Mu 50 - Modelmates, Weathering Sprays

Time for another look on some new hobby material via MV's Miniature Unpacked, but this time it is a mixture of unpacking, testing and some kind of tutorial.

You might know that MV is well known to have a look on very interesting products outthere. Combined with our everyday painting of an average of eight hours since several years, we can also provide a good look on new material with practical experience. This said, we want to introduce a company to you we really enjoy lately. Their products are mainly aimed for the hobby of Scale Models, at least this is what their page communicates, but we are sure this will change a lot in the future as their products are also great for our hobby of miniature painting. Let me introduce to you:

www.modelmates.co.uk 

Roman did get in contact with one of their products when Battlefield-Berlin sent him one bottle of "Normal Rust" and he got convinced by the result he recieved by using it. Modelmates has no shop on its own and is selling via different dealers in different countries. You can find a list of their retailers here! We are even updated that now also PK-Pro has Modelmates in stock!

Meanwhile we are happy to announce that Modelmates is now official sponsor of MV Painting Classes and participants on our classes can find out why we like their products that much on their own, testing and experiencing them during the classes.

In the following review we will take a look on some of their Translucent Weathering Sprays, even we told you the next one up would be about the "brick filler". Yay, more tests with this are in progress and not done yet.

In your jungle you can already find a review on their primers, Rust Effects and Verdigris Effects.
There will be more later on as their list of products is much bigger and MV is in the middle of experiments with them and is recieving very, very cool results. 

"Please know that this is just my own experience with these products. I tell you honestly what I do like and don't. I can not assure you that you will make the same experience as you might have a different taste or different requirements than I have." Roman

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In this review I will have a look on two of Modelmates Translucent Weathering Sprays: 
The "Moss Green" and the "Oil Brown".

Before we start in some testing we will have a look on what their homepage says about those sprays:

"Creates realistic weathering effects. Fast and easy to use. Basically the same as our translucent weathering pots, but the sprays apply a finer, thinner coat and the final effect is slightly satin. It’s easy to apply a mist coat that creates just the slightest, most subtle weathering effect that gets into the smallest of indents. Particularly effective on panoramas and landscapes. Translucent weathering spray looks just like real dirt because surfaces underneath remain visible through the stain. Makes clean models look dirt stained with just one coat. All dirty colours are water soluble, and can be wiped and smudged with a damp cotton bud, even after being dry for months. Remove dirt stain from raised areas using a damp cotton bud, leaving the rest trapped in panel lines and recesses. Made from dyes, not pigments; dyes dissolve into liquids which helps create finer weathering effects. Not visible on black surfaces. Available in 200ml aerosol cans."


Testing

This time we start a little different, not at a miniature, but on a box. A box I did for my future brother-in-law, who celebrated his thirtiest birthday a little while ago. He is fishing with passion and the gift a lot of friends - me and my girlfriend included - made him was a fishing license in one of the local rivers. The box was used to made him fish all the money out of the box with a kid's fishing-rod, but it had to be prepared.

I was asked to make it more fitting to our gift and so I thought about using the weathering sprays I got from Modelmates. First, the box:

I thought about our local rivers and for me it was clear not to use a blue as most of those rivers are mossy bayous with even more mossy fish in it. So green and brown, well perfect match with the weathering sprays.

I really enjoyed applying the first layers, mixed both of them sprays wildly and learned if I press to hard a lot of it comes out, if I press less I get dots and sprinkles. Nice for a start.

After the first run with the sprays it was time for some fish. Using pens here, had to google for the local inhabitants of our local rivers.

Now it was even to brownish for me so I used the airbrush with some green additional to the sprays.

What I really enjoyed was the random sprinkles the spray created. I have to mention it was not easy to control, it just happened, but on this box I was up for some testing.

If you do too much and your surface gets too wet accidents like this can happen, but sometimes our local rivers look the same, so ...

Ok, this was a test on a big box, but what about doing this to miniature projects in a much smaller scale? How can accidents be avoided and does the sprinkling work in such a small scale. Let's have a look. I did it during my latest painting class to my stalagmite base and liked it on the first sight, but I will work on it a little more. What I did not like 100% was the satin finish I did recieve on areas where I sprayed more than on others. This did not happen on the box, but on the following base:

I really like the colour and effects that appeared, as I painted the base in some sand colours before and added the Moss Weathering Spray afterwards. Honestly, without working further on that effect I do not like the base, because of the satin glossy look, but I really enjoy the little sprinkles that occoured randomly and I will work on them for further details with a brush. Not bad, but not perfect due the satin look here and there. I think this could be really cool used if you combine it with masking options to just reach a specific area with the spray.

Well, we had another test during the painting class in Vienna. Walter did build up a base, painted it and placed moss and dosh on it before applying the moss weathering spray. Again we had a small issue with the satin look of it after spraying it, but we decided to work out the wooden roots again with a matte colour to seperate them again from the greenish moss area.

My conclusion is that the sprays are really cool, but you got to learn to handle them and test them first. In the end if I look at real moss outthere the satin look is not completly wrong as moss often appears in areas that are quite clammy:

I am looking forward to give more of those sprays a try as there is such a wide varity of colours available. Important: Modelmates offers a lot of information on how you can improve your skills with the sprays on their homepage, just scroll down and read about more examples and how-to-articles, very cool, click here!

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So far from the weathering front, happy weathering to you all!
Your MV-Team