| I have heard of a number of people using "Real" rust as a weathering medium but I would always advise a bit of caution. I once saw a warship that had been given such a treatment and it did look a bit weak and flat.
The trouble is that rust does not form in one sibngle colour. Rust is a whole spectrum of colour and a heavily rusted piece of machinery has many colours on display. You should look closely at some heavily rusted equipment at some point, ships hulls are excellent examples.
I have taken a number of pictures over the years of rusted hulls and tried to emulate the colours by using paint and eventually narrowed it down to a purple, brown and an orange palette. Constantly mixing these three does give a good range of effects and makes the final item particularly realistic.
If I was using real rust I would enhance this with the use of pigments or oils as well to generate the different colours.
The attached picture is just me having a play with this technique to give you an idea of what i am talking about. I agree it looks too much but I was playing with the technique more than anything!
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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days" |