Where would you like to go today?

Wagon painting guide

photo by Steve Bennett

by Steve Bennett of Sidelines

With any paint job you need to start with a good clean surface and try to handle the object as little as possible to avoid getting grease from your hands on the model, if you can rig up some sort of handle to hold it with, this will be a benefit. Almost always I start with an acrylic primer as sold in aerosols at car accessory stores. This only takes minutes to dry and then you can get on with the painting proper. For the wood effect as shown in the photo, I paint the entire model with a matt light earthy colour, in this case I used a cheap acrylic from a hardware store, applied with an airbrush, but brush painting works fine. If I remember correctly the colour was Peach. Other colours like sand, tan, cream or flesh give similar but slightly different effects. It is better to start with a colour lighter than you want the final finish as the next stage will make it darker.

The next stage is one I'm sure most will be familiar with and that is to give a wash of dark colour over the light coloured base. I do differ from what most people use here, as instead of diluted acrylic or water colour, I use childrens poster paint. The beauty of using this is that if you get it wrong, you can wash it off and try again. I use straight black and a mix of approx 1 part paint to 10 parts water. The technique works best if you apply it to a flat surface, lay the wagon on one side and apply a wash of the diluted mix to the entire side. You should find that the the paint will gather around any raised detail and collect in any low lying areas. If there is too much surface tension in the mix and the paint just gathers in little pools, a great way to break this down is to use a touch of Windscreen washer fluid, yes the blue stuff you put in the car (works great in white glue for ballasting too). Let this dry, and then go onto the next surface, repeating on the other sides until you cover the whole wagon. You should now have a wagon with dark areas around the raised details such as rivets and strapping. If you look closely at the photo you will see the dark areas quite clearly alongside the vertical strapping on the sides.

All that really remains now is to pick out the strapping, couplings and rivets. Instead of straight black, I add a little white or cream to the black to give a more faded look. My preference is either Tamiya or Humbrol acrylics, but enamels should work fine too. Finally when happy with the look, a coat of matt varnish to protect everything. A sprayed on varnish is best, either from an aerosol or if you have an airbrush a final tip, add just a touch of a light earthy colour to the varnish to give a nice dusty effect.

Well I hope that makes sense, it sure is more difficult to describe than to do, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Steve

Narrow-minded
and proud of it!