I've reached that point that I dread the most...weathering. I worry that I'll either under weather or over weather and will ruin the whole thing. So, I thought I would show it to you guys and see what you think. I used artist chalks and then dry brushed.

Later guys
Steve

Looks good, but you could probably push it more. Chipped paint, a little rusting, The lower hull is highly subjective. I like to weather it as the lower hull on a ship might really be, which is very faded and sometimes dirty with a scum line. But I noticed in ship modeling that it is accepted to weather the upper hull more than the lower hull.

Here's an ecample of what I did with my 1/125 u-boat:

http://homepage.mac.com/jess13/PhotoAlbum51.html

Jess

Looks good to me Steven. Don't stress out on it. I think you did a great job on it. Garry would be proud!. I would touch up around the limber hole undet the conning tower in the third picture though. Great job again Steven. Keep them coming

First of all, I'm not a Submariner.. but I feel that the way to weather a sub follows these lines.
A sub goes out to sea for a relatively short period (due to constraints of fuel and provisions) and will be maintained /refitted in port more often than a ship.
Paint chips would not be a big occurance, any Captain worth his boot will have the crew do maintainance at any giving moment. (Much like tanks, hint for those armour heads looking in who like to make their armour look like it been sat in a junk yard for 15 years..) Rust streaks are, from those spots (like rivets, hinges, bolts etc.. ) which are exposed to constant or regular exposure ( Boot,...Water..., you get the drift) Streaks would follow the flow of the water, i.e. angled down and to the rear ( sorry, Stern.. )
Another thing to add would be salt stains, like scum lines, at those edges where the water would sit for a prolonged time.

Cheers
Henk

Hi Scott, Jess, and Henk.

I went ahead and dry brushed a little more to bleach out the top of the tanks (as they would have in the Pacific) and the raised sections of the deck and other fittings. I held off on adding too much more rust. I thought I would send a photo or two to Frank (WWII submariner) and see what he thought.

Scott, To tell you the truth, I'm kind of proud of how it's turning out as well. Although, I'm not so sure I'll have the Typhoon et.al finished before the campaign's end.

How was Anniston? Any photos? Don't worry...I'll suck it up and not snivel over the decay...too much.

Take care guys
Steve

Hi Steve,
I think you have done a really nice job on the weathering, I tend to think less is better as it is easy just to go that little bit too far which ruins the whole effect. Very nice job
Mike

Thanks Mike!
I too agree that it's easy to overweather and I have a nasty habit of over doing it. It's always that.."well, maybe just a wee bit more here and there." that gets me into trouble.
Take care and Happy VE-Day
Steve

Steve



She looks fine just as she is!
You did a great job on this one!!
The postshading gives that extra feeling of depth.

The saltlines sound like a possibility to do, but with a change of ruining a perfectly good model, I'd just leave it like it is.

Yeah Steven I have photos but mostly of the training area. The base has been sold off to the town and the houses are all taken care of. The barracks and the other areas are over grown but not gone. The motor pool and rail head are in limited use so its not too bad. I have been told I am going back down again in the fall for 2 more clases. I will take photos of those areas again. Down town Anniston seems to be doing well. I didn't go into town to eat or drink just passed threw LOL.

I must praise Henk for his comments. Modelers tend to greatly overweather their models, especially tanks. I think your weathering for the sub is dead-on. As has been said, ships were only out a couple of months at longest. In port it would be repaintd as needed. Tanks were used hard, but as to the extent of rusting I see so often, not very bloody likely. Filthy...you betcha

Thanks Steve. Glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that the 'chipping maddness' is getting out of hand. . Don't get me wrong, some of these models look very attractive, but many people seem to think that it's accurate, and start to copy it, and do a little bit more than the previous one etc. etc. AFV's (would) get very dirty, paint will fade or bleach, mud builds up and some spots will get polished or rubbed. Just don't wash your car for two weeks to see the effect of a thick layer of dust, with rain etc, and than try to imagine a vehicle under constant battle conditions. Filthy, oh yes, chipped and rusted? oh no..

Anyway, sorry to go on about this , back to the sub.....

Cheers
Henk

I made similar comments a few weeks ago. Someone had done an M60a1 and rusted the fenders. As an ex-tank platoon leader I commented that if it had been one of my tanks, the sergeant would have been article 15'd. These wepons of war/vehicles are our homes. We take care of them the best we can under circumstances. Rust is very bad, during lulls in activity it would get buffed out and painted over....especially on a ship. So, as I said earlier Steve your weathering is perfect for your sub.

I think that the level of weathering depended very much on the ship and time. Look at some pictures of flower class corvettes or other escorts on convoy duty and you will see that they looked very battered indeed due to the conditions they were at sea in and the short time they had in port. The larger capital ships tended to be better kept although they were still pretty scruffy looking in wartime on occasion. It is also worth bearing in mind that weathering of the superstructure would be much less as this could be attended to whilst at sea, the hull was much more difficult to keep in good condition so would generally be the area of heaviest wear. To my mind it would be incorrect to show ships in peacetime periods heavily weathered as in reality this would very rarely happen.

