Posted 24 November 2012 - 08:57 PM
Many thanks everyone, your fine comments are very cool.
Regarding the front end I used the hair spray method - first I payed down a mottled coat of rust colours, browns blacks and oranges to give it a natural look rather than being uniform. I then sealed that with a clear matt coat ( testors dullcoat) to give it some protection from the next couple of stages. Hair spray (being challenged in that area myself means that I had to make a special purchase) was then used to cover it in a thin layer. I then sprayed the whole area grey but kept it uniform, some areas were think others so thin you could see the brown underneath.
Using warm water and a stiff brush I then wore the grey paint away in a random pattern just leaving enough to still some grey and some brown. The hairspray acts as a sacrificial barrier that almost melts away under some warm water and scrubbing. I then used a white soft pencil to do the chalk marks. Using some orange colours and a sponge I enhanced the rust effects in a few locations and then painted a few streaks as well.
For the welds I sprayed very thin lines of black over each seam, then painted the actual weld silver and finally applied a thinned wash of black paint along the seam (to settle in the low spots).
Phew, sounds like a pain when written out but it's one of those things you do where the results are very satisfying to see step by step.