Hi guys. Ive been away from armor modeling for several years but i'm starting to get back into things again. When i was doing armor models it seemed the typical tank model was weathered with washes, then dry brushed, and then maybe hit with some pastels. You would see some chipping and maybe a white wash or two but now it seems things have swung the opposite direction. Going though the gallery on this site and others ive noticed that most newer models have very little drybrushing and are coated in various chalks and pastels, to go for that "hyper-real" look. Im not saying i dont like the look of those models, when done well they look awesome but what's changed and why the change? Or is it just me?

Techniques just keep changing and developing. I think what you are seeing is a movement away from sludge washes, which by nature require dry brushing.
People are moving more towards filters, pigments and oils to achieve similar but more refined looks. Pin washes still seem common from what I've seen, and combined with dry brushing seem to work very well with smaller scales. The technique known as color modulation is also gaining favor as well.

It really doesn't matter what you do. If you have a system of sludge washes and dry brushing mastered then I would encourage you to continue using it and perhaps apply other little weathering tricks as you learn them on the way. Otherwise just experiment with everything and keep going with anything you're comfortable with.

Thanks alot Jeremy. Are there any good articles on weathering with filters, dot filters and color modulation?

Bill Plunk's take on the dot filter method can be seen in this SBS https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/127447&page=2

Adam Wilder's Modulation article is here https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/2006

You should also take a look at Mig's blogspot. http://migjimenez.blogspot.com/

Dave;

I am not at all sure that dry brushing has "left the scene" - and it certainly should NOT do so, IMO!

I think I can identify with you- I dropped out of models in 1975 and returned (to 1/35 armor) in 2008 - left as a dry-brusher and... came back to see that folks sometimes appear to not as much of it - more of the chipping, etc.. But I think there is a key place for dry-brushing, and I keep with it. I am NOT in the heavy chipping school - just don't believe that much happened. On the other hand, edges of metal things DO wear FIRST- which is where dry-brushing comes into its own. So far as I have seen, nothing shows that fine graded wear of exposed edges better than a little dry-brushing - but of course that's just my opinion!

Some of our techniques come and go along as fads in swains and swales of use. Others, and I rank dry-brushing among them, are pretty useful "constants".

IF you have a technique down and are comfy with your effect, whether that be chipping or dry-brushed edge-wear or whatever- STAY WITH IT and enjoy!

Cheers!

Bob

First, let me say this is a great topic! Second, let me say if you stay around long enough, the hobby will go full circle. Once the craze, brought forward by the likes of Paine and Verlinden, dry-brushing eventually fell out of vogue when other techniques and methods came to the fore. However, with the new and growing interest in Color Modulation, I believe drybrushing will, at least in part, return to the modeler's tool box. The basic philosophy behind CM is the forced applicaion of highlights to a model .... the same intention of dry-brushing. While CM has expanded that idea with the airbrushing of portions of panels and edges, still the intent is to create that third dimension with paint. Personally, I don't think the re-adoption of drybrushing as a method to achieve a very controlled amount of highlight is not far from reality. In fact, I recently completed a 1/35 scale T-34 in which I used a very abbreviated CM - and also used drybrushing in concert. The results were exciting. So much so, I am already planning to incorporate an even more aggressive combination of CM and DB on my next project. Of course, this is all a matter of personal taste, and will not be accepted by most. But for me, as I strive to match the images in my head, drybrushing certainly has reemerged as a viable effect.

My two-cents and change ..
Kirchoff

i like drybrushing and when i read articles in magazines they still use the technique, though more subtly. often the article writers will play down or even skip over the drybrushing step just because it seems not in vogue.

colour modulation is often just another name for drybrushing by the looks of some projects. soon everyone will be using high ambient light tonality as a technique which is done using a brush that has almost dry paint on it LOL.

seems if you drybrush you're old school but that's just fine as long as we're having fun. cheers, bd.

