I made some more progress on this kit over the last couple days...
I ran into a few snags which I ended up working through and it came out ok.
I added the overlay brick detail for the sides and the corners. It adds some character to an otherwise pretty boring brick rectangle.
The side detail..
I painted the walls with a mix of Reaper Ruddy Brown and Boxcar Red. Everything was going fine then the walls started warping like crazy. These brick overlays are very thin and the way the brick runs horizontal with the grain of the wood just makes it really prone to warping. My initial reaction to something like this is to try to fix it right when it's happening. Experience has taught me I'm better off walking away, letting it dry and then figuring out how much damage is really done. It also gives me a little time to think of a solution.
The next morning I came down and the walls had settled a bit. I used small screwdriver to pull the warped spots up high enough to get some wood glue under the areas that separated. I used some of these tweezers to clamp the raised spots down. I let each section dry and repeated this process for all the warped sections.
The warping is corrected and I wanted to start weathering to walls. My traditional approach to weathering brick would be some really thin washes of tans mixed with gray or black made thin enough to wick into all the mortar joints then I would add some different reddish colors to the brick. At this point I'm not really interested in adding anything wet to the walls if I can help it. You can see in this picture the peaked walls warped at the top even after I adding bracing.
I used some dry rembrandt chalk powder to weather the walls a bit. I used a few different shades of brown and tan and a little bit of a brick red color.
I applied the same chalks to the rest of the structure. This is the first phase of the weathering, I'll be adding some more colors to the brick subtly.
I added the windows and doors. I colored them with a marsh green craft paint applied with a torn makeup sponge followed by some chalk weathering. I also touched up a few bricks with a dark gray to represent some overcooked bricks.
The kit comes with several stencils. This one is on the rear of the structure. The instructions call for coloring the area behind the stencils first with black or gray followed by the lettering in white.
I masked off the area where the black would go first using the stencil as a guide.
The gray is painted on.
The stencil is self adhesive so I stuck it to the wall. I painted the letting by using a stiff brush with a good amount of paint removed applied with a stipple motion.
The off-white is Linen colored craft paint.
The sign has its first bit of weathering to blend it into the wall. I'm going to follow it up with some dry-brushing to fade it a bit I think. This back wall stencil is the practice for the front wall so I'll be trying a few things. This wall will not be visible when the building is installed on the layout.
Lesson learned here..as little wet as possible with these kits especially the thinner pieces. I have a yard tower kit from them as well I plan to build. I'm wondering if priming the walls first would help with the warpage or just make it worse. I've had good luck in the past with brick by priming it a khaki color to represent mortar and almost dry brushing the surface with brick color instead of coloring it brick and adding the mortar with a wash last. Either way I'm going to have to be careful with the next one.
Thanks for following along. Next step is finishing the signs and adding the roof.
