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I am in the process of painting my Death Korp's army, and I was wondering if anyone knew a fairly easy way to get the powdery effect on my models. Something thats sort of white/grey ash for the tanks and my troops.

If you've got any pics of the effect you're after I could help further, but for now I would suggest either drybrushing/stippling light greys and off-whites, or using pigments.

If you've not got any pigments, or are too skint to get any, then you can use scrapings from dry artists pastels.

You could try blowing a little chalk dust over your models just after you put you varnish on?

This is the kind of effect I am going for.
Chalk dust would be a good idea, but it would end up rubbing everywhere. I will try drybrushing, but I dont expect results (My painting skills are comparable to a dead rock with a brush tied on getting thrown at a piece of paper)

Maybe hold a can of white primer really far away and let fly?

Lol. I'm only joking, but only because I tried that myself once.
I'll be following this thread, because I want a similar effect on my Chaos Warriors.

Sanctus-Malas wrote: (My painting skills are comparable to a dead rock with a brush tied on getting thrown at a piece of paper)

I'm sorry, but that is friggin' hilarious!

a moderately fine brush... drybrushing... I've used that to get a dusted effect, and the wetness of the paint decides what it looks like. Do this with black and it looks like soot, unless the paint is pretty darn near dried (you'd be surprised how long you can keep using a drybrush without reloading it, try it out on a test model, it might take 50 strokes because it looks like it's not giving any paint up, but after those 50 strokes, you'll notice a huge difference)

I, however, have a pile of worthless brushes that I can abuse this way, so, so I don't suffer for it.

I believe the answer however is pigment. One method of getting pigment is getting artist's soft pastels and grinding those into a find powder.....

You might consider specialist weathering powders - which give a great 'powdery effect' - but if these are for gaming models, they need to be locked down with a very light spray of matt varnish.

the 'orange' rust effect I got here looked very 'powdery' when it was first done.

The chalk idea (I would use artists pastels) is a good one. I would suggest applying it with a brush rather than blowing it. Then fix with matt varnish

Sanctus-Malas wrote:This is the kind of effect I am going for.
Chalk dust would be a good idea, but it would end up rubbing everywhere. I will try drybrushing, but I dont expect results (My painting skills are comparable to a dead rock with a brush tied on getting thrown at a piece of paper)

That is tue but if you apply it alyer of rubbing achohal or even listerene while it's still drying (rubbing achohal) but about to all dry up apply the chalks thats what i do for my dkok and then when your finsihed matte varnish them but if you have the tradgic accident of the glassy effect. What you do is wait 24h until after it happened then apply GLOSS varnish then wait another 24h then re-apply your MATTE varnish. Also read up on how to propely apply matte varnis so this won't happen to you and so you know how to avoid it.

Drybrush, Twice. One grey, one white.

The model you posted was drybrushed, by the look of it. Poda_t brings up an important point regarding drybrushing - brushload. If you're patient enough to use a very dry brush and dozens of strokes, the technique is damned near foolproof. The unattractive, hamfisted attempts are almost always caused by leaving too much paint on the brush in an attempt to expedite the process, resulting in an overly thick application and unsightly/unrealistic streaks.

I find pigments to be a faster method, and ultimately more attractive, but there's the added cost of either buying them or buying pastel chalks and grinding your own to consider. If you'll be doing the effect across an entire army - even a relatively small one - I'd strongly consider going the pigment route. Varnishing afterward will tone down the effect, somewhat, but leave the finish as durable as any other paintjob.