So putting aside the painting of abutments for now, I'm moving on to the next bridge on my track. Basically, I'm trying to finish the main loop of track so that I can finally run trains, but I can't finish the mainline until all the bridges are in place. Plus, I ordered a bunch of PanPastels and won't be receiving them for a while - so holding off on the painting. So, first, more corking fun and the planning stages of a new bridge... Lots going on in the above picture. First, I installed the cork under the area for the mine. Nothing special to see here about that cork. That's the last of my sheet cork too, but I don't think I'll need anymore. More interesting is the tracing paper in the bottom left corner of the photo. This will be a plate girder bridge on a curve. I started first with some cardstock, and just printed lines showing the rough area and angle of the abutment faces. It's only after that I figured to put in tracing paper to show the cork layout for the radius. To that, I pinned a fresh piece of flex track for testing.... So with the help of daughter, we constructed some temporary bridge walls and tested my longest cars through the curve, to see how to best organize the bridge. The boat absolutely proves beyond a doubt that this will be a river Honestly the Legos helped a lot in terms of figuring out the geometry! I bought this Kato passenger car set over a year ago, used. Only afterwards did I realize how completely out of place they would be a modern layout. They are also an add-on set! So I figured that my passenger station would be a museum that runs a short passenger train for short tours - one coach, a dome car and a sleeper. I still don't have a locomotive for this set. Really, this museum idea is inspired from a trip to a local rail museum from last year - they had one coach attached to a green CN locomotive. It went from the museum to a small passenger station, and back.
Short update today, I'm still working on designing the new bridge. The deck is finished, now on the the abutments! This bridge will be covered in ballast since the track will be curved, I figure that's the easiest thing to do. Now the Atlas plate girder bridge I used for the previous bridge has a smooth underside which isn't a problem where it will be installed - no one will ever see it. This bridge is a little different, and someone could see the bottom if they really wanted. So I tried to make it pretty
Look what came out of the Photon this morning! Busy photo there, might be difficult to make out, but that there is a brand new resin-dripping plate girder bridge! It was somewhat longer than the build area of the Photon allowed, so I cut the deck in two, and the side walls were printed standing up. Nearly 13 hour build due to the height. So this is what my brand new bridge looks like assembled and glued together, also on new abutments (printed today, less than 3 hour print)! This is a skewed bridge, with a different design of abutment than I've done previously. Different texture applied for the brickwork as well. A lower angle, and a good view of how I hollow the abutment - I leave just enough "edge" around the hollow parts so that it can poke out of the ground. This is where this bridge goes, obviously without the abutments in place, but it gives an idea of how it will look. Here I was testing to see if the clearances for the longer passenger cars are good. This is also where I realized that I could have made the bridge narrower! About 2.5mm from each side (errhmn, 0.098"). It's already a bit wide because of the relatively tight curve (between 12-13" radius, probably closer to 13"). I'm debating whether to correct the files and reprint, but I think I'll leave it alone. And finally, this last picture without the passenger cars in the way. I still haven't quite decided on replacing the Kato truss bridge's abutments, but I can delay that decision 'till later. For now, I think my next step is to paint all these new abutments before installing them. Painting will give me a break from all the 3D work. It's nice to be able to switch gears and work on a completely different aspect of the hobby Enjoy!
Thank you Bremner! Honestly though, this is modeling on easy mode, the 3D printer is doing all the work. The true scratch builders making stuff out of styrene and plaster and actually carving the stuff are the true artists! Okay, so I've been putting this off for some time, but I finally bit the bullet and started painting. Or well, starting getting ready for painting. First, here are the four bridges I'm going to start with. First things first, I cleaned up the models a bit with a file (the Atlas bridge had a nasty nick) and removed the tracks. The Kato rails aren't really designed to be removed, the rails are "stamped" into the plastic in a few locations. But with some brute force they can be slid out of the track and ties removed. Now, don't let that nice case of Vallejo paints fool you... I've done very little painting of models in the past years. I just happened to buy several sets of paints and experimented with them in the airbrush. I don't even have much experience with an airbrush - I've only ever used it for painting large surfaces a single colour! In fact, I think the majority of the paints in that box have only been used to make a reference dot of paint on that white cardstock Oh, and I did also stick a thin 0.5mm piece of plastic to the bottom of the atlas deck. There are unsightly holes on the bottom and I want to put some ballast in the middle of this deck. Plus, I noticed that the three holes on each end was making a shadow on the "riverbed" below it. The bottom of the bridge will not be visible from any angle in any case. See, this is what my experience is at... I mixed some black and rust coloured paint, and just sprayed all the bridges a uniform base colour. I also happened to spray on a matte varnish. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this. I've seen a dozen different weathering videos on youtube, and well, I'm just winging it. I've been procrastinating enough, and if I screw it up badly, I'll just start over. I want to use panpastels (I just received an order of these) and I figure this would be a nice base coat to start experimenting. I also painted the track! I've been debating for a long time whether I would weather my track on the layout. The staging area is ballasted, but I left the track shiny black. But for the other areas of the layout? Hmmm, well, I'm committing to it now! No turning back! Dark Earth paint for starters on the ties and rail. Then I've heard on Youtube to use a piece of masonite to rub off the paint from the railheads. I have no idea what Masonite is, but it looked a lot like hardboard I used for the fascia. It works well in any case and wiped the paint right off. Oh, in the background the bridges are hanging out and varnish is drying. Next, break out the PanPastels and start rusting these bridges. Apparently, if I screw up badly I can wash the deck in mild detergent and start over. Lets hope so!