I think the problem with weathering on ships is that a lot of people equate this to rust, but this is very easy to overdo and I have seen some garish colours used to represent it! Study photographs of heavily weathered ships and you will see this mostly takes the form of streaking of the paintwork, top coats of paint being removed and showing those underneath, blurring of sharp edges on patterns, and fading. This can all be represented with a light touch with fine emery paper and use of pastels. The trick with all of this is to try and make it look like weathering, not just a poor paint job in the first place!

Mike

Hi Steve(s) and all!

For Steve (95Bravo):
You have done a great job! First of all you're finishing a model, and even with all the problems in the process, I know you had FUN!!

For All:
Considering this weathering discussion (a friendly one!) I would like to say that I agree with your inputs, regarding the kind of weatherings and the weathering process of particular vessels types and classes!

I would like also to add that in subs it's a little bit different. Although they spent most time in port/harbour when they went to their missions (and I am refering to WWII subs only) the conditions would make the weathering to rapidly appear!

But I agree with all, when it is said that sometimes modelers overdone the rusting and weathering - Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa
But I like them like this (my subs)
I could make them in the begining of the mission and they would look like almost pristine... but I tend (now) to dislike them like this - they seemed a little "flat" - but is a question of personal like/dislike!
I am still capable of recognizing a well built model without all that rust, dought!

Skipper

Hi Skipper
Just a thought on what you said about subs and weathering, I have seen hundreds of photos of heavily weathered surface ships but can't really remember seeing many of similar subs. Does anyone have any good photos for reference?


This one is pretty well weathered by the way
http://www.historicwarships.org/displaypage.asp?page=32

A'vast thar, matey! (Did I say that right?) A good looking model, as is.

Before deciding on weathering, decide if you want the boat just out of port on a sortie, midway through the sortie, or heading home with broomsticks affixed?

If the former, you are set. The mid, I suggest a bit more streaking and rust.

If the latter, I suggest trying to get ahold of History Channel's WWII IN Color: Submarines. There are some shots of these weapons returning with huge patches of paint missing. The rust appears everything from fresh bright orange, to dark brown.

To see an example of my weather, look at the fenders of my tank:

MY TANK

An article I like is from Steel Navy:
Steel Navy WXing

Ahoy All Mates

I like this friendly discussions
This is the spirit

So, here it goes:
Mike, U-534 is like that only because it is in Birkenhead, and you have a bad climate up there
(jocking, Mate)

Now for real:
I just made a google search, and if needed I'll see my books and will state the name and page (I will not scan book pages, for obvious legal reasons):
U-505

U-552 before and after

Unknown VII-C (note the bow)

Conning Tower of a VII-B

nice VII-C chiped paint

My point here is that, when on patrol, a sub always suffered some stress to the "looks", more than surface ships And this search only included U-boats, there's also lot's of Gato and Balao arriving (with the Broom atop) in "bad condition", too...
As always the modeler have an Artistic License when painting and weathering is sub.. even if he's making the U-534

Skipper

HI Everyone!

Well, the Gato is almost finished. I only need to rig the wires from the antenna and attach the props and re attach the dive planes.

In regards to this discussion, I've taken the advice of everyone and have reached a compromise in which a little bit of everyone's suggestions have been applied. So, in essence, this a sub that has been built by a committee. As a result...we have a platypus. :-)

I've added some more rust yet kept it subtle as well as lightened some of the flat surfaces. The only problem I had were the decals. As soon as the Solva-Set hit them they disintegrated . So, no depth markings. All in all, I think it's coming out somewhat respectable and is worthy of being included with the fantastic work I've seen in this campaign and on Armorama.

In my opinion, this sub represents everything that is fantastic about this web site. All of the encouragement, the helpful advice, and the friendship that is formed here, produced a model that I do not believe would have looked as nice had I not been a part of this community.

Thank you, everyone.
A Happy Camper
Steve

Ahoy Steve!!!

I am glad you almost finish - just run that extra mile and finish it!

The one who is always pushing:

Skipper

EDIT: Hey Steve, what hapened to your gallery pics?

Hi Steve,

As far as you know, my speciality is UBoats and I haven't built any US ship boats yet.

Looking at your pictures I think I have too. :-)

Your boat looks perfect to me.

Thanks for inspiring.

RE: rusting and weathering submarines

We already run a little discussion with Skipper about weathering/rusting German subs.

To make desidion how to paint/rust/weather the model depends upon so many factors, that I gave up to count and build my last model without any effects applied at all.

When we look at different pictures we see the particular boat at exact moment of time. I run a liitle research myself for better understanding of such a diferences in weathering at the pictures and was surprising how complex issue is. I just decided to use artictic licence for now, and completly agree with Skipper on this.


--Boris

Which ones? All of those that were in the posts should still be there. I haven't loaded any to my gallery yet, I've been linking from my web page.


Yo ho ho and a four day weekend!
I plan to model till I puke!......
Steve

Hi Skipper
Those are some very interesting photos, especially the last one, thanks for taking the time to find them. I think with subs it may be a case of the hull not being all that visible, I assume it is more so in the last case with the boat returning after patrol so presumably sitting a little higher in the water because of reduced fuel load etc.

By the way my T-class for the campaign is almost finished but is shown, er, fresh out of port!

Mike