Over Weathering

[StephenLawson]

Greetings to all good reasonable sorts.

The subject of whether to weather or not can be seen specifically as a matter of taste. Ever note the different types of art one will find in one friend or another's house? The types of painting styles tend to vary from artist to artist and from popular age to popular age. Impressionistic, realistic, neo, pop, and others. In our vein one likey candidate were the machines from the film the Blue Max (1966) Next time you view it check out MvR's tripe in the "on the ground sequences." Holy patchwork Batman... MikeW has posted a fine example of a land based Naval bird. Some units kept up with the "...if it doesn't move, paint it ...if it does move salute it" credo.

Aircraft by aircraft we do have to examine the timeline of when a machine is being depicted. If it is new at the factory , at the depot, in service and how far into its service life are we looking. Take for instance Alb.D. V 1162/17 a Jasta 4 machine that was highly photographed in its life span. Photos exist of the machine in throughout nearly all of its service duty evn as a POW undergoing type tests in British markings. Another was Pfalz D. III 1370/17 of Jasta 10. The various states of its degeneration are well documented. Vibrations to cowlings oil stains, exhaust, scrapping away burnt castor oil its all relative to the condition a machine is in, at various points in it's existence. The image of the MS "N" posted elsewhwere on this this title is striking and shows that the modeler has a great deal of talent. I would not have gone that far but I can't fault him or (to be politically correct) her for their efforts. Nicely done that!

On IPMS and their judging, even members recognize that 25mm figure painting has influenced the model building craft as a whole. This is where we have gotten the deep or harsh shadows and contrasting colour highlights that were scoffed at in the 1960's and part of the 1970's. Is it a fad? Not likely. The pendulum of public oppinion may swing back the other direction in the future to a more conservative approach but we can count on The "Verlinden way" or "IPMS-isized technique" being with us to one degree or another from here on out. While I am a fan of subtle effects being more useful to the single build this can gety lost ptetty quickly in a diorama where multiple aircraft models in a setting have to be looked at as a whole. Just my opinion mind you.

[JohnReid]

Weathering can be used in many ways,especially in dioramas.On aircraft I generally like to be subtle.In my Albatros and Nieuport dioramas I used weathering to highlight the contrast between old and new,order and chaos in a military type setting.With the Canuck barnstormer I plan to be a little less subtle in weathering.Here I am dealing with aircraft that are at least 10 years old and unless they spent all that time in their crates ,they should show a lot of wear and tear.In the diorama, some parts will look new as though they have been replaced,other areas such as cockpit flooring will show lots of wear.By depicting an aircraft under construction or rebuild ,you have a lot of options open for more creative weathering, as well as being able to tell little stories within the big storyline.Personally,I love the airbrushed faded look on fabric as long as it is subtle and not overdone,especially on military aircraft.On barnstormers however,anything goes.Man,how some of those aircraft stayed airworthy is beyond me.As my dad used to say,good thing the termites were holding hands!Cheers! John.

[StephenLawson]

The nice thing about hypothetical schemes is that you can let yourself go in many respects. The images presented here are of a beat up Fokker Dr.I for the German air park diorama that I m working on bit by bit. Now this is overweathered for the single purpose to place next to a new aircraft with the notion that the old is getting traded for the new. Weathering even overweathering has its place.

[StephenLawson]

Here is the other side. Note the staining from the supposed castor oil spray and the contrasting colours chosen. The reason many stains are contrasting is that these are the portions of the spray that don't match the surrounding areas they cover.

[StephenLawson]

Again from the rear quarter this time the pilot's right side we study the weathering patterns. Noting the severe condition of scrapping off of the burned castor oil and wear especially for rotary engined machines one has to consider the everyday maintenance needed just to keep the airframe worthy. No wonder Voss' F.103/17 looked so shabby after a few weeks at the front. It is also the reason that A. Imrie believes it was overpainted in some portion during its last days. The line up of Jasta 12 at the turn in of their Dr.I types in late summer 1918 shows marked weathering.

[StephenLawson]

The subtle means that I used for this build were;

I chose scrap pieces from two separate DML kits that I had purchased from Aerodrome members in different parts of the country.

One fellow had tried to paint his kit and was unhappy with the coverage so it had experienced the 17th Law of modeling. "...17.) Tossing a finished, expensive model kit against the furthest wall in your basement at 90mph is the most sincerest form of self-criticism. But doesn't live up to the acclaimed rush that is supposed to follow..." He then scrapped the kit clean but later lost interest in the build.

