Weathering with Watercolors

In this post I will discuss my most recent weathering experiment: Watercolors

I'm always looking for new and inexpensive ways to weather my armor models, and when I remembered that I had some cheap ($5) watercolors from Target lying around in a closet, I knew that I had to try them. I mostly used the black and brown colors, but I also used some red (more on this later). 

Above is a some accidental weathering on the weld lines of the hull of my work-in-progress, the 2s1 Gvozdika by Trumpeter. I started here with putting some water on a paintbrush and swilling the brush around in the brown color section. During this process I learned that to achieve nice clean lines that stayed close to the weld detail, only a little bit of paint is wanted on the very tip of the brush. The brown was used as a base color and painted over the weld lines and onto the surrounding area. This was followed by the black, which was used as more of a highlight, ideally being just on the weld lines, not the area around them. In some areas I finished with running a mechanical pencil, flat-side on, along the weld lines to create a bare-metal effect.

I also used some red watercolor as a highlight on the rust chipping I had done much earlier in the build process. The brown watercolor is very effective in creating a general griminess and dirty look, as well as suggesting rust. I used this especially around the turret-ring.

The black watercolor is very useful in creating soot. Here it was used around the exhaust pipe and the air-intakes, which created a nice effect, especially around the air intakes.

So far, the watercolors have been pleasant to use. They can have the consistency of a wash or even a thin acrylic. I have a feeling they will show up in my next builds. Thanks for reading!