Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So i just bought some pastels and alcohol but im having some issues making it look realistc. Any tips for application would be helpfull.

There are many ways in applying the pigments. If you want a more "dry Dusty" look you can just use water on the model and than seal it with some varnish.

have alook around youtube at buypainted on how he uses his pigments. At his recent ogre and nurgle forge fiend. Both good techniques on how to use the pigments. I hope this helped.

Yeah i tried doing it with alcohol and it evaporated and just looked like caked on mud intead of just dusty

If you want the powder to look dusty then try mixing the powder with white spirit and wash desired parts with it. Just be careful to not rub too much or thin paint layers may come off.

Juhna wrote:
If you want the powder to look dusty then try mixing the powder with white spirit and wash desired parts with it. Just be careful to not rub too much or thin paint layers may come off.

Nahh white spirits thicken it abit. Just paint water with some pigment slap it on heavy. let it dry and dust it off with a
brush nice dusty look http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/465008-.html

Are there any powders you can just brush on out of the pot.

Paint what are you trying to use the pigments for? or did you get them because you saw less from awesomepaint job use them or somerhing?

Ive browsed the fw pics and really liked the effect it has on the tanks they used them on.

I use different methods.

I dust on some powders and then use white spirit to pull the powders into cracks.

I also mix with white spirit and paint on

Also dusting and fixing with white spirit and letting it dry then scrubbing with a brush to remove excess.

All these methods are legit. Just takes some testing is all I say pull out some crappy models and go to town :3

The thing I found surprising with WP is

A it's not a magic bullet effect in a bottle

B it looks crappy when you start weathering the model

C it's not anything like painting because until you seal the model the powders can be manipulated until you get the desired look just add a drop of white spirit and tickle or brush hard like a madman

That battle wagon is exactly the type of effect i want to achieve.

Well I used all of those methods on that.

If you look on my gallery there was another method o used under the arches above the wheels.

I wet the surfaces with white spirit then sprinkled powder off of a paintbrush to build up a kaked mud effect I repeated this a few times and then varnished

What type of varnish do you recommend?

I use Windsor and Newton matte

I didn't varnish the whole model just the kaked on bits.

And I did that by loading a fine paintbrush with a small drop and placing it near the powders. It just runs into and soaks thru them and holds them in place.

As far as the powders themselves i just picked up some cheap pastels and mixed shavings till i got the desired shade. Is this fine or should i just buy the actual weathering powders.

I have no idea tbh I bought the forge world powders I have never played with pastels so I don't know how they behave

How long does a pot of that powder last. The fw are the ones ive kinda been eyeballing.

They last a long time.

Goes by the size. I chew threw the stuff.. But I do more painting than the normal person. And paint alot of chaos stuiff :3

m painting something prolly every day . Ive got 5 boxes of aobr orks primed and ready to paint i just wana get the hang of using these powders cause i think they could really bring the ol greenskins to life.

I only use the powders for vehicles

^^ 100% agree. Infantry are A) too insignificant to weather with powders and usually too small. The powders are meant to show rust, oil leaks, corrosion and other naturally occurring dirtiness due to use of an item or due to leaving it in the elements. I wouldn't weather anything smaller than a Sentinel unless you are doing the army up for Nurgle...then in that case, Heretic, (draws bolter and squeezes trigger) go to your God of Rot!. But in all seriousness, Rust on Nurgle armor can produce a great looking army, just be sure not to overkill the model.

As to the application, it totally depends on how and what you are trying to model as rust is done differently than a petrol leak. My recommendation would be to look at pics online of rusted equipment. Notice that the "new rust" is darker and that as the rust has more time to oxidize, it actually gets lighter, so this goes against normal painting convention of putting the dark stuff down first and highlighting with the lighter pigments. To accurately do multi-tonal rust, you want to lay the light stuff down, then stipple the darker stuff around the edges of that. Apply alcohol to set the pigment.

