Weathering, NO airbrush required

[Allen H.]

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[Mobile One]

Haha! You've been promoted to article status now. No pressure. I mean, hurry up and give us some more. You're in the spotlight now.

[Allen H.]

Great @Mobile One

Just trying to help out and I get thrown under the bus.
Then I get no sympathy from you.....thanks

[Allen H.]

The other night I was able to get the “White Wash put on for the fade coat. I shot a video of it but I had the radio on, so when I went to upload it YouTube muted the video for copy write purposes, ugh.
So I had to go back and edit the video with titles, my apologies. But you should get the gist of what I’m doing. Next time I’ll turn the radio off.

To be clear on some things, I didn’t use much paint thinner to smooth out the paint, just enough to get it to a creamy consistency, a few drops at a time. You don’t want to over thin it for two reasons. If it’s too thin it won’t stick to the Dull Coat as well and you’ll just wipe it away. The main reason even though the Dull Coat is lacquer based, it will soften the Dull Coat if it’s too strong and you will rub through it destroying the previous layer. Then you’ll have to go back and touch it up, nothing serious, just a pain.

Once it’s ready you just smear it on the car with an old beat up brush, working it into all the cracks and crevices. I normally don’t leave it on very long, once the surface is covered, I start removing it so it doesn’t have any chance of softening the Dull Coat layer. Sometimes, depending on the car, I may just do one side or end of the car at a time.
I use a “Q” tip for the biggest share of the removal, if there are spots that I can’t get to with the “Q” tip, I’ve used a medium stiff brush to drag it out and then remove that with the “Q” tip.

Don’t be afraid to leave more on in places and less in others, it doesn’t have to be perfect and even, the less even it is, the better it’ll look. Paint doesn’t fade evenly. When you’re done the car will look really white and over faded, but as you apply the browns and/or black washes, this will overpower the white but will leave the faded look. This Is normal.

Normally I apply one coat of white, remove as much as I can, and then I apply a coat of lighter brown first. Unlike the White paint, you want to leave more of the brown paint on and not scrub it all off. By leaving a residue of the brown you’ll begin to see grime or rust coat appear. Spread out this layer and leave it on so that it covers the entire car, do not take it all off.

On the second coat I use a darker brown. This is applied like the first coats, but again I leave some on the car. What I do though, it to remove more of this darker brown from the center of the ribs and then leave more on closer to the ribs where dirt, dust and grime will collect easier. I’ll show this in the next few videos where you can SEE what I’m doing and how I work and vary the brown layers.

What I’m doing with the White and Brown layers is nothing more than building a up a base on the car. Once these have been applied, I’ll start in with the real Pain (the rust).

This video is nothing more than what I've shown in some of the still pics I've posted before but I thought I make one so that it shows the actual act, sometimes videos are better than pics and verbiage.

[WP&P]

Thanks! I got to watch the video right as soon as it was available last night... I think I may have been your first viewer. I wondered about the silence, and then I thought you might have had a copyright flag thing going on. That's why I went and downloaded a bunch of YouTube's pre-blessed soundtrack music, and edit my videos to include that prior to uploading.

Do you always use a straight white, or might you sometimes tint it towards the body color?

[Allen H.]

Thanks! I got to watch the video right as soon as it was available last night... I think I may have been your first viewer. I wondered about the silence, and then I thought you might have had a copyright flag thing going on. That's why I went and downloaded a bunch of YouTube's pre-blessed soundtrack music, and edit my videos to include that prior to uploading.

Do you always use a straight white, or might you sometimes tint it towards the body color?

You're welcome.

I was so pissed about when I got that message as it was late and I was tired and I wanted to get it posted yet that night, grrrrrrrr.
I didn't even give it a thought.
It was my first video tutorial that I've made, so I wasn't too upset that is got muted in that respect, as I didn't do a very good job with the vocals.
I'm not a wizard of words or a good speaker anyway.

But I'll try to do better in the next couple of videos.

Yeah I like the music you add to your videos. I done searches for free music but I get caught up in it as there is more than enough, then I wind up wasting time listening to music instead being more productive.

As for the white, I bought the Titanium by mistake the first time, I wanted to get what they call a "Mixing White" It's a softer white, not as stark as the Titanium. But the other colors seem to blend it down after the application, so I've continued on with it.

Do you always use a straight white, or might you sometimes tint it towards the body color?

I have heard of others doing this and it makes complete sense. I just haven't done it yet, but it's on my weathering bucket list. I need to get some Primary colors to mix with, otherwise you'd go broke buying all the different paint colors.

Another color that could work good is an off white or antique white, even a Sandy Beige might work.
Pele Soeborg used a beige for a faded look on a lot of his stuff, so it should work.
I think the reasoning behind it was it wasn't a stark white?

