Covering up fold lines and edges

[Don Boose]

Every one of these suggestions by masters is a good one and all of these techniques work. I primarily use the Faber-Castell Pitt brush pens, but in recent years, based on the advice of Allan Wheeler, I have increasingly used Caran d'Ache Neocolor wsater-soluble wax pastels. They are expensive, but one will last a long time. You can sharpen the point to get in small places, and it covers the gray dashed lines that appear on some models. When I sharpen one of them, I collect the scrapings in a little water color tray and add a drop of water. I can then apply with a brush like opaque water color or gouache. Since it is opaque, it covers a multitude of sins and since it is water soluble wax, it also fills in narrow spaces if my fit isn't exactly perfect (and it never is).

They are available from Dick Blick and many other places.
Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Artists' Crayons - BLICK art materials

Don

[Bomarc]

I've been doing the acrylic model paint routine lately, but I'm intrigued by these Neocolor pastels of Don's. What set do you have Don? They certainly come in a large range of colors. Are you able to match your work with a "crayon" straight from the tray, or can exact mixing be accomplished with different pastels?

Mike

[Don Boose]

Mike - After hearing about these from Allan, I went to the late lamented Blick store in Camp Hill and bought half a dozen of colors in the olive drab, gray, and maritime blue ranges plus some primary colors. At my level of skill, I tend to pick one that's close to the color of the model and lay on. Since all my models tend to be battleweary (JimG's kind term for a lumpy and misshapen Boose model), I guess it's okay. Having said that, because they are water soluble, you can mix 'em in an infinite variety of shades.

Incidentally, I often just wet a brush and run it alongside the crayon and then use it on the model. That what I was doing with the Universal Carrier. As a result, many of my crayons look kind of melted from that treatment.

Don

[cotlet]

As an another option to consider I suggest tempera paint. I bought a set of basic opaque colors in the Pearlpaint for less then $15. It's water soluble, dries matte, and if you initially treat paper with any acrylic spray, you're able to wipe off any excess with a damp q-tip. Unlike with watercolors (maybe it's only my experience), colors don't change after drying, and are very stable overtime. You get what you mixed.

[bagpiper]

Great stuff. Looks like I have a lot of experimenting to do. Appreciate all the input on this topic. Many splendid ideas.

Thanks again to all of you.

Cheers
Jim

[Swampfox]

I have posted an image of my color matching setup. The book is one I put together many years ago. It shows one page of about 70 that have the colors arranged by what they look like coming out of the tubes, 3 of which can be seen in the image. I only use 12 colors total, and mix EVERY color I need by mixing no more than 3 colors. It's easier to stay in control of your mixing of color and results in virtually no waste of color.

This works with ANY medium, I use Gouache (pronounced Gah-wash). It's water soluble, and is very opaque.

The creation of the color samples in the book is what takes the longest, BUT, I can guarantee you will never have problems mixing any color again.

Also seen in the image is my color mixing tray. Anything waterproof works. This one just makes position of the colors more logical.

[Lex]

Actually... I love swampfox's idea, is it possible to elaborate on how exactly to make use of this colour mixing texhnique?

[Swampfox]

Lex, thanks for your interest.

I was a Scientific Illustrator for about 25 years and one of the first "projects" a wet behind the years SI gets to do is to make up a personal color match book for use throughout their career.

Let me get together some info, links and comments and I can send it directly to you or I could post it to the group if others are interested.

It's not really very exciting work unless you get your thrills taking notes, mixing colors and doing it over and over again.

It took me about 6 months, working 5-8 hours a week to get mine done, but then I did many more mix combinations than you'd probably need for card modeling. (opps sorry, Paper modeling;-)

Give me a few days.

[bagpiper]

Originally Posted by Swampfox

Lex, thanks for your interest.

I was a Scientific Illustrator for about 25 years and one of the first "projects" a wet behind the years SI gets to do is to make up a personal color match book for use throughout their career.

Let me get together some info, links and comments and I can send it directly to you or I could post it to the group if others are interested.

It's not really very exciting work unless you get your thrills taking notes, mixing colors and doing it over and over again.

It took me about 6 months, working 5-8 hours a week to get mine done, but then I did many more mix combinations than you'd probably need for card modeling. (opps sorry, Paper modeling;-)

Give me a few days.

YES PLEASE..
I am sure that a lot of us would be interested in that post mate. Thanks for the offer. Please post it in the forum for all of us to see it if you would be so kind.

Looking forward to it.

Cheers
Jim

[bagpiper]

Well! After getting home from work, a wonderful thing happened to me when I went shopping at Hobby Lobby!. They had run out of the black Pitts Pen with the brush nib I was going to start practicing on. What this forced me to do was try something else.

After reading all these posts I realized I need to stop thinking of these models as paper but instead, think of them as models. So I had a go at a kind of weathering on the edges of a tower I build a couple of days ago.

The images below show; in order; edge with huge white gaps (sorry it is not the same edge but trust me they all looked like this). Next picture is after I used the pencils I had at home and a little water. Next 3 pictures is the tools I used. lol

Amazing thing is that when the pencils are dipped in water they turn into a kind of paint! Fancy that! The pencils also go on without having to rub hard to get the "lead" of the pencil onto the model. Wow!. lol

So with a lot of help from you guys and a little bit of "thinking outside the box" I was able to get the edge looking like the second picture. I show all the colours I used to get the effect on the edge. No shine and some nice rusty weathered effect in about 2 minutes. And no dotted line to be seen. Will probably do the rest of the model but will probably finish the Bates House now I know how to get rid of the edges.

Thanks again team for all your wonderful support. I am loving the feeling that these are real models and not just bits of paper pretending to be.

Cheers all
Jim