Weathering Dirt

With the track ballasted, the terrain covered in grass, weeds and soil, and the buildings completed and set in place, it's time to make the dirt roads more... dirty.  These roads see a lot of heavy truck traffic, and typically (at least in the 1950's), dust was kept down by oiling the hard-packed dirt, adding to the oil the trucks themselves would leave behind.

For this job, I tried a fairly new product called PanPastel.  These are an artists' medium of very finely-ground chalks with a binder that makes them stick when applied, using their own "Sofft" tools, which are supplied with their weathering color kits.  Shown here are two of their kits, "Greys, Grime & Soot" and "Rust & Earth".  These are really neat to work with!  I used them on the two small buildings and the loading ramps shown here, and I'm going to try them on some locomotives and rolling stock soon.

Below, for comparison, is a shot of the roads with dirt applied, before weathering.  More vegetation, vehicles and details will complete this scene soon.