Weathering Models with Chalk Pastels by Elliott Winthrop
marder38(at)xtra(dot)co(dot)nz

The pastels come in half length square sticks from any Stationery or Art Store either in a box set or individual sticks (Less than a dollar a stick).   I have not found a suitable dust or dry dirt colour but have found mixing a Bright Yellow Roche pastel with a Light Grey at a 50/50 ratio, Giving a very good realistic shade. This is a quick and cheap way to weather your models is to brush on Chalk pastel dust either dry or wet. Here is how…

Firstly use a blade and scrape each stick to skim off the pastel into a little dust pile (5/6 scrapes on each stick will give you enough ‘Dust’ to work with).

At this point you can add water to make a paste if you want a heavy coating and to help the dust stick into treads of tyres etc.

Once you have finished painting and adding your decals and covered your model with a Matt coat, a dry brushing will be enough just to get into all the details for the top half of any vehicle.

Any excess can be dusted off with a cleaner brush or the natural oil on your fingertips to clean the centre of larger panels still leaving dust around rivets and bolt details etc.

Dusting the vehicle make it quite light so you need to start with a dark base, Here on this Milicast M5 Stuart, I used Tamiya Olive Drab with a Black base coat and only a small amount of Dark Yellow.

On this Dodge Ambulance I have left the rear tyre without dusting to show how much more detail you show off with the dirt in the treads, (and a few fingerprints!).

Once you have finished you can seal it up with another Matt coat.

Classic pictures of rather dusty Armour in North Africa and Italy can be seen on:

http://images.google.com/images?sa=4&imgc=&imgsz=&q=El+Guettar+source%3Alife

(Of course Overlord in Normandy and Barbarossa in Russia were in the middle of a dusty Summers too!).

Other colour can be used for other thing too, Like Black for Soot & a Orange/Red for Rust.

Robin Buckland has used Green & Red/Brown for camouflage (A good option for those without airbrushes) on his website Small Scale Scene.

Happy modelling!

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Article Last Updated: 1 January 2009