Another fellow had separated the cowling area (for the middle wing spar) from his kit. Then he glued a middle section of sprue to between the wings. The middle cowling portion was missing when I got the kit so I fabricated one from toolers aluminum. There is a pronounced twist here.

The Dr.I cowling and engine are from the Aerobase kit. Wheels are from an early Eduard Alb. D.V kit. All of this just to add to the questionable differences in this build's profile. These images were taken last December (2004) so you will see the finished version in the near future.

Over Weathering. I'm not sure there is such a thing. When you depict something it's relative... Would we say over aging because a figure was drawn too 'old'? I shouldn't think so (unless it was beyond the item's/person's lifespan: a Alb. D.Va drawn flying with most of the structure showing (like a ghost plane that had been flying for 90 years) as the horse Death rides is sometimes depicted partially as a skeleton, or perhaps MvR if he'd made it too his 80th Birthday...)

At any rate, I might thrown into the ring my Bachelor's field of study was theatrical lighting design and looking at the wonderful photo's attached to this thread brought to mind how even more so lighting effects when photo's are taken can authenticate a 'weathered' model. Specifically, one photo technique that came to mind was from an old treasury of Model Railroad book I have that shows time lapse work using smoke (sometimes just using cotton) and light. The use of a tiny lightbulb on a black popsicle stick held such and such a way and more importantly for the shot - a smoking (I think it was an incense stick) can result in realistic shadows and smoke and lighting effects that make a shot very, Very moving and memorable - realistic.

My point being - weathering can only increase the realism, the more detail the more real. Everyone likes 'new things' but a 'vintage' aircraft embraces the heart and it tells a story of what it's been through. Not a streak, not a dent, not a bullet hole means it isn't what it's supposed to be. It's the imperfections in everything that makes it believeable, everything has shadows, tarnish, quirks...

Lighting can be tricky, the hardest problem to overcome being too diffuse a lighting environment resulting in poorly defined shadows. It can become complicated - shooting a dawn patrol early morning (or late evening) scene: tungsten lights, a flash with a corrective filter taped over then lens (to freeze the motion of the fog) but with a good digital camera and a few adobe photoshop changes anything is possible - without weathering it still says its a fiece of plastic in the picture... Weathering adds character, and the More the Better!

[Tim West]

Dirty is better
Keep in mind we are talking about WWI planes, not carrier based jets

Most photos I have seen, show combat aircraft in various degrees of distress. It was highly possible for a plane to become "weathered" during its service life. Just look at the photos.

[NeilE]

Hi All;

I do think we need to be very careful here. 'The more weathering the better and the more realistic the model argument' is a slippery slope indeed. I think we've all seen models which have offended our subjective judgement because the weathering, the panel line details were just way overdone. I was looking at someone's model of a 1/48 Heinkel 219 recently and if you actually scaled up the panel lines on the kit, the plane would be flying with great gaps between the panels all over the aircraft - if such an aircraft could get off the ground of course.

I agree that weathering is essentially a theatric artifice but unless you are using a series of walkaround photos of the aircraft you are modelling and your weathering is based on that, your 'realistic effect' becomes mostly speculation. I guess its purest form is as has been mentioned above - for fictional schemes.

I also tend to do less rather than more because most of what we see (deliberately so for effect) is also over scale (as with the panel lines mentioned above)

Weathering in some cases represents a moment in time for the aircraft represented - possibly a brief period after (for example) the Squadron Leader's Se5a has landed and the ground crew have began work on the machine, amongst other things cleaning off the exhaust and cordite stains. I guess what I am getting at is that a dirty look is not always a constant in an aircraft's life either. And a mostly cleanly finished model may well be equally, and at times, more valid, than a heavily weathered model.

I am not against weathering at all - I usually weather my models for a bit of extra interest but I don't believe it increases the models 'realism' (rather it increases the model's impressionistic artistic effect) and also believe there is a very definite point of, and to, restraint in that pursuit.

All the Best

Regards

Neil

[Barker]

This discussion, those like it, are constant.

Our models are Illusions - even the very best models of their kind - are not real.

and so

Some prefer or need more - or less - illusion than others.
Any modeler can benefit and adjust their own taste level in looking at as many other efforts as possible.

This forum is one such place.



I know what I like, but that does not mean it's a universal preference.
And vice versa.