Mike, do you have photos posted of your T-34? I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who wants to see it

And Bruce is right, nothing wrong with old school. None of these techniques are really new anyways. As stated before things just come and go as fads, doesn't mean anything is good or bad.

I just try techniques as the situation arises. Personally I have been using dry brushing to bring out details forever and it still does a good job. Just because a new technique comes along doesn't mean it is better than one you use. Some people think the new colour modulation is a good thing, personally I don't use it as to me it gives a model an artificial appearance with unnatural highlights and shadows when the light source is shining from a different direction.
Same as I don't like high lighting panel lines in aircraft as you can't see them in the real thing from any scale distance.
@ Dave, just use whatever floats your boat. Remember, you are building your model to satisfy yourself, no one else. And more than anything else, enjoy yourself!

Which link I posted is the "That" you are referring to?

Dave,

I still use dry-brushing, so I wouldn't characterize its use as having "fallen out of favor." But like many other techniques, its use (at least as far as I'm concerned), has "evolved" or become more refined and subtile.

In much the same way as my use of washes, my dry-brushing now falls into two different, but distinct purposes. Way back when (ca 1970's and the Sheperd Paine "School of Armor Finishing"), I used the basic "general wash" followed by the "overall, grubby light dirt colored dry-brushing." This "all-in-one" approach combined "weathering" with painted shadows (dark washes) and painted hightlights (grubby colored dry-brushing) to overcome the problems of "scale lighting" while making the vehicle look used.

Now, I still use general washes and overall dry-brushing as part of my basic finishing "style" to overcome the scale lighting problem. However, I now add color modulation (filters and or oil-dot modulation) and pre- or post-shading to the mix. These newer tecniques allow me to get more subtile shading and highlighting while also adding interest and variety to otherwise large, boring "monochrome" areas of the basic finish.

But for weathering, I now use pin-washes and "targeted" dry-brushing to help get the desired look along with pigments and "three-dimensional" effects (mud and turf build-up). I add to this, judicious "chipping" which allows me to achieve many of the effects that we once used dry-brushing to get only now in a more rational manner and in locations where dry-brushing wasn't effective (on flat areas, for example).

So, at least for me, dry-brushing is still an important painting technique. However, now, I use it in combination with other techniques. Whereas back in the '70s it made up close to 50% of my "post basic finish" kit bag, now I use it for perhaps less than 10% of the work I do after spraying the basic colors (and even spraying the basic colors has now evolved to include more considereations for the desired final appearance).

This diminishment of the percentage of dry-brushing is not because I use dry-brushing that much less, but because I use so many other techniques much more than (or in addition to) dry-brushing.

So, at least at my work bench, dry-brushing hasn't "fallen out of favor."

PS: I still have all of those old Monogram full-color "Tips on Building Dioramas" written by Shep Paine. In the "British Grant Tank M3" pamplet, he discusses using "Antiquing Polyurethane Glaze" which was "applied using a brush over your base coat and then wiped with a cloth." He recommended this technique in place of using a general wash. So, even the "master's" techniques were evolving back in then (that pamplet is copyrighted 1973!).

Happy modeling,

Like you I left armor modeling quite a few years back, just as chalks and pastels were starting to be used, mainly for rust streaks and dirt streaks, and I have got be honest I was shocked to see how much pastels are being used now, models now seem to be lathered in pastels, with some people seemingly skipping dry brushing.

And I have to be honest, I prefer the old way, Dry Brushing brings the model to life, highlights its 3 dimensional nature, heavy application of pastels just seems to "flatten" things again.

This is just my personel opinion, so dont shout at me folks, but I think the whole pastel thing got a little bit out of control, they look fantastic when used sparingly for streaking rust and dirt, but heavy application is way over the top.

And all depends on the location of the model, if its to be placed in a scenic setting that hints at lots of muck and dust then yeah it kinda works, but for a model simply placed on a display base, it does not, just my view.

How did we end up like this ?

Brand driven products, heavily advertised in mags and on websites.