I might have to try some of the Vallejo Air paint because it looks great. Your layout and progress photos looks so clean and refined. Even though you say “I haven’t tried this before” I am always impressed by your results. I will also totally back you on painting the track. As long as you clean the railhead and around switch points, there isn’t really anything that can go wrong. It makes track look so much better. If you wanted to go back and paint the track that is already installed, ballast would cover any overspray.
I still thin the paint, even if it says "air" on the bottle. I use the Vallejo thinner, and it seems to work great. I've had a lot of problems with my airbrush clogging, and I finally figured out the problem. Some of the paint bottles I have may have been sitting at the local train store for a good amount of time. Anyway, I've solved the problem by filtering the paint as I put it into the airbrush's cup. So, first day with the PanPastels! Lucky, today I also received an order of microbrushes from Amazon. 10$ for 400 brushes instead of waaaay too much at art stores. Four different colours, but honestly, I can't really see much of a difference between "sizes". So I figured I'd try the panpastels for weathering the ties to different shades. It's rather subtle, and only after the fact did I realize this is silly - while it gives good results, If I try that on track I'm going to ballast, it will wash away unless I varnish it first! I may have to rethink the panpastels on the track. In case anyone is curious, I bought two sets of panpastels - the "Drawing" set and the "Extra Dark" set. Then added two other colours to complete the "set". After much research of the different sets, I figured this was the most economical. I'm trying to figure out how to photograph these, and I tried a couple ways. But really, it just isn't coming out in the pictures. Lighting and the cellphone possibly to blame, camera operator definitely. I ought to build myself a macro booth and take out my dSLR. Only marginally better with the 600 grit wet/dry paper underneath. Oh well. I've only painted the rails on the foreground piece of track. I ran out of time for the next two. I used Vallejo Rust painted on with a microbrush. I tried "rusting" the metal grating in the centre of the longest track, but it just didn't turn out quite right. I'll try again after I rust the rails with the paint.
Ah, found my receipt.. for the PanPastels, buying the "Drawing" set (10 colours), "Earth Tones" (5 colours), and adding individual "Red Iron Oxide" and "Raw Umber Shade" gives the following "set": Burnt Sienna Extra Dark Burnt Sienna Burnt Sienna Tint Red Iron Oxide Extra Dark Red Iron Oxide Shade Red Iron Oxide Raw Umber Extra Dark Raw Umber Shade Raw Umber Raw Umber Tint Bright Yellow Green Extra Dark Yellow Orche Extra Dark Black Payne's Grey Neutral Grey Neutral Grey Tint Titanium White Actually, in this, the only only missing from the list is "Burnt Sienna Shade". But when I ordered it was out of stock.
