Weathering Cloth and Leather

[Glen]

Howdy all,

I am using Andrea, Vallejo, and Reaper paints and I generally paint my medieval figures in a fairly clean condition with clothing and equipment in good condition. Before the battle and things got nasty, so to speak. My weathering is usually limited to some minor dirt and dust around footwear, cloak edges, and some minor cuts on the shields. The only exceptions to this are when the sculpt shows wear-and-tear (such as Andrea's 54mm Wounded Knight at Agincourt or Pegaso's 54mm Irish Knight).

I would like to change this a bit. I'm looking at fading the cloth; adding some mud/dirt/dust effects to the clothing, equipment, hands, and face; and distressing/scuffing the leather belts and shoes. So...

What colors are used to fade a cloth color without making it look like an out-of-place highlight? (I've read about some people using a caucasian flesh tone to fade reds.)

I would think that dust and dirt effects are specific to a geographical area, but are there any generic colors for Europe and the Middle East? is it better to apply them over the cloth color or mix them into the cloth color paint?

How do you make brown leather footwear and belting appear old and dusty/dirty?

I'd like to open this for general discussion, since I think it would help a lot of painters besides me.

Cheers,

Glen

 

[Einion]

...distressing/scuffing the leather belts and shoes.

FWIW I would rein that urge back a bit - we tend to overdo it in the hobby (especially the chipped/flaked edge on belts, which I'm guilty of myself). Only a few days ago I was looking at the pouch I keep my Victorinox in and after about a decade of daily wear it's simply not that worn!

What colors are used to fade a cloth color without making it look like an out-of-place highlight?

This is a tricky thing to do well and frankly it does often look like it's highlighting, however an obvious fade of colouring from top to bottom usually helps sell it to the viewer.

One good method I like is to mix a basic colour for the cloth as it would be if it were undyed - off-white, buff, beige or whatever - and use that. Whether you lay this down with glazes etc. or physically mix it in with the colours of the dyed cloth will have a bearing on how well it works so experiment, see how you get on; depends on the colour you're painting (and the paints you used to mix it a fair bit) how well things work.

I would think that dust and dirt effects are specific to a geographical area, but are there any generic colors for Europe and the Middle East?

I'd have to say no (other than basing things on earth pigments obviously).

Lots of us have go-to colours we simply like the look of for mud and dust; my favourite for years was a version of Raw Umber, with and without white.

is it better to apply them over the cloth color or mix them into the cloth color paint?

Differences of opinion on this. I've tried both in isolation and while I can see that mixing into the basic colour has certain advantages it's just not always necessary IMO. Because it depends on the specifics of what you're using and how you paint try stuff, see what you think yourself.

How do you make brown leather footwear and belting appear old and dusty/dirty?

I get a firm idea in my mind of what it should look like and paint that! Helpful eh? But so much depends on the way you're painting it, what the basic colour is - tan, russet, dark brown (which type?), near-black; there are hundreds of browns and ways of making them look dirty.

For dust - if you're using paint and not pastel dust or weathering powders - simply mix a light tint of some darker brown and lay it on in light glazes. Looks very convincing (as it should, since it replicates what real dust does optically) although I prefer to have the leather dirtied up underneath the dust too generally, especially at larger sizes.

Einion

 

[Glen]

Howdy Einion! Thanks for the comeback.

The type of figure weathering I'm looking for is that which occurs over the course of a campaign under varying weather and combat conditions. Clothing and equipment are faded and show use, but not to the point of being rags or rusted to point of being unusable. And to do it all using acrylic paints.

I am currently working on a Poste Militaire Conquistador and I wanted to depict him as if he'd been slogging around the jungles and mountains in southern Mexico for several months and at the end of along and tenuous supply line. I will try your top-to-bottom fading suggestion as well as the use of buff/beige to alter the colors. I'll use a glaze first; if that doesn't work for me, I'll start over and mix it in with the base color(s). Ditto for the dust/dirt effects.

The vast majority of my painting subjects are 54mm Medieval foot soldiers - the current 70mm Conquistador project is an occasional exception. I have used chalk pastels in the past, but again, this was for the light dusting around shoes, lower pant legs, and the bottom of cloaks and usally applied over a painted attempt at fading and dusting. I'll try the darker brown glazing you suggested as well. By way of clarification, by 'light tint of a darker brown' are you meaning to lighten the darker brown and then glaze it on the surface?

