The mill siding is paper with embossed corrugations. I had implied metal siding with Model Master aluminum paint. Black primer was lightly oversprayed with a mask to indicate panels.



I wanted to come up with a weathering technique that was transparent enough to let the painting already done show. A very thin wash of white acrylic paint emphasized the corrugations. I used watercolor pencils to add vertical seams to the siding, emphasize the horizontal seams, and add rust streaks.



The goal then was to quickly learn how to control the overall effect of weathered individual panels. I did not want the siding to end up looking too contrasty and overdone, but I need the weathering to be heavy enough to soften the graphics of the huge sign on the end of the building.



The roofs of the mill had been heavily oversprayed with rust colored primer. I mixed up some warm earth tones of acrylic wash and sploched them on the roofs with a sea sponge.



Once dry, I wet the roofs slighly, then used a foam brush to apply a thin wash of white acrylic paint. A white watercolor pencil was used to emphasize the raised seams in the metal roofing.



The weathering on the walls and roof sufficiently knocked the big sign back and pulled the tones of the walls and roofs together.