how to simulate faded paint

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Techniques
1

Hey All,

I am working on my first car, a Revell '32 Ford. What I would like to do is make it resemble an old-school rod, something a young guy would have had in the 50’s, when cars and money were scarce. I want to start with black, and then fade it out and ad just a small amount of rust, mainly in the wheel wells.

I mixed a base-coat of rust red, that did not turn out to be the best mix, then put a coat of Future on it, and topped it off with my black. I took a fine sanding stick to it to take the black off. It looks kind of, meh.

So I guess what I was thinking was the paint getting baked off until the top began to rust up a bit, but it doesn’t look right to me. Maybe I would be better off rubbing some light colored pigments into it to lighten it up? Not sure what I should do, or how far I should go. I want it to look like a well used old car, but not a wreck that has been sitting out in the yard for years.

Any suggestions or comments are welcome, and I don’t mind stripping it down and starting over if that is what it takes.

Thanks

2

I don’t do cars, but I think this technique will work on anything.

Paint your base color. In this case gunship grey.

Next you want to lighten your base color, or use a lighter shade of the same color, With black you’d use a light grey or lighten it with about 50% white. Thin it really good…about 70-80% thinner and crank down the airbrush pressure. Start in the center of panels and build up color.

Now go back to your original color and thin the bazoongas out of it. Again, 80% or so. Lightly layer your highly thinned base color over the model to blend. Remember that a coat of future or other topcoat is going to help subdue the effect so you want to try and not go too far with it.

For what its worth I like the look you have so far, but if your looking for more you can try this.

3

I also fade paint by mixing in either some white or a lighter shade of the base color. Then I set airbrush to very low rate of application and apply heaviest to top, shading off to sides.

4

Pigments could work,You can also fade by using the oil dot method.

dots of different color oil paints mixed together on the model with a brush dampened with turpenoid

that briefly describes it,there are some extensive instructions avaible in the search forums also under “oil dot method”

5

I have tried some dot-filtering on armor with varied success, mostly to try and get a little streaking though.

I have not tried shading in with a lighter coat of the base coat. That sounds like it could be a fun technique to try. Now if I can keep myself from going too far with it[:P]

Thanks for the suggestions.

6

Lightening the base cost is a great way. You dont have to go extremely light like I did above. You can be subtle about it. The most important thing is using thin paint and building it up. If you do go too far you can tone it down with a super thin mist of the original color.

7

I had some success applying a lightened base coat. I need to work on modulating the shades, as it is too uniform, but it definitely will work out.

Thanks for the responses.

If I can get some pictures to come out I will post them next week with my results.

8

I find in observing vehicles with sun-faded pain that the fading is fairly uniform, not real blotchy. There may be other things that fade paint, but the lightened paint on top trick does a good job of representing sun-fading from the UV.