Thank you RailMix, looking forward to seeing them installed myself! Ok, short update today, I weathered one of my bridges! I also took out my macro lights to try and get some better pictures! This last one is with the macro light off, which is why it's darker - but it's probably closer to what it will look like on my layout instead of under a super bright light. So basically, I decided to start with my 3D printed bridge because I wouldn't need to worry about the deck (which will be pretty much under ballast). All I needed to worry about was the side walls and the underside (to some extent). I started with the bridge looking like in my last post - painted a dirty black and clear coated with a matt finish (mat? matt? matte? I can never tell which one I should use). All I used to get here is PanPastels! Started with Neutral Grey to sully the black. But oh no! That looked really awful. So I used the black pan to tone down the grey, just stabbing the thick soft brush into the sides. Actually, that was a neat trick, the sidewalls looked dirtier and faded. Following that was experiments with Burnt Sienna for rust. That one doesn't stick all that well, and I figured out that Red Iron Oxide Shade was looking awesome along the bottom edge, so I went nuts with that one. Following that I used Payne's Grey (sorta bluish-grey) in the middle of each panel and blended it in. All this so far with a pack of makeup brushes mostly I bought cheap off Amazon, the PanPastel sofft foam, and a few microbrushes. Then back to the Burnt Sienna for the rust spots and streaks, followed by a few of Red Iron Oxide, and some more Red Oxide Shade all over especially on the raised edges. And that's about it. What a mess! I have dust everywhere on my workbench, hands, shirt, whew! I took the pictures post cleanup. It also took an embarrassing amount of time to accomplish this, probably around an hour and a half!! But look, it's the first time weathering, and the first time with PanPastels. Still, I like the result. However, at this point I can barely touch it, the PanPastels are easy to smear. So my next step is another coat of matt clear coat to seal it in, but I'm waiting a day to decide whether I really do like this. At this point I could still wash it all off and start fresh - but I strongly suspect I will keep it. I'm hoping a clear coat doesn't change the look too much.
Your bridge looks great with the weathering Stephane!!! The matte finish should only take the shine off and maybe a little darker but not much. Joe
Thank you! I'm currently looking at pictures online of various bridges for rust patterns. I'll be trying to weather a second bridge this afternoon.
Oh well, maybe the first time was lucky? I started by setting my workspace up better than last time. Plus, I remembered I have an eight year old tablet that I hadn't used in a very long time. Now I remember why I stopped using it, it's sloooooooow! But, I don't care if I get paint on it, and I can use it for displaying a reference photo, so I set it up (after charging the long drained battery). This is the Atlas bridge, it was really cheap when I bought it about a year ago, and was short. So here it sits with just the dirty black and matt varnish. I started with applying some Payne's Grey in the middle of each panel. It gives a nice faded look and makes the bluish tint gives it a nice colour for the painted steel. So yeah, I had planned to take pictures of the progress at each stage. Spoiler alert, I didn't get far. The insides are tricky. There's are some "half" ties in there, and I figured I'd try weathering them as I did the actual track ties. But it just didn't look all that great. Then the insides walls, hmm, I didn't know how what to do! The problem is that they are perfectly smooth, no ribs, no detail, not even a lip! Where will I put the rust stains?? At this point, as I experimented, I wasn't taking pictures. I just forgot. I painted the inside floor a rust colour, and the bottom of the inside walls were also rust. It was okay I guess. I also started adding rust to the outside panels. I tried a different approach than the last bridge, with less rust and more grey showing. In the end, it looked just "ok"; I couldn't get it to look just like I wanted. Plus, the outside was all rusted, but then the inside had no seams or ribs and was plain. ARRG! So what to do? well, I had read somewhere that PanPastels can be thinned with alcohol (outside the pan!) Hmm, okay, so I took an old paintbrush, sprayed the outside wall with some alcohol, and just started moving the rust around, staining the outside wall. BIG mistake. The alcohol softened the paint and varnish underneath!! Okay, time to hit the reset button! I took an old toothbrush, dish soap and warm water and scrubed it clean. Or tried to. The side wall was a mess, with some grainy texture where the PanPastel, varnish and paint just wouldn't come off. I tried more alcohol, but made stuff worse over the entire model. So a complete failure. Oh well. Right now the bridge is bathing in mean green detergent in the ultra-sonic cleaner. See if I can rescue it. If not, I'm going to 3D print a replacement, and the replacement will have interior wall detail!!! Sorry for the lack of pictures, I really should have taken a picture of that mess
Stephane, after you clean the bridge repaint it and start over. Sometimes we fail but learn what not to do and everything will go better soon. Keep up with your great progress, we enjoy seeing your work. Joe
Thanks Joe! Letting the bridge soak in the detergent plus the ultrasonic bath helped, i will be repainting it tomorrow. I have some ideas how to proceed with it for version 2 While I deal with paint and varnish on the Atlas bridge, I'll weather the Kato plate girder.
