Whilst waiting for other finishing bits and bobs for other projects, I thought I'd get on and start working my way through weathering the rake of Dapol IOA's that I have. The wagons are initially treated to a wash of frame dirt which is then removed with cotton buds to create a wash down effect. I intend to add a few scratches and scrapes here and there and also to give them a good dusting of ballast/cement weathering powders to tone everything down. The interiors have been painted with a streaky effect using a wide brush loaded with dark rust, but will also get a wash of light grey followed by the ballast/cement weathering powder mix mentioned before.
I've also added some graffiti tags to a few of the wagons as these seem to be a feature of many items of rolling stock I've seen just lately. Once all 14 wagons have been given this level of weathering I'll then go over each in turn and just tidy them up so that all the different elements work together, once I'm at that level I can then think about producing the ballast loads for them, before finally finishing them off with buffer grease spots and a little more dry brushing on the bogies to bring out all the detail.
