Under the weather

Weathering

My plan was to keep this boat relatively fresh-looking, without a ton of battle-scars or years of mistreatmeant under horrible conditions. Despite that the salty sea-water should've left some marks on the surface, espacially where the water might be pooling for longer times than on the smoothest surfaces.

A rusty wash

For this stage I dug out my Vallejo rust liquid (VMW 76506 Rust) and applied it pretty carefully here and there. I mostly concentrated on the conning tower and the numerous openings of the topmost hull. On those I typically dabbed a bit with the brush and pulled it down gently for a drip-like effect. The stronger ones I then smeared with my fingers to make them look a bit subtler.

Messing with pigments

I had thought I'd try out the fresh rust pigment (VP 73118 Fresh Rust). The point was still that the effect wouldn't be too strong, but as I'm a total amateur with them, the expected result wasn't guaranteed to be perfect.

Port

Starboard

The result

It didn't look too bad to me. Of course, differing opinions are welcome. I doubt that I'm going to modify this model anymore, but accept it as finished at this point. Then we get to the question I've been afraid of asking for a good while: "how on earth do I stage this monster up for the final photos?"