Weathering a whopper

[Steveo535]

Hi All

Finishing off my current model and I am going to turn my attention to a task I've been putting off for a few years now.

The task is weathering my 1/35 Schnellboot I built a few years back, I've finally sourced some Oval Dinghys for it and am attempting to pluck the courage to weather it and just looking for any tips on weathering a metre long model.

Cheers Steven.

[Stokesy44]

Hey Steveo

Surprised you haven't had any replies yet. What a prospect, I love weathering on bigger models. I think a lot of the usual techniques still apply when working with bigger subjects. If its 1/35, think about what you would do with say a tank or an aircraft in a similar scale. Now before the accuracy police get on my case, I know that tanks and planes are weathered differently, but I would consider the following still applies.

First up - reference pics - look for instances of specific wear, on a kit this size you can be really specific for things like rust and oil stains.

Do a wash - use a bespoke product or do a pastel wash, doesn't matter, do it in stages, use different colours on different materials, wood, metal etc.

Use oils for streaking on the hull and any vertical superstructure surfaces and also for tonal variation.

Chipping - high tempo operations lead to serious wear and tear, chip where chips would be, many techniques to choose from. In 1/35 you can do individual chips using metal colours or dark shades then add rust as appropriate.

If you've got a bare (varnished) wooden deck, scratch it up, put in little dinks where movement of equipment and wear and tear could have gouged that pristine wood surface.

I would go in the following order

Oils for filters and streaks
Chipping and gouging
A wash to pick out all the panel lines and areas where dirt would collect
Maybe even finish off with pigments if you're feeling arty!

If it were me, I'd be properly excited about getting stuck into a kit this size - so go for it Sir.

Also - if any of the above falls in the 'teaching grandma to suck eggs' area, that was not the intention. Enjoy

[Steveo535]

Thanks for the reply Stokesy44 and the advice.

Don't worry about the sucking eggs thing the advice is very much appreciated as most of my tanks just get a wash made up of mig powders.

Just getting into the world of weathering with oils and and other mediums.

Once again thanks for the advice.