I am 14 and was looking to start using oils for weathering, but don't know how . Could someone please advise.
Cheers
Euan

Hi Euan,

This is a pretty broad topic, and you can find a lot of detailed information on various techniques here on the forums, so there's really too much to cover here in a single post (not to mention that just about every model builder has his own favorite ways to do this...).

Having said that, tho, there are several things you can do with artist oils:

1. Dry-brushing: Oils have a very long working time and excellent color saturation, so you can achieve smooth, subtle color transitions. You can also mix the oils with hobby enemels, like Humbrol or Revell, to get dry-brushing colors that complement your base coat colors. This is especially useful if you paint with the hobby enamels to start with. On the other hand, the oils are quite easy to mix for custom colors.

2. General Washes: You can mix a small amount of the artist oil paint with common mineral spirits (don't use artist turpentine or "turps" as these are often too strong and will sometimes soften and lift your base colors). The small plastic cups that single-serving fruit and apple sauce come in are good to recycle to use to mix washes in. You might get better results if you pre-wet the wash area with clean thinners (mineral spirits) as this helps with flow and to lessen "tide marks."

3. Pin Washes: You can use artist oil washes that are "targeted" to small areas to either highlight them (by creating shadows) or as stains for spilt water, oil, or gas. Mix the same as with general washes, but use a small pointed brush to just apply the pin wash to the smaller area.

4. Oil-dot Color Modulation: You can apply small "dots" of the oil paint straight from the tube to the model (use the end of a tooth pick / cocktail stick) and then blend the color to a transparent glaze over the area with a damp / wet (again mineral spirits) round or flat brush. This can be used to subtly change the hue or tone of the base color in that area to add interest, create shading (shadows or highlights), create the illusion of faded paint, etc.

5. Rain / Dust / Oil / Rust Streaking: Oil paints are great for these effects, since they oil paints can easily be blended from a very dark to transparent streak over a very short distance. One technique to do this is to put a small, pin-head sized dot of the oil color where you want the streak to start, then use a clean dry or damp (with mineral spirits) brush to pull the oil paint downward in a streak. You can use a damp brush to further blend this to whatever color saturation level you want.

The down side to using oils is that their long working time means that they can take a while to dry, but usually for washes and color modulation this is not more than over night. Sometimes dry-brushing can take a couple of days to dry. White oil paint is usually pretty slow to dry.

Another downside that many modelers believe that oils have is their high color saturation. Some model builder feel that oils are "too rich" to be used to create realistic effects on scale models. (I don't agree with this, feeling that the modeler can easily control the color intensity, but other model builders believe this, so I mention it to be complete.)

Oils can also be effected by subsequent applications of finish layers that use mineral spirits as a thinner or carrier. This means that you should probably add general washes before you dry-brush, since the wash can "wash" away your dry-brushing work if it's not completely dry.

On way to control this is to apply clear coats over dried oil effects. I use Testors Clear Flat Lacquer (Dull Coat) between some finishing layers, but in general, allowing enough drying time is all that's needed.

Oils are very versatile and offer a near infinity of colors once you learn to mix them, and their long working time allows you to achieve the effects you want. Also, they last a long time (a little artist oil paint goes a very long way) making them economical over the long run. Finally, if you use them on your armor, transitioning to using them on your figures is pretty easy and simple step.

HTH, but if you need some more info, ask or PM.

Hey Euan,

Check out this vid... Weathering with oils This should help you out allot.

Enjoy

Thanks alot. Very helpful
Euan

Good tips from Mike, a couple of comments:

When you're at the art shop buying your oil paints, I'd recommend buying a bottle of Winsor and Newton Liquin - there's two kinds, the "fine detail" is thinner than the "original" but otherwise they behave quite similarly. I find this is a good alternative to using spirits as thinner when doing glazes / washes (not pin washes) or filters or whatever you want to call them. The benefit is that, like spirit, it makes the oil paint dry faster, but it gives it, I think, an easier texture to work with. It spreads and blends more forgivingly and is less liable to streaking or breaking up the pigment. I find also you can use it instead of spirit to dampen your brush when you do the blending in point 4 of Mike's post - just a small amount, wiped off on something like a piece of card (for some reason I often use my hand...) - I often use old birthday / xmas cards for this, and for trying out your colour mix. Avoid using tissue or kitchen paper for that as I think you pick up fibres from them which then end up as tiny hairs on your model.

The other thing, relevant to using that product, and to oils generally, either thinned or unthinned with anything, is learning how fast it dries, and how it behaves at different stages of drying. Having applied some dots of paint for example, the way that paint will behave when then spread with a larger brush, depends on - how the paint was thinned, if at all, how much it has dried, and how much pressure is applied with the brush. This is hard to quantify as there are so many variables, but it is worth trying it out by say, applying some paint to a surface at several different points, then sweeping the brush across them at varying intervals.

If you sweep across paint that has only just been applied, you may just sweep it all off, or leave a very thin and subtle film. Giving it 10 mins you will find more paint remains but it spreads very easily across a large area. Leave it for 30 mins for example and you may find that you can now work the paint much harder with the brush but more easily attain a shaded finish - where the paint doesn't spread very far from the original application, so you get a strong fading from dark to light.

This might sound a bit obscure, but I think it is one of the things that enables you to get the effect you want by understanding how the oil paints work at various stages of drying, and how to control that drying speed, and when to intervene with the paint. The slow drying time, as Mike suggested, is both a pain, but is mostly what makes them so versatile and controllable.

You can always speed up drying times, especially in the winter, by keeping the model near the radiator (so long as it doesn't warp).