What colour is dingy? Not the little boat, that's dinghy. I mean the colour, as in I'm trying to make my sails look dingy.
Traditional modelers used tea to stain sails. I have used diluted pin tar on my model's sails. Staining brings out the texture of the weave in the cloth on a model, a definite improvement. Sails could appear from cream to tan to brown in color depending on how dirty they were. At the extreme, here is what the last surviving sail from the Battle of Trafalgar looks like, taken from HMS Victory. It's more than just a little used.
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Sorry, I'm making furled sails out of Kleenex. I spray them with glue and water. When they are dry they are quite strong but I think that soaking them in tea is out. I've tried air brushing them with brown and black but they just don't come out right. The airbrush seems to make them speckely too. Here's a pic. My wife thinks they're fine but I'm not sure. Pinkish one is with a flash, grey is natural light.
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Solution: colored tissues.
Nice idea. I couldn't find them on Amazon.ca and they are also small tissues. Anywhere I checked on the net only sold huge boxes of tissues. I will check around town and see what I can find.
It is always a tricky business to talk about colors based on photos viewed on a computer screen. With that in mind, your sails look good to my eye. However, your bolt ropes look too dark, as they contrast with the sailcloth. I think they should be the same color.
Fair winds!
I'm not sure why the bolt ropes look so dark. I made them with very light beige thread. I think that for some reason the rope is gathering the coloring. I'm going to try white thread.
Kurt Konrath
Kurt Konrath
Colors change as they get wet and dry out, the color of stain or ink when liquid is often darker then when material has dried.
Perhaps when you make them spray them with glue and tea?
I wish you had posted this a week ago.
This is what I finally decided on yesterday, although I used coffee, it's not quite as orange. I spray them with water and glue( or artists matt medium) when I'm making them and then when the shape is all done I spray with coffee. The coffee spray softens the previous glue a bit and it's quite strong when it dries. When I attach them to the yards I use a paint brush to wet the area where the gaskets go. This softens up the sail enough so the gasket sinks in and looks very natural.
Thanks for the suggestion Kurt. I finally realized that spraying them when they were finished with an airbrush and coffee gave me the desired look. I was using craft paint in the airbrush before and I kept getting that speckled finish that bothered me so much. I'll post a picture when I get one done.
OK here's the first efforts.
