I’m sure there are many people who have never heard of Mr. Surfacer, or have only heard of it in passing. So I thought I’d put together a quick explanation of what it is and some of the uses for it.
For an explanation of what Mr. Surfacer is please read Part 1 HERE.
The effect we will be looking at today is that of creating textured effects to replicate differing intensities of coarse materials such as woolen coverings and similar types of finishes. This is also useful for doing fur type effects on animals.
The photo series included here demonstrates the creation of these effects using an old already painted Tamiya Kettenkraftrad that I pick up with a boxlot of old models.
Add the Mr. Surfacer and as it dries use a cut down stiff brush to stipple the surface, doing it slowly and repeatedly. A light coat with gentle stippling will result in a woolen type look as on the roll on top of the seat. If you then add more layers of Mr Surfacer and keep stippling with slower, deeper strokes using a thicker brush it results in a more coarse woolen type effect such as on the right hand side of the seat. The thinner the coats of Mr. Surfacer, the finer the stippling brush and the gentler the action the more subtle the effect. The thicker the coats of Mr. Surfacer, the harder the brush and the firmer the action the coarser the effect will be.
Stippled on Mr. Surfacer
Once that has dried just paint as usual
Then add washes and dry brushing
And there you have it, it’s as simple as that so have a play around with it and experiment a bit till you get the results you’re after.
Note how the washes sit on the lower part of the seat creating a deeper background effect. The wash used here was a burnt umber oil wash over acrylics which contrasts a lot with the buff of the seat so if you want this to be more subdued use a lighter wash colour that is closer to the base colour.
Please note : the finish here is not meant to represent any particular type of finish but rather to demonstrate the extremes of the results, the choice of the Kettenkraftrad was simply a case of it being handy - and ignore the Mr. Surfacer on the sides as that will be used in Part 3.
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