Pre-Decal Paint For Our Yard Kits
For some time now, I’ve wanted to make my own water slide decals and I think the Micro-Trains kits I’ve built for the pizza layout are some great decal candidates! Late last year I picked up an HP Color LaserJet for work but (much as I hate to admit it) have yet to try my hand at decals.
Last week I ordered some clear laser decal sheets from the Bare Metal Foil Co., along with decal setting solution and other assorted decal liquids. We’ll cover this in the next article but before the decals of course comes the paint. For this paint session, I’ve used standard craft acrylic paints thinned with windshield washer fluid then strained to eliminate any paint lumps that could clog the airbrush. I use the workhorse Paasche H brush.
On two of our buildings, I went with an aged concrete look, leaving some smooth areas available for decals. These buildings originally came featuring a laser-etched board pattern. I applied with a couple of heavy coats of white primer to fill in the space between the etched boards to give the walls a flat appearance. For the aged and crumbly concrete look, a little wood filler was applied randomly, left to dry and then sanded it down to an even level. Once the weathering in applied it should give a convincing concrete appearance.
On a side note: I haven’t installed the Grandt Line windows and all of the doors yet, only the larger double-wide doors are temporarily placed in position for these photos.
Another good reason to give a couple of these buildings the concrete treatment is because I had two of the MTL Military Veterinary Clinic kits and I wanted to disguise this fact. By cutting one of the vet clinics down in size and giving it this concrete look, I think the two kits work well together while not appearing to be the same kit.
Another trick I often do in Z scale, and we’ll try it here in N scale, is to paint the corner trim on the buildings instead of using the kit-supplied strip wood. I’m anxious to see how this works in N scale!
The overall choice of colors here is muted, on a small layout like this I really want everything to blend well and these colors, along with the decals and weathering, should do the trick.
Article Links
Micro-Trains Line Veterinary Clinic
http://micro-trainsline.com/nscale/nkits/49990974Bare Metal Foil Co.
http://www.bare-metal.comOur Raildig Article On The Paasche H Airbrush Parts
https://www.raildig.com/useful-tools/paasche-h-airbrush-parts
Category: Raildig Build Projects
