Dear colleagues in modelling,
Due to the fact that my stash was filled with quite some farmers, farm animals as well as the German guys, milking a cow, I decided to build a small (relative ) dio with an Ukrainian farm house.

It has a metal roofing. Studying a lot of books of Russian painters I found out that these roofs were quite familiar
So far, so good, but...........
How do you paint these in a way they look life like?
I spend hours in this forum, however without any success.
Who helps, please?

Thanks in advance,

Paul

Hi there, Paul.

I am not an expert on the subject, but have a little experience with it. I would suggest you to start with a basic light grey and then apply a coat of matt varnish.
Then, try different washes of rust tones (brown, reddish brown, light orange, etc)until you achieved a believable weathering effect.
Also, I would recommend to google for a picture of a rusted metal roof and use it as a reference for the weathering.
Cheers, mate.
Pablo

Paul, the "expert" I know of in this art is Emmanuel Nouaillier, he specialises in producing decayed looking buildings and, I suppose like Mig Jimenez and some others, he has a highly developed ability in what he calls micropainting. His approach is more or less as Pablo describes; start with enamel grey, then apply a brown wash, then use chipping techniques with both brush and sponge, then use rust shade pigments to create rust variations, add shadows where the sheets meet and overlap, finishing up with graphite on certain raised details.

The key though is getting random looking variation in the shades and chips. Referring to photos of the real thing or real metal is the best way.

You can see some of this guy's work at the Military Modelling magazine website here for example . The article in which he described the iron roofing technique in detail with photos etc. was in the magazine in August 2010 (volume 40, number 10). If you subscribe to the magazine it is possible to view the issue on line, or you can buy this particular back issue for about 5 euros from their shop.