Stalingrad Project: Playing with Pigments

 

The final step in scenicing the Stalingrad table is weathering the buildings.  My normal goto method is somewhat crude - washing with a black/brown wash and then some quick dry brushing.  That usually works "OK" but may be problematic for this project as the vast majority of the buildings are made of MDF, chip board or mat board.  All 3 of those materials don't react well to water and I was worried I'd end up with warped or fraying buildings if that tried and true method was use.  So it's time to try something new (for me) - Pigment Powders.

I've used pigments from my days as a model railroader and had some black, orange and red/brown on hand.  I also went on Amazon and picked up 4 vallejo pigments (Light Slate Grey, Desert Dust, Dark Slate Grey and Natural Siena).  I'm using air-brush thinner as a fixative.

Lets look at some before and after pictures of the test subject - a one hex MDF building.  The building is from a polish company Terrains4Games and I am really impressed with their products.  I'll do a post about them later on but they make really great stuff.

Here are the before pictures:

I added a styrene angle piece along the corner to cover up the seam.  I should go back and mask the floor tab slots with wood filler....

It's a nice little building with a hint of rubble

Now lets look at the same building after my first attempt at using pigments for scenery.  

I ended up using mostly black (for soot) and the light slate grey (concrete dust)

The pigments were applied in two ways - for horizontal surfaces (ground, rubble piles) a old worn brush was used to apply the pigment directly and then it was fixed in place bu dropping a little air brush thinner using capillary action.  Because everything names a name, this method has been dubbed by me the "Direct Method".

The method used for vertical surfaces was very similar to a wash - I mixed some pigment with the air brush thinner and then painted it on trying to simulate streaks.  Lets call this one the "Slurry Method"

The "Direct Method" seems to work really well and is fairly easy to apply (remember there are a lot of building and rubble hexes to weather).

I'm not the happy with the "Slurry Method" as it looks streaky.  A replacement for that method could be applying the pigments directly and then fixing then with a short spray of dull coat.  I've got plenty of buildings to experiment on 

For me the key to weathering is to put just enough on to suggest dirt and grime without going overboard and hiding the model details.  It's something that I'll likely never perfect but just get closer and closer each time I try.

Let me know what you think