The cars are now ready for the first coat of brown, so I'm gonna see about get the next video worked on.

[WP&P]

Yeah I like the music you add to your videos. I done searches for free music but I get caught up in it as there is more than enough, then I wind up wasting time listening to music instead being more productive.

YouTube makes it ridiculously hard to find, but keep poking around and you can get to their Audio Library, that's where most of my stuff has come from. The hard part is listening to it all and picking out useful tracks, you're right, that tends to take up a lot more time than it should. If it weren't for the copyright issues, we'd all just use the music that we're already familiar with and that we like.

[Metrolink]

Very nicely done! What camera and NLE software did you use?

[Allen H.]

Thanks!
LOL.....my iPhone7 rubber banded to my tripod.
Microcrap's Movie Maker.

I got the first coat of brown applied last night.
I did a bit better job this time and moved the camera to the left side so my hand didn't block the view.

I just need to clean it up a bit.

[WP&P]

Microcrap's Movie Maker.

This is what I use as well, and it's frustrating how many limitations it has in comparison to iMovie, which I have used at work. The way it hangs elements on the timeline, you can get some weird behavior if you don't do your edits in the right order. You might have a caption that starts under one still image, then extends across the next still image, and maybe even onto the next; say you've got three images that are each up for 4 seconds, and a caption that is set to be up for 10 seconds. If you go and change the first image to be only 3 seconds long, well guess what, your caption is also now only 3 seconds long. UGH. The various elements (clips, captions, music track) are not independently pinned to the timeline, but rather contingent on one another, so when you make an edit over here, it shifts things around over there, that kind of thing. Almost forces you to edit linearly; get your intro fully done before you work on the middle or the end. Whereas, I'd love to have pre-built intros and outros, and just muddle over the middle content. I also cannot figure out a way to have songs overlap, so that one fades out as another fades in; you always have to go to silence between tracks. And there's no free-form Ken Burns-style pan/zooming, you are stuck with their presets. And there doesn't appear to be any way to crop an image, so if you don't have the right aspect ratio to begin with, you'll end up with black bars.

All of these things are easy and intuitive in iMovie, it almost makes me want to do all of my editing on the work computer. But still, WMM can get the job done, if you keep your expectations low.

[ScottL]

Looking forward to the next installment, this is great stuff!

[WP&P]

Also, tell me if it's just me, but my experience has been that the sound volumes of the clips versus the music tracks are skewed while editing, making it pretty much guesswork whether the mix is right. The balance between the audio embedded within a video clip versus an overlaid music track just sounds entirely different in the final exported MP4 or MOV file, compared to how it sounds while editing. I've had complaints on my videos regarding this balance, even though I crank the embedded audio all the way up and the music track down to like 10%.

[Allen H.]

All of these things are easy and intuitive in iMovie, it almost makes me want to do all of my editing on the work computer. But still, WMM can get the job done, if you keep your expectations low.

Haven't done enough video to really get into the weeds with it, but I find it very limited to work with after seeing what others have done with iMovie.
I have it on my phone, but I couldn't see editing a video on my damn phone....

You're right - Low Expectations.

[Allen H.]

Also, tell me if it's just me, but my experience has been that the sound volumes of the clips versus the music tracks are skewed while editing, making it pretty much guesswork whether the mix is right. The balance between the audio embedded within a video clip versus an overlaid music track just sounds entirely different in the final exported MP4 or MOV file, compared to how it sounds while editing. I've had complaints on my videos regarding this balance, even though I crank the embedded audio all the way up and the music track down to like 10%.

I've noticed that a bit as well...

- - - Updated - - -

Looking forward to the next installment, this is great stuff!

I'm working on editing the second video on the first layer of brown tonight Scott.

[Allen H.]

OK, the third video is ready to go.

This one covers the application of the Burnt Umber coat. I like to think of it as a Dirt or Grime coat.
It's applied in the same as the first two but I prefer to remove most of it like what I did with the White wash or fade coat.

As I mention in the video, the Burnt Umber can be kind of dark, so if one wanted to there is no reason not to add some white or yellow to lighten it up a bit.

In awhile I'll start applying the Pain or actual Rust. In the meantime here's the 3rd video.

[Allen H.]

I finished up the fourth video last night.
This one covers the rusty roofs, scrapes and scratches on the car sides.

I got a little carried away with the first side of the SBV car, but backed it down on the other side.
Once this dries for a few days I'll shoot another coat of sealer on it and then go back with a little more Chalks and/or weathering powders.
I'm almost done.

[The Ol' Curmudgeon]

Thanks for the tutorial, Allen!

[MeanOldMan]

Just trying to post

[kd4vrz]

Very nice article Allen