I'm building Tamiya's 1/35 German cargo truck; what's a good technique for weathering the leather seats inside the cab? I'm on a budget so I don't have any weathering pigments or paint sets, just enamels or acrylics and earth tone chalks;

Brian, not sure what this seat looks like... But using those materials I think maybe you should paint the base color in acrylic, and then use the enamels to do a pin wash or line shading along the edges and the seams, and when that's dry, maybe make a wash that can be used to shade / dirty the parts of the seats that you want to show as worn - then maybe touch up the pin / line painting again afterwards. Then use the chalks to dust around the bits that are not constantly being polished by the passengers sitting on them. You could use a lighter colour acrylic to make a few splits or tears/ cracks.

Just a suggestion. Frankly I'm never too sure if the leather in such vehicles should be black or brown, or even if it is leather at all. Brown is probably the easiest to paint, though black might be more authentic...

Hi Brian,
The guys painting figures have a lot of experience that you can use... search for figure leather tutorial and surely you will find something you like.

For example this, although for boots I think you could use it for a seat as well:

http://www.planetfigure.com/pages/Painting-Leather-Boots/

Thanks for the great ideas guys; appreciate it