Question for the weathering experts

[JohnU]

I decided to try my hand at some weathering and picked up some Tamiya weathering sets at hobby lobby. I checked out some YouTube videos for some instruction and kinda got the gist of it, just need to practice. The question I have and isn’t clear anywhere is, if these powders can be thinned somehow. I was expecting a consistency of something like my wife’s eyeshadow makeup. This stuff seems much harder and doesn’t pickup on the applicator very well. I should say, some colors do better than others but just not consistent for one to the other. I realize this is a dry-ish application but it’s not picking up very well so, I thought if I could dip the applicator in some thinner it would pick up and apply better. Any ideas before I experiment and possibly ruin the stuff would be helpful. It’s a little pricier than I expected! Thanks!

[SfanGoch]

Tamiya weathering sets are overhyped and overpriced for what you get. They're nothing more than soft pastels. That said, you can use a chisel blade to lightly scrape the surface of the color, resulting in a fine powder which can then be applied with a brush, sponge applicator or Q-Tip. You can't thin them. If you do, you'll end up with a thick, mud-like viscous mess. You also can't seal them with any type of clearcoat because the pastel powders will absorb the clear, causing them to darken and look like a thin coat of flat paint.

You can get the same, if not better, results using standard artist's soft pastel sticks. They are made with pigments held together with a binder, just like the Tamiya stuff; but, are far more inexpensive and you'll have just about every color needed for weathering any type of model. You can scrape and apply the resulting powder in the same manner as the Tamiya products.

 

If you're interested, I can provide you with info on other weathering products which are superior to what Tamiya has.

[Monty]

  On 1/15/2022 at 7:38 PM, SfanGoch said:

If you're interested, I can provide you with info on other weathering products which are superior to what Tamiya has.

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Thanks for your post.  I was also going to inquire about the use of the Tamiya weathering stuff, so I'll take you up on your offer.

 

[Paul Payne]

Good to know about dull coat turning weathering powder into a dull paint like mess. However, I seem to recall that people do fix their weathering with dull coat, so a bit of confusion- comments?

[SfanGoch]

Spraying dullcoat won't turn the weathering powder into a mess. What I wrote was that the powders will absorb the clear, causing them to darken and look like a thin coat of flat paint. These weathering powders aren't meant to be handled after application because, being a powder, they will come off and you'll end up with fingerprints where they were applied.