OK, I feel pretty dumb right about now. I have been modeling for over 25 years and for some reason I am unable to figure out the weathering system using pastels. Is there an article on the many ways to use pastels. Is there a step by step instruction on how to do this?? PLEASE HELP!!

Here's all you really need to know about wethering with pastels:
Dull coat the model to a nice flat finish. The flatter, the better.
Take a pastel chalk stick and shave off some fine powder. you can even sand it, buit I've never tried this. have it fal inot a small cup. You cna blend colors as you would with painf. The finer the txture, the better the blending.
I just applied some to an M-41. For the undersides, I just dipped my finer in and smeared. For the upper surfaces, I used an old brush. Scrub it in where there should be dust or other dirt. Use more on the lower surfaces and where dirt would accumulate. For exhaust stains, use black and drag the brush away from the exhaust in the airflow. You should get a nice feathered effect. If an application doesn't work the first time, rinse it off and start over.
Remember, use a brush that's pretty much ready for retirement. You're going to be mashing the bristles pretty hard.
Shave a courser grit and mix this with paint to get a nice rusty texture.

Hey, thank you for the advise. Now I heard something about using water and pastels as a weathering technic? How do you make that happened? Is it water or is it rubbing alchol? Am I making this harder than it needs to be?

Wolf-Leader, I go into weathering with pastels & water on my T55A page:

T55A Model 1970

Done correctly, and finely, you can easily render rust, mud, dirt, even winter whitewash, with the pastels & water without chunking up your model. For the Cold War Campaign, I'm also weathering my M41A3 Walker BullDog (set in Alaska for winter training maneuvers circa 1961) with pastel & water techniques.

Gunnie

Ola Wolf leader

I have used pastels with water for weathering too It`s quite easy. Just as al said shave some powder of a pastel chalk and make a wash-like mixture with water this can be applied onto your model.... I have seen people doing complete camoschemes in this way so you definately can do a lot with pastels

What more is there to add???? These guys have hit the technique on the head.

You can experiment with applicators - finger, stiff brush, soft brush, your signifcant others makeup applicator (spongy kinds thing). Each will give you a slightly different affect.

Hey thank for the advise. You guys are great. :-) One question, can you have a good affective weathering of pastels when you have a multicamouflage pattern?

Do you mean using the pastels as the multi color scheme? or Over the multi color scheme.

As Faust mentioned - people have done full vehicles with pastels, so I guess you can. On the Over - sure no doubt I did on a modern Marder.

Talking about coinscidence! The well known modeler Mig Jiminez just wrote a new article about this subject. You can read it on the missing-lynx rarities world.

Here's the link:
http://www.missing-lynx.com/rare_world/rw05.htm

greetz Jan

Wolf,

Sorry I wanted to react sonner but I forgot,

I have found this article on the net and maybe it can help you a bit

How to weather military vehicles, using washes, pastel chalk and drybrushing?

Great articles guys. I've never seen the pastel dust in the jars Mig was using .

Have to look out for that at the store next trip. They look really nice.

I wonder if the "pigments" used in the article aren't similar to the dry tempera paint that you can get at Hobby Lobby?

Now that we got this figured out, how do you seal the weathering of pastels? Or do you just leave it alone?

Seal witha light coat of Testors DullCote.
If you dont seal it, handling will ruin pastels as theyre just finely ground (or sanded) chunks of chalk.
I used to do this with lead from pencils for exhaust effects, and the dull cote knocked down that shine, and protected the effect while my buds ooh'd and aah'd over the kit.

HTH
Firemann816

Which looks absolutely amazing, by the way. I haven't tried using a liquid medium for the chalks; that will be my next weathering experiment!

Stephen

i have used pastels with some good results.most hobby shops sell a weathering set (popular with the model railroaders).
with such colors as:mud,dust,rust,ect.

it must be sealed or it will wear off.but you may lose some of the weathering when the sealer is applied

Curiously enough, I PM'ed Mig Jimenez a week or so ago about an article on using pastels for weathering so I could fill in the somewhat blank spaces on the Spanish home page, If I get it, I'll translate it and post it up on the main (English) site. I never realized he had already done one for ML at all... In case any of you are wondering, Mig joined the site a week or two ago, definitely a excellent 'signing'...Jim

Hi

I never seal my pastels.

If you mount your model to a base then you don't ever smudge the pastels. I always finish off by using pastels to blend the kit with the groundwork. This is an important step for figure and armor models to have the groundwork fit the subject.

Andy

i just picked up some pastels the other day.
and i did my stuart i will have pics up they really do a nice job the pastels its like night and day