I realize in today's market there may be no end to the products offered for "Shading" and/or weathering our models but to that list add one more name CITADEL.



Citadel manufactures a complete line of Paints, Shaders and Special Affects coatings. Many are offered in both brush grade as well as pre-thinned for air brushing.

Knowledge of these Shaders comes to me by way of my son who is deeply into the fantasy 40K combat hobby world. Citadel is a name well known among these modelers. I was fortunate enough for him to have given me a Shader set this past Christmas as a gift.

If you can get past the rather strange color names such as "Nuln Oil" (meaning Black), "Agrax Earthshade" (for Brown) and "Seraphim Sepia" (Sepia) you will be well rewarded.

I have found these versatile shaders to have literally thousands of uses in my predominantly 1/35th scale Armor modeling world.

The other colors in the starter set include:

"Biel-tan Green" = Green
"Reikland Fleshshade" = Blue
"Cassandra Yellow" = Redish Yellow
"Carroburg Crimson = Red
"Drakenhof Nightshade" = Dark Green

One of Citadel's Special Effects paints is something they call "Agrellan Earth". The product is what I would call a "Krackle Finish Coating". It is a light brown/tan colored coating that when dry simulates cracked dried mud. The coating, once dry also accepts all the other Shader colors so you can create anything from dried riverbed mud to unique alien skin effects. The thicker you apply the material the more of a 3D look the texture attains.



p.s. The dirt and grime you see everywhere else on this recovery spade is a heavy application of the Citadel "Agrax Earthshade" shader applied over Tamiya Dark Yellow spray.

The wood trailer decking is multiple coats of the Citadel Nuln Oil (Black) shader over a rust colored paint base coat. Some highlighting was done with dust and/or sand colored pastel chalks scrubbed into the wood finish with a small stiff brush.

The wood decking here is again multiple coats of Nuln Oil (Black) and Agrax Earthshade (Brown) over a base coat of regular Tamiya (rattle can) TS-3 "Dark Yellow". I finished by highlighting the wood grain with white pastel chalk "scrubbed" into the surface with an old short, stiff bristle paint brush.

p.s. The natural wood tool tray in the upper left corner is done with a single coat of the Brown Earthshade over the bare Tamiya plastic. The ladder on the right started in just it's bare light gray resin color and was coated then with multiple layers of the Brown Earthshade.

The "crevice outlining" in the road wheels and front tire rim was achieved with a single generous coating of the Agrax Earthshade (Brown) over a base of Tamiya (rattle can) TS-3 "Dark Yellow".

The rubber rims of the road wheels were brush painted with straight "Gun Metal" airbrush consistency hobby paint right out of the bottle. I was trying to achieve the look of hard molded rubber that has a slight aged oxidized silvering caused by long exposure to sunlight. (I might have gone a bit too far with this treatment!)

Needless to say I long ago exhausted both the Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade colors that came in the shader set and have since purchased larger "economy sized" bottles. I suspect the other colors however will last me for many years to come.

The decking on this flatcar is made up of individually distressed Evergreen "boards" stained with the Earthshade over a base coat of the Tamiya Desert Sand spray paint.

To achieve a slightly different looking affect the decking on this car was handled in a bit differently.

First the distressed Evergreen individual "boards" were given a base coat of a much darker orange/yellow spray (Model Master - Afrika Mustard) Then about 25% of the stripes were stained using only the Agrax Earthshade while the other 75% received both the Earthshade Brown and the Nuln Oil Black shaders to produce a lite/dark variety in the woods. The light and dark boards were mixed up in a big pile and then applied to the car in a random fashion to achieve a bit of a zebra stripe effect on the decking.



p.s. The fresh looking wooden load chocks on this flatcar blocking the Stug are nothing more than white Evergreen plastic, cut to length, then given a distressed wood grain effect and stained with two coats of the Earthshade Brown to represent freshly cut new wood.

(Can't display my Tigers on this flatcar as I don't own any narrow transport tracks!)

Hi, Mike!!!

Looks like some more useful stuff for us all! I can think of several applications (literally) already!!!

Thanks, Muchly!!!

