Baby food and weathering

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

All,

I’ve been modeling since I was about 7 - which translates to about 41 years. Aside from the fact I am now one survey check dot away from the “55 and over” crowd, there’s one thing I’ve never seen mentioned by anyone concerning weathering. It’s possible I’ve missed it. It’s also possible I’ve forgotten I’ve seen it somewhere as Senior Moments are rather common these days. It may also because everyone uses airbrushes for so much these days, too…who knows? But…

I have always done a portion of my models with brush painting. I have a couple baby food jars sitting around that I keep full of paint thinner (as I prefer oil-based paints over acrylics) and use the thinner repeatedly during the process of building any given model. In the end, I have a mix of dirty thinner. It’s a great weathering product. It’s already thinned. Stir it up and it’s a nice general purpose dark grayish wash. Let it sit and use some of the sludge at the bottom of the jar and it can go on thick.

Just thought I’d mention it. And, no, I don’t have any kids - but baby food jars are the perfect size for workbench liquids like this :slight_smile:

-Ro

2

Good idea especially if you tend to paint the base colors in acrylic. As I tend to use enamel for the base colors I’d be concerned that the thinner would mess with the underlying finish. I’ll give it a try but I suspect I’ll be sticking with acrylic washes over my enamel finishes.

3

I used to do this to, I found that the older and more cured the paint was the less it would be affected. I’ve found acrylic poster paints to work better over time, even simple water colors.

I’ve used baby food jars for thinner as well, they do work well. But I have found jars for for green olives or cherries to work better because they’re taller and are tapered toward the top, so less splashing out of the jar. I’m only 30 and am still resistant to getting an airbrush, I still paint with brushes, which really sucks sometimes but rattle cans help too.

4

Good advice. Ive tried it in the past with varying results. As for jars to hand, ive just started a diet recently that involes loads of shakes. The upside is i have Shake tins coming out of my ears and theyre a great size.

…Guy