This scenery tip came in from Robert Herring. Robert shared a technique he has used for painting brick on his model railroad layout that will give your brick walls an aged appearance.
I’ve added this tip to the Scenery Techniques page as well as posting it here:
The easiest way to paint brick, even N scale, that I have found is to:
- Paint the base color of the building.
- Use flat latex interior paint thinned about 2 to 1 with water and a drop or two of liquid detergent.
- After the base coat has dried, use a paper towel dipped into the mixture and rub the brick areas.
The finish will generally look great from any distance and resemble “used brick” in your base color. -Robert Herring
Thanks Robert.
If you would like to submit your scenery tips to share with Model Train Tips readers, you can use the contact form at the bottom of the Scenery Techniques page to send it in.
PS; feel free to use the comment area below to expand on, or share your thoughts about Robert’s tip.
Image credit: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
About Model Train Tips
can you give more details about the brick paint?
I’m painting one faller house with vallejo and tamiya collors but i had many problems to paint the small brick espace.
The final goal was to keep white that espace but usually i made some errors and i had paint the brick with white ( my hand is not so good for paintings ).
So i needed to re-paint again the brick and that was a big problem. I give up to use white
Please show me more information about the flat latex interior paint thinned . It was white paint?
João ( John)
In response to the question about “painting brick”. Initially I was concerned with brevity so I will expand a little.
Any light shade of gray latex interior paint will work. Buy the sample size and you can do a small city. Thin the paint 2 parts water and 1 part paint in a small jar. Add 2 drops of liquid dish soap and mix. After you have painted the brick your desired color, use a small lump of paper towel to spread the thinned gray.
Do 1 piece at a time and wipe the wet surface with a clean paper towell. One time is usually plenty but you can do more if you missed a spot. After the gray has dried I then paint the trim. You will get pretty good at this with just a little practice.
Thanks for expanding on this Robert.