My normal method for colouring brickwork involves mortar colour paint and a selection of brown colour pencil crayons. Sadly, for some surfaces, this doesn't work as the brick mouldings are too sharp and mortar lines too thin. This is a common problem with laser-cut walls for a start.
Needing to paint a building made this way, I've had to experiment with motar colouring.
A - Bricks painted and cream colour acrylic paint washed over the surface. In theory it will sit in the mortar lines. Not for me it won't. Wiping the surface doesn't help, not does abrasion with very fine emery.
B - Moratr lines filled with Deluxe Materials Perfect Plastic Putty filler. This works very well but on plasticard, it fills part way up the rounded (caused by the embossing process) brick faces and the lines are too thick.
C - Ready mix DIY store all filler wiped over the surface first by finger and then by high-density foam to clean the faces. By far the best although it needs practise and doesn't work so well on less pronounced brick faces.
Interesting experiments. Before anyone suggests adding mortar colour paint into the courses where capillary action will pull it along the lines - not for me it won't. I wish life was simple!
It would be interesting to repeat with laser cut brickwork. I've struggled to get consistent effects on it.
ReplyDeleteLaser cut brickwork is a particular problem as the cuts are so square. The filler/mortar technique should work on it well. It certainly does on the injection moulded version which I suspect was mastered with a laser.
ReplyDeleteI've tried the whitewash technique on a laser cut kit I bought at the Bristol Show, didn't work for me. Works fine on plastic kits even that station they gave away with that model railway part work. All I got was variegated bricks so at least all is not lost. On t
ReplyDeleteHe other hand washes worked very well on my Skytrex mouldings to add definition to stonework. If you haven't tried Tamiya weathering master solid pastels(like mascara for models) they work well to add variation to stonework or flagstones. The sand and mud pack, I got mine when shopping in hobbycraft with my wife.
I have to say that i have not attempted a laser cut kit yet But on wills or South eastern finecast brickwork i start out with mortar first with Revell Matt no 16 all over wipe off some of the excess, leave to dry overnight and then dry brush Humbrol 100, Humbrol 113 and a small amount of Humbrol 33 sometimes even adding a touch of Humbrol 25 whitch is blue but the effect seems pretty good just wondering if this would work on Laser cut brickwork.
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