What's in here?

IRON FRONT BUILDINGS

BRICKS

DRY BRUSHING

WINDOWS

IRON FRONT BUILDINGS

When I paint Iron Front buildings, I have used mostly darker colors. Tuscan, Boxcar Red, Pullman Green, Iron Oxide, and the darker shades of Gray all look good. After painting the "base" color, you can use the India Ink and Alcohol wash that George Sellios described in his Franklin & South Manchester book to fill in the low spots after you get your main color on and dried. Starting with 1 pint alcohol and 1 tablespoon India ink is what he suggested. You can vary the amount of India Ink for darker and lighter "looks"...just apply it liberally as a wash. This is one of those areas that is purely what looks and feels right to you...normally a lighter coating of this is adequate BUT this is one of those areas that you use what "feels" and looks right to YOU. For highlighting I usually let the "wash" on colors sit for a few days to dry thoroughly, and then dry brush a medium to light shade of either gray or take my original color and mix in some light gray to use as a drybrushing color to make the other details show up......afterall that excellent mold work shouldn't be hidden. The first floor doorways and window I usually painted a light color (White, Antique White, Light Gray) but occasionally a black looks good too. The doors themselves often are done in the shade used as the drybrushing color (if it was a shade of the main color) or a medium to dark brown to represent varnished wood.

BRICKS

The best way I have found to represent the variations in color of bricks is to pick 4-8 colors of brick...I pick one as the basic brick color and paint the entire wall in it. Then with a TINY brush (pick one that is not much smaller than the bricks are in the scale you model in) dab on each of the other colors to "pick out" bricks in a random pattern...I find it easiest to spread this over a couple of nights so I don't get bored or burned out on it too quickly and try to do 1-3 colors a night. After they have all dried I use the India ink wash. This makes the colors fade somewhat while still having a normal variation. I let it dry overnight and then give the sides a light coat of Testors Dullcote as a sealer. Next comes a wash of Polly S light to medium gray color that has been mixed with alcohol to thin it out to a wash...I paint it on liberally...with a number of paper towels handy.....after it has set for a few minutes I use the paper towels to "wipe" downward across the bricks..this leaves a nice appearance of mortar between the bricks. Paint the doors and remaining windows what color suits you, then it is ready for some nice signs on the sides....either dry transfers or decals or paint it on are nice and no sense wasting all that "empty" free advertising space.

The brick colors I normally use are the dark reddish browns, brownish reds, rust (I mix it with dark gray so it isn't as obvious)....SP freight car brown, tuscan, boxcar red, iron oxide, ATSF mineral brown, Southern freight car brown, oxide red, AND combinations of these mixed with lighter and darker shades of gray for a variation....look past the "labels on the bottles to the actual color inside it and see if it "feels" right for the "look" you want to represent. Also beware of getting into the habit of using the SAME color as your main brick color on every building unless you want them to look like they were all built at the same time by the same builder...a GREAT example of a place you WANT to use the same colors is in a factory or industrial complex to show continuity and a relationship between them all.

Dry Brushing

The purpose of dry brushing is to make small details, that would otherwise be lost, jump out at the viewer. Examples of where this would be used are anywhere that the seams or joints in a structure or piece of rolling stock would cause moisture to stand OR places that have a tendency for the finish to wear off quicker like rivets and bolt heads. Dry brushing is much more controlled way of applying paints.

Here are the steps in dry brushing an item

1. Choose a color the will contrast somewhat with the base color but not too garishly (white, light grays and the color of the item you are painting that has been lightened by adding white or gray to it)
2. Dip your brush into the paint and get moist
3. Wipe MOST of the paint off on the jar edge
4. Take your moist brush that does NOT have a lot of paint on it now to a surface that you can paint on...many use a piece of paper BUT I prefer a small mirror or a piece of glass. Glass and mirrors are easier to clean and you don't end up with a lot of scrap paper covered in wet paint cluttering up your work area for you to set your arm in.
5. When there is almost no paint coming off onto your surface you are READY to dry brush.
6. brush across the detail that you want to highlight very LIGHTLY..the idea here is to deposit a VERY tiny amount of paint on a smaller area than you would normally expect to.
7. Repeat these steps until you get the look you want
8. After you get used to dry brushing, try varying your brush motions. A short bristled brush moved in a swirling circular motion gives a fair impression of soot and smoke when used with a dark gray or a grimy black.
9. Finally less is ALMOST always BETTER.

For the windows

Clover House has microscope coverslides (real glass) that make EXCELLENT windows and they look just like glass since they ARE glass. IF you get their glass, make sure to get a glass cutter/scriber from them as well!