It’s so easy to walk along the same path every day and miss some real inspiration. These are from one walk through my village.
Old garages, buildings and peeling paint – delightful!
Or how about roof line research for valleys on tile roofs:
Then there’s leaking water and the effect it has:
More details on brick walls:
Street details…
Or even tree trunks:
The list is endless.
So that’s the end of my 12 days of Christmas. Do let me know what inspires you in the comments below.
There is far too much pristine stuff in layouts, not to mention shiny plastic.
I know it takes courage to weather a new expensive item but I reckon to do well without the expense, room for, and danger of an airbrish with ventilated cabinet.
Humbrol paints diluted with white spirit do very well for me, plus my Gouache based 3D rusting method. Not too keen on powders though.
Totally agree! I stick to acrylics where I can to cut down on fumes but the principle’s the same. Everything will be weathered eventually but not necessarily a lot. Kathy
Hi Kathy
One thing I noticed in your modern day British photos was green slime, but how many of us realizes when it manifested.
I was looking at a Government report before I retired and certain departments within the MOD were quite concerned about the green slime that we see everywhere in the UK. From memory the report said the slime did not manifest itself until the Mt St Helens volcano in the USA eruption which happened a decade or so back but the report says the slime has a history that goes back to 1946.
The report said the slime is an organic micro thing and is spreading through the UK at an alarming rate and is costing the UK Government millions of pounds in cleaning up technical equipment here in the UK. The report also said the green micro thing was the result of the US dropping two atom bombs on japan during the 2nd World War and the fall out radiation caused a simple Japanese micro organism to mutate. Mutated micro organisms multiplied and spread across the Pacific Ocean to the USA and was most prolific in states where there is a high rainfall such as Washington State and that is where the volcano is. We got our share of the organism when the volcano erupted and the slime spores were scattered into the atmosphere and was deposited over the UK in rainfall.
The thing I am trying to put across is here in the UK we must include slime on our models and layouts that are represented after 1980ish but not much before. I am lucky that my modelling periods end in the 1970s but with my American modelling which centres around 1970 to 1980 I think I am right in adding the green slime microbe to my American modelling around Madison.
Some of my colleagues thought the report was an April Fools joke but it was so well done I am not sure even to this day if it was a wind up. I noticed that the slime spread after the 1980s Mt St Helens eruption so that part could be true but the mutated Japanese slime is doubtful!
Regardless of where it originally came from we must show it on our UK layouts, dioramas and model structure set in and after the 1980s to be realistic. I am not sure if the slime reached the Eastern Seaboard but that needs researching by others.
I apply thinned Humbrol enamels with an airbrush and I find the best colour to start with is Humbrol LIME green. I have the basic lime green and four jars with mixes that is altered, with each slightly different. One has a touch of yellow, another has a touch of rust. Another has a touch of mid grey and the other has a touch of black. I blend the mixes by a light mist from my airbrush.
Adding the slime to models is a pain in you know where but it makes the structure jump to life. I hope I have given you and our fellow readers something to think about.
In my 1970s/80s US modelling I do not need apply slime to my Texas based modelling but I do to my Wisconsin based stuff. This shows how selective I have to be, as in my UK modelling – no slime before 1980.
What do others think about the spreading slime we see in real life and how far should we go to represent it?
Cheers
Tom Jenkins
Tom
I have no idea of the history of it but at school I was taught that the green on the north side of trees is pleurococcus, a single celled green algae. If you get lost you can find North by looking at tree trunks.
I tend to add slime to wet patches, not to whole walls, but as you point out, it’s more prevalent than that.
It definitely adds another layer of weathering to a model and I do like to add it when possible.
Kathy