How do I weather a model so it looks realistic?
Weathering that convinces follows the physics — gravity, wear where hands and feet go, dirt where dirt collects. The order of the techniques and the restraint that separates a used vehicle from a ruined model.
- Difficulty
- advanced
- Time
- 2 hr
- Read
- 5 min
- Safety
- caution
Short answer
Work from a gloss-coated painted model, apply effects in order from largest and most diffuse to smallest and sharpest, and follow what actually happens to the real thing: streaks run downwards, wear appears where people touch and stand, dirt collects in corners and along the lower surfaces. Stop earlier than you want to.
Do this first
The failure mode of weathering is not doing it badly, it is doing too much of it uniformly. Real vehicles and aircraft are dirty in specific places for specific reasons, and clean everywhere else. Looking at photographs of the actual subject for ten minutes does more for the result than any product.
Safety
What you'll need
- A finished, gloss-coated painted model
- Enamel or oil washes and thinner
- Weathering pigments or artist pastels ground to powder (optional)
- A sponge, cocktail sticks, and old worn brushes
- Matt clear coat to seal
Step by step
- Look at photographs of the real subject first.Where is the paint worn? Where does exhaust stain? What colour is the local mud? A vehicle in a wet European winter and one in a desert weather in completely different colours and patterns. This step is what makes weathering look researched rather than generic.
- Work in order from broad to fine.Filters and overall tonal variation first, then washes into recesses, then streaking, then chipping, then pigments and dust last. Each stage is sealed or allowed to cure before the next. Doing it out of order means later stages disturb earlier ones.
- Vary the base colour before anything else.A filter — a very dilute wash of a related colour over the whole model — or subtly different shades of the base colour on individual panels. Real paint fades unevenly, and a uniform factory colour is what makes an unweathered model look like plastic.
- Put the wash into the recesses.Panel lines, hatch surrounds, around bolts. This is the structural stage that makes the detail readable, and it is covered fully in its own guide.
- Streak downwards, always.Rain, fuel, oil and rust all run down. Apply a thin line of oil or enamel at the top of the run and drag it downwards with a clean damp brush until it fades out. Streaks that run sideways or upwards are the most common tell of a model weathered by feel.
- Chip where things are actually touched.Steps, handles, hatch edges, walkways, the leading edge of a wing root where crew climb. Use a torn piece of sponge dabbed on a palette until it is almost dry, then dabbed on the model. Chips scattered evenly over a surface nobody touches read as damage rather than wear.
- Add dust and mud from the ground upwards.Pigments applied heaviest at the lowest surfaces and fading upwards, because that is how it gets there. Fix them with pigment fixer or a very light spray, and accept that fixing darkens them, so apply more than you want and expect to lose some.
- Seal in stages, not just at the end.A light matt coat between stages protects what you have done and gives the next stage a fresh surface. It also means a stage that goes wrong can be wiped off without losing everything under it.
- Stop before you think you should.Weathering compounds. Every stage looks subtle on its own and the total is much stronger than the parts. The model that looks slightly under-weathered while you are working on it usually looks right on a shelf.
Tips
- Photograph the model as you go. A photograph flattens the effect and shows immediately when the weathering has become uniform, which is very hard to see with the model in your hand.
- Oil paints are the most forgiving weathering medium there is: they stay workable for hours, they blend into each other, and they wipe off completely with white spirit for a long time after application.
- Different areas of the same model should be at different intensities. Uniform weathering is the thing that reads as fake, more than any individual technique.
Common mistakes
- Weathering everything to the same degree — Real wear is concentrated. A model dirtied evenly all over reads as a model with a filter on it rather than an object that has been used, however good each individual technique was.
- Chipping with a fine brush — Hand-painted chips come out the same size, the same shape and evenly spaced, which nothing in nature does. A torn sponge gives irregular, varied edges in one dab.
- Weathering over a matt finish — Washes stain into matt paint and pigments grip it permanently, so nothing can be adjusted or removed. Gloss under the weathering is what gives you the ability to undo a stage.
If it doesn't work
The model looks uniformly dirty rather than used
Cause: The same technique applied at the same strength everywhere — Fix: Clean back the areas that would stay clean — upper surfaces, panels nobody touches — so the dirt is concentrated where it belongs.
Chips look painted on
Cause: Applied with a brush, all the same size — Fix: Remove and redo with a sponge. Vary the density and cluster them around handles, steps and edges.
Pigments disappeared when fixed
Cause: Fixer wets the powder and darkens and flattens it — Fix: Apply more pigment than the final effect needs, fix, then add a further light layer of dry pigment over the top and leave it unfixed in protected areas.
A streak went too far and cannot be blended
Cause: Oil or enamel dried before blending — Fix: White spirit on a clean brush re-wets oils for a long time after application. If it has fully cured, seal it and add a lighter tone over it rather than trying to remove it.
The weathering pulled the paint off
Cause: Base coat not cured, or no clear coat between — Fix: Cure fully and clear coat between stages. Chipping fluid and heavy solvent work will lift a fresh base coat.
Questions people ask
Should everything be weathered?
No. A model of a brand new aircraft on its delivery flight or a museum-condition vehicle is legitimately clean. Weathering is a claim about a moment in the subject's life, so decide which moment before you start.
What is a filter?
A very heavily thinned wash of a colour applied over the whole model to shift its overall tone slightly — warming it, cooling it, or fading it. It changes the base colour without obscuring it, and it is the least visible and most useful stage.
Do I need expensive weathering products?
No. Artist oils, ground pastel chalk, white spirit and a torn sponge cover most of it for very little. The commercial ranges are convenient and consistent, not magic.