Ref the painted samples Phil posted a few days ago.
At Love Lane we have been playing around with brick and mortar colours and effects for a few weeks. Up to now we have been using embossed plastic sheet which Peter Hunt prefers but last Wednesday when Phil brought the sample pieces illustrated above along, we have managed to convert him. If Phil can resolve the issue of cutting corners so the brick courses bond accurately we will be using brick detail laser engraved into the MDF surface.
For the station and other buildings at Love Lane we need a typical London red brick and in of those strokes of luck that don't happen often enough, I tried one of the colours from the Lifecolor Rust & Dust set (acrylics). The number is UA703 but it appears difficult to buy separately from the set though I managed to find a couple of pots on line last week. That is the colour on the brick arch. The yellow brick is IIRC burnt umber acrylic in a tube from the local Sudbury art shop. The darker section (an experiment to get the colour for the platform faces) has a wash of Modelmates oil brown over it.
In both cases the mortar is Modelmates Brick Joint Filler, a wash which is painted over the whole job and then, as it is water based, washed off the surface. As you can see from these quick experiments we have managed to wash it out of the joint lines in places as well. In future the plan is to leave the brick colour a week before putting anything over it and leaving the brick joint filler at least an hour before washing off.
We have been trying a lot of the Modelmates effects as I was given some samples by the proprietor, Alan Taylor, a fellow glider pilot. I'll post a few photos later in the week of some of the weathering we have done using them. For those who like wintry scenes, they do an aerosol of "snow effect" which actually sprays a wax. You can build up snowdrifts (but don't let your grandchildren near it, it's a bugger to get out of detail).
Phil and I will keep experimenting but we hope to have the Love Lane buildings on the go in the next few weeks.
John