How To Make Your Own Weathering Powders

[PhildaFish]

After a suggestion by Coen -

Haha... Just a little helpful hint here... you can make your own weathering powders with artist pastel chalk. You get tonnes of different colours for the same price as one or two bottles of powders. I've been mixing my own for a long time now. I don't even bother with the store bought stuff anymore.

- (thanks mate!) I've embarked on making my very own weathering powders! I thought I'd photo-as-I-go to show anyone else who is interested how it's done.
Firstly I picked up these little storage tubs from the pound shop (US $1.56) which measure about 60mm x 60mm x 40mm high

as I will need something to store the powders. Then I got myself these two pastels to try out.

The grey one was only 75p (US $1.17) and the brown one was a little more expensive at £2.10 ($3.27) but a much more crumbly pastel from Winsor & Newton which I thought would be easier to turn to dust.

I also had the idea of emptying my Humbrol powders out of their containers and into these tubs as I use the powders dry and with the Pinnacle powder I hold the model over the container and catch the excess to re-use but the Humbrol container has a narrow neck so it's almost impossible to catch the excess. Here's a pic to show you what I mean:

[PhildaFish]

After a simple yet happy hour spent whittling away I have turned one of my pastels into... (drum roll please)... Weathering Powder!

Lacking a pestle and mortar to crush it into dust, I tried two different methods utilizing my hobby knife. First I just scraped away the edges which was slow work but easy. Then I tried pointing the blade into the side of the pastel and span it round whilst applying a little pressure which was much quicker but I ended up cracking the corners off leaving myself with little pieces too small to scrape into dust.

And here is the finished result:

It really is that simple! After I've finished my next armour build I'll try them out and let you know how well they go on.

[Paul]

Great job Phil, you need to the new links to your first lot of pics back as you must have moved them loosing the link on the forum.

[JDMMODELS]

This is great! I just bought some pastels but didn't know if they were the right ones, but I see you have the soft ones which is what I bought also.

[PhildaFish]

I bought the very softest pastel they had (the Winsor & Newton) and the very cheapest one they had and they both crumbled away nicely and they look the same in their pots. I'll update this when I finish my latest build and actually use them both to see if there is any difference in the usage. I will get some more, I think, now that I know how easy it is to crumble them up and will report back any and all findings.
I will be trialling all of them out on my GB Destroyed SU-85 Dio so watch out on there!

[Nige201980]

i did this on my latest builds both dry powder and added some water and a drop of washing up liquid and they worked really well used cheap pastels they have about 30 colours from black to white and nearly every colour between.

[Nige201980]

Just another quick one on this if you are using pastels but you don't have an air brush to put your top coat of varnish on like me I use brushes use hair spray to protect the pastel like you would have done in school if you ever did a pastel drawing and it will dry Matt. Hope this makes sense.

[PhildaFish]

Thanks Nige, I hadn't thought of that. Do you find that it changes or darkens the colour? I've only varnished (Humbrol rattle can of Acrylic varnish) one model that I've used dry powder on and it significantly darkened it so I had to go back over the top again with more dry powder.

[Bagpiper]

Nice tip there Phil. I'm a bit lazy and tend to buy the stuff Looking forward to your updates and photographs of course on showing us how this turns out.

Cheers
Jim

[Coen]

Hey Phil,
I use hairspray as a fixer as well and I haven't had it darken anything yet.
Some of that can depend on what you use for media maybe.
I use almost entirely Model Master Acrylic paint (I hate enamels) thinned with Tamiya acrylic thinner for everything. Winsor Newton oils for washes with turpenoid as a thinner. Sometimes I'll use a few Life Colour brush paints for figures and accessories with a bit of Vallejo brush paint as well.
Given that, I've never had any of it change colour with hairspray, as long as I spray it a good 20 to 30 cms away and above the subject and let it fall. Spraying directly onto it will just blow away any loose bits that you have on your model (including pastels) and maybe that's the darkening that you see.

[Nige201980]

I've never had any problems with it going darker. I just make sure it's light coat nice short blasts from a distance of about 30 cm and the powder goes no where.