Semantics - next you'll be correcting my grammar

Guys,
Just my 2 pents.........
It seems that every time some one adapts some technique to fit our art form, some people want to hate on it instead of embrace it.
I do not understand.
Each technique has a time and place including a bit of dry brushing. I do not feel that one new idea replaces another but rather adds another tool to the tool box.
There is a time and a place for a screw driver & a wrench correct?
There is a project that would benefit from all the little tricks and techniques we have learned from the contributors of excelent forums like this one.
I hope that every one reading this will bring some technique to the table. In this way, we will all have many "tools" in our paint box.
Think about this. At one point in time, "dry brushing" was avant garde, and was no doubt hated by some.
I for one am glad that people bring new ideas to the table. Filters, C.M., etc. If we did not have new ideas, things would get terribly borring around here right?
One thing that I love about modeling is that the ideas keep moving forward.
So, instead of debating the proper name for techniques, lets all get crakin' on bringing the next big idea to the field!

Wow, well said Iain

It's happened because of the steady exodus over to acrylics as a base coat and oils for weathering. Drybrushing acrylics is a frustrating experience for some modelers (although I've achieved good results).
I like like drybrushing and I do it, it's just that it isn't all I do.

Wow, i guess i started a pretty good post eh? Yeah me! Lots of info the digest here. Ive been spending time looking up the color modulation, filter and dot filter techniques. Very different from what i am use to but ill definetly give some of them a go with my next kit, and first armor model in probably ten years, Dragon's M1A2 SEP with Legends stowage set and some PE details. Thanks for all the great thoughts guys. Oh, and Mike, any photos of that T-34 around, id love to see it.

Hey Dave,

Here's an example of a combination of various color modulation techniques coupled with some overall dry-brushing (even though the captions only address the effects of the oil-dot color modulation):



(I posted this graphic here in the painting forums some time ago.)

You can see more of the in-progress painting and the finished model here:

Operation Tractable Vignette

I used pre- / post-shading on the base OD, followed by oil-dot CM, general dark washes, and dry-brushing with a lightened OD oil paint. After all of the oils dried, I sprayed on a layer of Testor's Dull Coat. On top of that, the model has some "sponge" chipping with Vallejo OD and targeted chipping with other Vallejo and Citadel colors.

All of that was done before the heavy weathering with pin washes, pigments, and glazes.

Hope this gives you some ideas on how the various techniques, including dry-brushing, can be combined.

Dave,
You are correct, this was/is a geat thread! I personally learned quite a bit and feel much better knowing other modelers drybrush as a practice or on occasion. When used in conjuction with color modulation, I can see drybrushing emerging as an important part of my own modeling. Oh, and I'm finishing up the final images of my AFV Club T-34-76 Factory 112, so I should some pics available to post soon if anyone cares to see them.

Kirchoff

Why has drybrushing fallen out of favor?

Well, in my very humble opinion it happened because a heavy drybrushing looks unrealistic.
Drybrushing seems to be an easy technique but actually it isn't. It's very easy lose its control and doing models with too marked edges.In my opinion drybrushing was so diffused because it was the only way to highlight models which was mostly painted with brush. Nowadays the air brush spreading has changed the rules so you can highlight your model spraying a lighter color where it is needed and that looks more "soft" and realistic.
However, as you probably know, kit modelling follows vogues which tend to change during the time.

Eventually the only rule to follow in my humble opinion are the final results.
It doesn't a matter how you can reach them, using or not using the airbrushing technique


cheers

Outstanding thread. I've learned quite a bit. Being a newbie to armor, coming over from military aircraft modeling, dry brushing is a standard method of weathering and highlighting, used especially in cockpits to show wear and tear, but not so much on the outer surfaces of the aircraft.

I just started my entry into the All American Armor Campaign, and I was planning on dry brushing the exterior seems/edges with the same OD paint lightened up with some white or yellow, then following up when dry with a random use of a lead pencil.