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Opel Kadett K38 Build

Creating caked mud

I was asked by a friend if I could show him how to add mud to a vehicle. Since I was pretty much at that stage with this Opel I decided to photograph the individual steps I used. I posted it on my facebook wall where it became a minor hit. With quite a bunch of shares and I like to share it here as well Picture 1: Take a wash of the mudcolor you desire. In my case I used AK interactive Engine grime. Picture 2: Mix in plaster of paris. Picture 3: Mix your plaster roughly to the consistency of wed mud. Picture 4: Add some black pigments. When plaster dries the color becomes much lighter. Picture 5: Stipple the plastermix on with a cheap stiff bristled brush. Picture 6: This is how it looks when still wet. Notice it is still dark and shiny here. Picture 7: Endresult. Notice the color which is much lighter and it dried completely flat.

Some sidenotes to the technique described above. It will not dry rock hard. It will keep it’s shape. It will not fall off. But if you handle it roughly it will damage and loose detail. It is quite hard to tell how much lighter your mud is going to be when dry beforehand. Best advice I have is start with a darker variant then what you want to end up with and you will end up with something that is close to what you have in mind. If not satisfied afterwards you can stain it with the same wash you used for the plaster mix to make it darker.

Spatter

Final step of the weathering was giving the vehicle spatters of mud. This was done by using the same AK Interactive Engine Grime wash and spattering it on with an old stiff bristled brush and a toothpick. Mask off the bits you don’t want spatter on with tape. Try to hold the brush in the movement angles that a car drives and try to direct the spatter in natural patterns. The nice thing is that when you are done with adding the spatter to the car everywhere you don’t want it to appear you can wipe it carefully away with a piece of tissue.