Ok, everyone, feel free to join in. What are your methods/techniques?

Cheers,

Glen

 

[Einion]

By way of clarification, by 'light tint of a darker brown' are you meaning to lighten the darker brown and then glaze it on the surface?

Yep, lots of white and a little brown.

Einion

 

[Glen]

Ahh... thanks for the clarification. In the past I've used tan, light brown, and light grey glazes - sometimes a mix of two or more. It seemed to work, but I'll try the darker browns as well.

This is what drove my question about area specific dust/dirt effects. Having lived in the UK, Spain, Germany and been to North Africa and Middle East, I always noticed the terrain color was different from one locale to the other. I tend to paint figures in fairly warm and dry terrain versus the snows or mud of winter.

Cheers,

Glen

 

[dinovision79]

Hi Glenn,

you got some useful ideas already, here are some of my thoughts:
- for dirt you can use various browns and greys for lighter dust, the surrounding terrain setting the colour, there are no that much specific colours in Europe (eg, in a forested enviroment use darker, or in a rocky one light colours, just use common sense). IMO mixing it in the base colours gives you a different effect, try both and pick what works better for you, or combine them. Often overlooked, think ahead, you'll have to highlight and shade dirt and dust as well, you may start out with highlight/middle tone/shadow right away and to highlited areas paint only highlight dirt (and not base dirt, then highlight it), same for shadows. Not hl/sh-ed dirt will look strange and can ruin the otherwise nicely painted contrast effect.
- painting faded effect is really not easy, to make it distinctive, use pastel colours matching the base colour (eg Vallejo Pale blue), this can look very effective with bright base colour, equally important is the enplacement of the fadings on the figure - if not the whole piece is faded, simulate the effect on shadow areas too (the effect can lighten or darken the shadows), you may try to simulate the textile pattern around the worn areas, eg checkered or spots (heavier textile) depending on the material, fading outwards from the worn spot, not only creating a subtle transition, but adding to the worn effect too, do this with both higlights and shadows. Another thing could be mixing a similar colour from pigments as the base colour, in case you can, works fine for white, could try rusts for red eg, some colours, like blue is a problem. Here too, if possible create highlight/shadow pigment mix, as pastels can seriously vanish the contrast painted previously. Use different colour for the general highlighting/shadows, than for the wear effect, if possible.
- leather wear a lot depends on the material, but lighter browns, greys are genereally good for that, for brighter colour oranges work well, there can be cracks, wear on the sides or around holes, try to look for some pics here, also real ones on the net.

Well, hope this heps
Denes

 

[Glen]

Hi Denes,

Thanks for the commentary. Every little bit helps. When fading fabric, I was trying to take into account the available dyes and dying technology of the middle ages tempered by climate, the length of a campaign, and the number of times a garment might have been washed. The first limits the number of colors on the palette, the second is driven by the figure's setting - e.g Viking in central England versus a Crusader in Jerusalem. The last two items are largely in the eye of the painter. I was hoping to get some basic acylic formulas for an initial fading of wool and linen fabrics dyed in the colors available at the time. I'm sure people have their pet mixes, but it's probably not as easy as I thought.

As for dust and dirt, I want to convey the figure as being out doors in a combat or near combat setting - but not to the point where the figure is muddied, bloodied mess. I largely confine my effects to the lower legs, surcoat hems, elbows, knees and maybe the backside from sitting down. I may also add some grime to areas where the figure might wipe his hands (the torso of front thighs). Quite simply, the rocks and soil of the UK and northern Europe are different from that of Spain, which are different from southern Italy and Greece. Things change even more when you go east to the Levant and beyond. Again, I was hoping for some formulas covering northern Europe to southern Europe and the Middle East. I look at pictures and try to concoct something that looks right, but I always seem to just miss it.

I've never tried to replicate the weave of a fabric in 54mm (I think that's what you're trying to tell me). I think anything I could do would be to large for the scale. On the other hand, I did accidently paint a leather belt that looked remarkably like suede to the naked eye. I used unthinned Andrea Wood which dried with a slightly grainy look. Subsequent highlights and shading with thinned paints left much of the grain intact. Again, it was accidental; the painting gods' way of teasing me...

Cheers,

Glen