Ok, baby steps, I only have a bit of progress to show this morning. First, the Atlas bridge. After stripping it of paint, I decided to spray the deck and ties the same colour I used on the the track (Vallejo Dark Earth). I will ballast this deck between the ties. The colour is somewhat wrong here, what with the green mat and the blue shop towel, the cellphone camera just wasn't able to show this colour quite right. But doesn't matter for now. After this dries a bit more I will mask the deck and paint the rest black. Okay, so on to the Kato plate girder! Much like I started with the Atlas yesterday, I applied Payne's Grey and Black to the sides. I find this gives a nice faded look to start. You can see the difference with the inner wall that hasn't been faded down yet. Now a note about PanPastels. No I did not use that much black since purchasing the set! They should all look like the blue-grey pan, but I found out that during shipping some of the pans can "break apart". I dumped the broken black dust and chunks into a spare cup with lid, and I was left with what you see here. I strongly suggest that if you buy them locally, make sure none of the pans are broken! I'm sure I can still grind up the broken up bits and use them as regular weathering powders, but it still sucks to get a brand new pan in this condition. Lucky, out of the 17 pans, only three had this problem, and only the black was this bad. And here is the bridge faded down - I put it up on it's abutments for the picture I'm not finished, next will be the rust, but first, since I like the look of the faded black, I'm going to spray it with matt varnish. The pastels go on easier when the model is freshly flat coated. The pastels basically fill in the pores in the coating, and at this point, all those pores are already filled with grey-blue and black! So a fresh coat will seal this in and have me ready for the rusting bits!
Quick update for the day... I did very little after that last update this morning. I clear coated both the 3D printed bridge and the Kato plate girder. The clear coat rather darkened the PanPastels quite a bit. I tried to balance the colour and contrast of the picture as best I could, but yeah, it's still hard to really show how the bridges look in person. The Kato isn't finished, but the 3d print is done. I'll leave it as it is; when viewed in its rough spot on the layout, it looks fine. The Atlas bridge I opted to quickly paint rust colour in Vallejo paint. I think I thinned the paint too much and it had a hard time covering inside the ribs - looked like it just wanted to pool on the flat surfaces. But that's okay, it's temporary, I want to try a salt technique to add rust spots. The idea is spray the bridge sidewalls with water and alcohol (10:1 ratio) and then sprinkle salt. When the water dries, spray black. Then wash off the salt. It should leave some nice chipping rust which I'll then further weather with PanPastels. Anyway, it looked simple in the Youtube videos! This Atlas bridge has gone through a lot already, so why not use it for experiments?
New day, new update. I worked on weathering those bridges again this afternoon after work. First, I applied some of that Payne's Grey on the truss. After matt varnish the effect is really subtle. I then completed the Kato plate girder. Up above we see a closeup. I'm not sure why the track looks greenish (it's worsened by the camera, but it's still definitely greenish in person). I guess it's the Raw Umber colours? I started with Dark Earth, which the MRH Floquil guide says is a match for that "Rail Tie Brown". That's already a tiny been greenish in tint. Is this what people use? In any case, I seem to have two modes of weathering with the powders, Full on rust, or none at all! I'm pretty happy with the result, but this was my second attempt. Early on today I started applying weathering to the Kato bridge and almost immediately cleaned it up with soap and water to start over. It's really tricky! Another view of the two completed bridges (unless I decide to add graffiti!) I do have a problem though with the track beside the rail tie colour. I froze the rail in paint and varnish - on BOTH Kato bridges! The rail no longer slides in the ties, and that's a big problem because I need to slide the rail to get it back into the bridge rail slots that hold it down! In the second picture above, we can see the rail is sitting ON the slot (right next to the first tie). I guess at worse I can always carve the slot open with a exacto knife to get it to fit, and glue the track to the bridge. I really should not have painted the rail before putting it back into the bridge!! Anyway, so now, for these three bridges, I'm nearing done, except the track. One, I'm not sure I like the tie colour. Two, I need to perform surgery to get it back onto the bridge. And then there's this bridge..... I tried the salt method to get some rust patches. Still, I'm curious to see how it'll look after some pan pastel weathering. At this point, I'm just going to see how far I can make it go before I just abandon it entirely. Hey, maybe it'll end up great? Oh! See, the centre of that bridge is painted "Dark Earth" without any panpastels. See definitely greenish. And again, MRH's colour guide listed that as the replacement for Floquil's Rail Tie Brown. Hmm, I just don't know what to do with that.
Those rail ties don't look right in the pictures, after work I'm going to take out my dslr and get a color-correct photo posted.