Dragon King Tiger P (Work in Progress)

Using here the Tamiya stick-on Zimmerit and again a base coat of Tamiya Dark Yellow spray TS-3.
The entire tank has been given a weathering coat of the Agrax Earthshade to bring out the texture of the Zimm. Nuln Oil Black was used just above the tracks where the dirt shows under the missing fenders. A "crevice outlining" coat of Earthshade was slopped (literally slopped) onto the road wheels to further bring out detail there.



I intend to eventually do a three color camouflage and suspect I will again go over the entire tank with the Earthshade to subdue and blend the brighter colors and dirty up the number decals.

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Doing a little retro experiment: more crevice outlining on the road wheels of this older M51 Sherman model. Again using the Earthshade for weathering the road wheels, idlers and sprocket.

Some underbody dirt, oil and grime on the Famo a la the Agrax Earthshade:

Railroad ties (Sleepers) for my 1/35 scale railroad bridge:

On the left the Trumpeter RR ties, base coated in some home concocted Brown and Raw Umber color. On the right the addition of the Citadel "Nuln Oil" shader coating.

- way, Way, WAY BETTER! (If I do say so myself!)

Great stuff Michael. Been looking into this for a while now but you convinced me to take the plunge.

Thanks Dennis and dvsand - rest assured I don't own stock in Citadel but as you can probably tell I am really taken with this line of paint products. I seem to find more and more uses for the line around every modeling corner!

Thanks again for your comments!

Here is a direction I NEVER thought this thread would be going in!

I hate figure painting!

I hate it because I am no good at it!

I find it totally unsatisfying because everyone else is so much better at it than me!

But maybe now I have found a trick, thanks to Citadel, that makes it at least a bearable exercise when a model just HAS to have a figure with it.
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Citadel's Seraphim Sepia shader is a one coat wonder! Especially with the Tamiya figures that are molded in that warm tan color plastic of their's. One application of the Sepia gives them first of all a good flesh tone and the shader fluid runs into all the nooks and crannies of the facial expression and gives them "instant personality & character!" (With the figures molded in dark plastic you have to give them a flesh colored base coat but it is still all good!

On left a Tamiya figure cast in warm tan plastic: ------ On right an older Tamiya figure cast in dark green plastic with a flesh tone base coat:


A minor note of warning: See how with the figure on the left has such a dark colored neck? I made the mistake of standing him on his feet while he was drying. The shaders are so thin and watery that most all the pigment ran down into his neck area as it dried. If I had only known I could have hung him by his feet and he would have ended up with a nice crop of brown head hair instead!

Here is a final figure example:

The Famo crew taking a short break before loading that big honk'n halftrack onto the flatcar.

They are all molded in the warm tan plastic so the Sepia shader immediately gave them good flesh tones and facial expressions. The flesh was done in an instant - the uniforms took me considerably longer!



Even the little dog: Dark green plastic from the Tamiya Deuce and a Half AM set. First an off-white base coat then several coats of the Earthshade and voila!

You missed your calling. Should of been an old west snake oil salesman

Thanks -

Citadel should make a bright green shader and call it "Snake Oil"!

Like you I don't consider myself a very accomplished figure painter but I like to include crewmen on my AFVs. Even though they are generally not judged unless part of a diorama I still want them to look good.

I have never been satisfied with my figures but maybe now I can at least get closer to something I can be happy with.

Michael,

Those look great! I've got 3 Citadel washes: black, brown, flesh shade. Love them! They do a great job with faces.

The deck of the flatcar is excellent. Thanks for showing us these.

The oil & grime coating seen here on this Famo frame and fenders was created with alternating layers of the brown and black shaders from Citadel.

Something a bit unusual to talk about in a paint expose but GOLD! - I have never seen such a nice gold paint as the Citadel product!

I recently swapped out to a real brass whistle and bell for the original steel ones to dress up one of my old Flyer engines. After that I was sort of disappointed because right next to the whistle were the two pop valves that really should also be brass but AF had molded them into the black plastic engine shell to save on production costs.

So I thought gold paint (or in Citadel's case "Auric Armor" - a.k.a. Gold.)

I have to say IMHO the gold paint looks better than the real brass! I am now tempted to repaint even the brass on all my locomotives with this gold paint product.

What if any, odors does the product have. What do you use for clean up?