Junkbox Jury - Painted Decay

Paint shop capacity finally became available last week to give the "dismantled diesel" some paint. You may recall I built this in the backend of last year, mostly from the remains of incomplete projects. If I'm being honest I'd ben putting off painting as I wasn't sure how I could get the look I wanted. Thankfully the work on the Lister pointed most of the way and the job was actually completed over a small number of sessions.

There are two areas of the paintwork I am particularly proud of, both as a result of careful masking throughout the painting process. The first is the two bonnet doors that have seen a recent coat of primer, which were masked off pretty much throughout the painting process! With these areas masked everything else was given a coat of dilute black-grey as a basis for what would follow, and once dry the light blue of the bonnet was effectively dry-brushed on, leaving the black-grey showing through in the ledges around the rainstrip and grilles. Some really pleasing accidental effects were the runs under the grilles, the brush just missed those lines!

The second masking effect is the red oxide primer bordered with grime where the coupler blocks were once fitted. The bufferbeam had been primed in red oxide and the rectangular areas around the bolt holes were masked off prior to the grey wash. Masking was left in place when the red bufferbean colour was dry-brushed on which left the grime marks above and below the area. The masking was then removed prior to other weathering effects being added, including light brown washes, gunmetal over bolt heads and Citadel 'Typhus Corrosion' in selected areas around bolt holes and the exhaust pipe hole.

In the cab area the panel with the controls was given a weathered wood effect, we have to assume this was left in place, propped up on the bonnet, when the cab was removed. The chequer plate on the floor was dry-brushed with gunmetal to give it a metallic look, which spread to a patch where the doorway would have been. After some overall dry-brushing, including green-grey applied upwards from the bottom of the model to give it the effect of having been outside in grass for a while, I was satisfied with the result. A coat of Humbrol matt varnish was applied in the one day of sunshine we appear to have been allocated this year and whilst I may add some weathering powder effects in due course, I don't want to go over the top...

More soon...

Colin