Weathering tutorial : painting chipped and rusted objects

This article is an english translation of a tutorial I already posted in french.
Cet article est la traduction en anglais d'un tutoriel que j'ai déjà posté en français.

I would like to thank Gitsplitta from DakkaDakka for his help.



The "weathering" term relates to a multiplicity of technics that we can use to give a dirty or worn aspect to an object. Weathering has become quite popular in model painting, and there are lots of technics and products that can be used to achieve a great variety of results : chipped paint, rust, moss, oil streaks, rain marks...
The main effect of this is to makes objects look more real, with a past and a story.

I've painted a set of barrels for this tutorial. Thus I can show what technics I use to paint old metallic objects that have been exposed to elements for too long.

So... the aim is to get something like this :

Let's go !

I happened to prim this model white, but a black coat works as well (I used chaos black primer on the crates you can see in the end of this articles for instance).
I used are a mix of new and old GW paints as well as Army painter pots. The exact color I choose aren't that important, it's the approach and the global tones that matter (using oranges, browns, ochers...).
You can use any colors from your paint rack that look close enough to those in my photos.

First step consists of painting the barrel like a big piece of rusted metal.

1) I paint them orange. Easy.

For the following steps I use an old f***ed up brush, with bristles that separate in several points. I use it to tap the surfaces I'm painting perpendicularly, in order to create lots of random dots.

Just like this (left barrel already got it's second coat, and right one is in progress):

2) I use a medium red brown like vermin brown, bestial brown etc.
Since this is also the base color for my rocks, I basecoated them in the meantime.

3) Same process with a darker brown, for example scorched brown, rhinox hide.

4) And to conclude, a yellow brown, in this case snakebite leather.

And the rust is now done. I could have just painted it orange but it doesn't take too long to add the other colors, and it gives better results in my opinion.
Note that rust color varies from bright orange to dark brown. Choose what you prefer and what works best with your color scheme.

At this stage you should have something like this :

The barrels are all rusty. We'll now paint them. But before that, let's have some fun.

What we need is :
- Drawing Gum (or Maskol, wich are both masking fluids)
- a rusty painted model (what a coincidence, we just painted barrels !)
- foam, like you find in miniatures blister or in transport cases. At worst, you have an old sponge from the kitchen, don't you ?

5) Masking step.

I tear out a piece of blister foam to get irregular edges. I dip it in the drawing gum, and dab a little bit on a paper sheet to remove excess.
Then I press it randomly on the barrels, leaving stains and dots. You can modulate concentration, leaving some areas free while some will get heavily covered. The more drawing gum there is, the more rust will be visible in the end.

6) Adding colors.

Once the drawing gum has dried, I paint the barrels with the colors they were supposed to be, before they rusted. I chose a green color that I don't use really often, Army Green from the Army painter range.  This tone will work perfectly with the orange tint of the rust.
I simply paint the model or scenery normally, as I would do if there wasn't rust and gum underneath. For a model, I would use advanced technics like blending and so on. In this case, since it is only an objective token, I kept it simple.
I applied an Army Green basecoat. I didn't care too much about the orange being still visible here and there, because in the end most of the green will be chipped of anyway.

I added white to my basecoat and highlighted the barrels :

Since the white pot was open and I felt motivated, I added some markings :

At this stage, since I also painted the base, I got this :

Looks good. With the exception of the little orange areas you can see here and there, it really doesn't differ from a standard paint job.
We've now reached the funniest part. Ruining everything !

7) Chipping paint.

The aim here is to remove the Drawing Gum. Rubbing the model rips off the Gum and the paint that was applied over, letting the rust underneath re-appear.
You can use anything to rub the model, but I've found that using blister foam works perfectly. 

Oh a nice chipped piece of metal !

As I mentionned earlier, the more Gum you applied prior to painting, the more rust you'll see in the end. Don not hesitate to vary how heavily you apply the effect accross the surfaces as it will give interesting textures to your models.
We could stop there. We already have rusted barrels, after all.
But we can do better. I recently discovered Streaking Rust, sold by Ammo of Mig Jimenez, and I find that this product is great.

8 ) Rust streaks.

Streaking rust is basically a wash. I guess we could get similar results using powder pigments and water or some sort of medium... BUT the interest here that we have a ready to use product. You just have to shake it well before using.

So how to use this Streaking Rust wash ?
Shake it good. Again. Again. Ok, now you're ready.
Using a brush, place dots and marks where you want your streaks to begin, then pull the wash vertically (downwards, of course) with your brush.

Don't worry about precision at this stage. Since this is an enamel wash and can be removed with a solvent, this step is totally reversible. Yes, you can let this dry and come back, tomorrow there will still be time to correct it. Great isn't it ?

The last step requires only a clean brush, and thinner. You can use white spirit or similar products, but to be honest, Ammo made an odourless thinner, and for the price it costs, buy it. You'll have enough for years, and the odour of white spirit is a pain, really.

The thinner will erase the wash. If you put enough thinner on your brush, you can remove the wash entirely. Wich can sometimes be useful.
Here we only want to blend it and make it fade naturally. I put the brush in the thinner, and then remove most of it using a paper towel. We just need a little of it in the bristles.
I brush the streaks vertically, this will move the pigments and create natural streaking effects. Since this is enamel, you can easily correct what went wrong, adding a bit more wash or removing excess if necessary.

And this is the final result :

And you're done !

Using the same technics, you can paint a great variety of sceneries or models, like these car wrecks :

Or these crates :

Crates objectives for Eden

And even robots. Note that on the crates and these robots, I also used another wash from the Ammo range called Light Rust wash.

Puppets from Eden