?

 

As the name suggests its great for Sci Fi  models. Its a realy dark green / brown / grey mix. 

I prefer it as dirt for light grey and white stuff. I wouldnt use it by something dominated with metal colors but Tau in white armor or White Scars or something like would be a natural target.

 

For yelloe i would use some magenta in the shadows. You can realy go nuts if you have some understanding in light and color theory.

[Marshal Vespasian]

Thank you for the Tips!

 

Especially a good way to shade yellow would be very welcome to me as I do my guncasings in yellow.

 

I am excited to take this dive to be honest.

The Abteilung 502 book I have seen around, I'm thinking of buying it, I guess it would be really helpful. I hear very good things about doing skin with oil washes.

[Marshal Vespasian]

Real life has been crazy, but I had some time today and I went an done did it:

 

I just did oil washes on all the metallics of my contemptor and I will leave them till tomorrow morning to dry and propably varnish at some point in the afternoon and here I come another bunch of questions:

 

I varnished the metal bits with vallejo metal varnish, which was really really glossy, borderline to glossy, it looked unnatural. I really love how the metal looks now, after the wash.

Do I need to varnish it again after washing it? Also: Can/should I do some extreme highlights again? I feel like that could make the metals pop really strongly.

 

When I matte varnish the rest of the bot, which will be one of my next steps, I think I will just cover the metal bits either in masking Tape or in sillyputty and just matte varnish, then remove the masking and I should be fine. Do you think recon that would work/is a good idea?

 

I went ahead and added the starship filth to an order I had placed anyways and just got it the other day. Since I don't have the stencil I need yet, I can't do the white part yet. But: would you just wash all of the white area all over with it? Or just select parts? My plan is to do the white, weather it, gloss varnish it, wash it with blue acrylic wash for some shadow, do the starship filth.

 

Thanks a ton already, guys. I'll try to put up some pictures of the bot in my WIP thread tomorrow when I find the time and they don't reek of thinner anymore and have a look where to go from there.

[Arkhanist]

Real life has been crazy, but I had some time today and I went an done did it:

 

I just did oil washes on all the metallics of my contemptor and I will leave them till tomorrow morning to dry and propably varnish at some point in the afternoon and here I come another bunch of questions:

 

I varnished the metal bits with vallejo metal varnish, which was really really glossy, borderline to glossy, it looked unnatural. I really love how the metal looks now, after the wash.

Do I need to varnish it again after washing it? Also: Can/should I do some extreme highlights again? I feel like that could make the metals pop really strongly.

Because of the effects of matte (and gloss) varnish on metals, I usually do the final effects on them after the general varnish layer for the main colours, to bring them back to normal.

Not had any problems with chipping causing any noticeable effects on them; even if they did wear, it's still metallic underneath the varnish.

I do usually do an edge highlight to get that nice 'worn-to-fresh-metal' look on areas of high wear, maybe some scratches to taste. If you do want to a do a final varnish on the metallics, a little satin on the areas most vulnerable to damage is more natural looking than gloss (and gloss in the crevices just looks wrong), but I usually don't bother.

 

The vallejo metal varnish is intended for full bare-metal models, like aluminium planes etc, then weathering applied over the top to dull it down, which is effectively what you've done!

 

When I matte varnish the rest of the bot, which will be one of my next steps, I think I will just cover the metal bits either in masking Tape or in sillyputty and just matte varnish, then remove the masking and I should be fine. Do you think recon that would work/is a good idea?

Yeah, that'll work fine, I use tamiya masking tape (which is low-tack) for that sort of thing when airbrushing all the time - just make sure the paint you're protecting is properly dry first (enamels can take up to 24 hours, but if it feels dry, it is). To make sure you don't pull up any unprotected paint and/or if you have a stickier masking tape just stick the tape on and off non-hairy skin a few times to make it less sticky!

 

I went ahead and added the starship filth to an order I had placed anyways and just got it the other day. Since I don't have the stencil I need yet, I can't do the white part yet. But: would you just wash all of the white area all over with it? Or just select parts? My plan is to do the white, weather it, gloss varnish it, wash it with blue acrylic wash for some shadow, do the starship filth.

 

Thanks a ton already, guys. I'll try to put up some pictures of the bot in my WIP thread tomorrow when I find the time and they don't reek of thinner anymore and have a look where to go from there.

Haven't used starship filth specifically, but I think you'll be able to skip the blue wash step and just use the filth for a pin-wash effect which seems to be its normal use.

[Marshal Vespasian]

Thanks that is really helpful.

 

I just removed some grimy bits from parts where I feel they didn't really belong and will leave it to dry some more.

Even after 12 hours it still stinks. I will have to get odourless thinner for sure. I think this evening I will do some edge highlights with metal colour in parts that I want to really pop and I can paint the lenses and hazard stripes on the guns, finishing them up already. Maybe I will also glue the body together.

 

In the future I think I might experiment with blues and purples in the wash to colour the metal parts a bit more and increase contrast. But it does look really great already.

 

Now I am thinking about oil washes for faces and maybe mixing a bit of burnt sienna or a sepia paint with violet for the gold bits.