1/350 Rusted Liberty Ship (Trumpeter)
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by Ryan Labieniec |
1/350 Rusted Liberty Ship (Trumpeter)
This little project started as an experiment for a new weathering technique on an old kit that was destined for the trash bin. I had built the Trumpeter Jeremiah O’Brien kit years ago when it first came out, and my skills were still in the primitive stages. It sat for years collecting dust, and getting banged and broken on an exposed shelf, and was destined for the trash.
One day, I got an idea for a weathering technique to create heavy rust, and I needed a test piece, so I figured that the old Liberty Ship would be a good canvas to try it on before I threw her out. Well, after a little time trying out my rust technique, I decided that I could make some use out of the old kit after all, and what you see here is the result.
I started by roughing up the ship’s hull with a sanding attachment for a Dremel tool, gouging out specific hull plates, and boring some rough holes into the hull. I then broke and bent random sections and pieces of the deck and super structure. I also added some simple cargo holds with junk piled in them. Now came the fun part, the rust!
This rust technique is one of my own making, I have not heard of it being tried before, but maybe it has, who knows. What I did was make a mixture of baking soda and watered-down white glue, and coated the whole model in the mixture, adding more baking soda to make heavier rust in areas I wanted more. It dries a chalky white color with a sandy texture. Once it was dry, I gave the whole thing a wash with thinned rust colored artist’s oil paints, for the orange-ish base color, then went back with various shades of thicker oils and darker colors and did more detailed rusting. All in all, it was pretty simple, and I love the effect!
This was really a fun little side project that allowed me to be creative,
and save a model from the trash man! This is certainly not the last
shipwreck you will see from me using my rust technique, keep your eyes
peeled for a 1/72 Flower Class coming soon that should have people scrambling
for a Tetanus shot!