For oil slicks, simply put the pigment in a small (start out small and if you want it darker or bigger, apply successive layers to avoid a clumpy look) heap, hold the model at the angle you want the slick to go, then, using an eye dropper or similar tool, drip the alcohol into the heap slowly, letting it wash the dark almost black pigment down the length of the area you want the spill to go. Apply another small layer until it reaches the color, length and affect you want. I recomend doing oil in three stages, black on the first run, dark brown on the second and then an earthy brown yellow on the third. The black shows that its been there a while, the brown gives it depth of pigment and the yellow shows its STILL leaking.

Hope this helps mate!

When it comes to applying weathering powders I turn to the cosmetic isle of the local Walgreens drug store for applicators.

Since tons of work has been done to allow the ladies (and some gents I guess) to apply various powdered pigments in various methods to their faces.

They have big fluffly brush for light dusting coats. Small foam brushes for more direct denser applications.

Also good is a cheap mortar and pestle so you can grind up your own weathering powder. Makes it very fine or course depending on how you grind. You can mix colors and grind them together for better tones etc.

I've found that with pastels/chalk I can just either shave it with a modeling tool or break a bit off and crush it with my thumb.
You can mix it with matt medium for a dirty, caked on look.
If using chalks you can rub it onto the model in stick form and then use a soft brush to dust it off and manipulate it.

Also, http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF//w/weathering-powders.pdf

So how much would the quality of the pastel matter. Ive seen sets well exceed 100 dollars. I bought a 6 dollar set from target.

Weathering powders are pure pigment (with the potential exception of the "self-adhesive" stuff like Doc O'Brian's - I don't actually know what supposedly makes them stick). Pastel chalks, ont he other hand, have a binder (frequently carnuba wax) added that allows the pigment to be compressed into a stick that will hold its form. Cheap pastels tend to be very heavy on the binder, resulting in a firmer stick with less intense color saturation, due to the lower ratio of (more expensive) pigment.

Now, whether that's actually an issue is debatable. Some folks have reported bad reactions of the binder with certain solvents/fixers, but I've had no issues using water, rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl), or matte medium with my cheap set from Michaels. Personally, I find cheap pastel dust to be harder to work with when applying dry, as DIY milling results in a much coarser powder that has a tendency to want to clump together. For a task like making mud (by mixing with a bit of matte medium), though, the difference is negligible. You're just going to have to experiment and see what works for you.

But at £37 for the full set of forge world powders it won't break the bank

 oadie wrote:
Weathering powders are pure pigment (with the potential exception of the "self-adhesive" stuff like Doc O'Brian's - I don't actually know what supposedly makes them stick). Pastel chalks, ont he other hand, have a binder (frequently carnuba wax) added that allows the pigment to be compressed into a stick that will hold its form. Cheap pastels tend to be very heavy on the binder, resulting in a firmer stick with less intense color saturation, due to the lower ratio of (more expensive) pigment.

Now, whether that's actually an issue is debatable. Some folks have reported bad reactions of the binder with certain solvents/fixers, but I've had no issues using water, rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl), or matte medium with my cheap set from Michaels. Personally, I find cheap pastel dust to be harder to work with when applying dry, as DIY milling results in a much coarser powder that has a tendency to want to clump together. For a task like making mud (by mixing with a bit of matte medium), though, the difference is negligible. You're just going to have to experiment and see what works for you.

+1 Good call on the pastels. Avoid them.

Personally I recommend Secret Weapon Miniatures pigments. We handled them during a Masterclass and the results are awesome. Good price and the pots will last a looong time.

My method: apply dry using a paint brush to get them into the right places, then spray with matte varnish to hold it on. The precise details vary: blobs of dirt on the lower surfaces of a tank are just dropped on right before spraying, while dirt accumulated in corners in the interior gets a small brush and more rubbing to push most of it into the deep cracks. The one exception is for rust, where I drop some blobs of weathering powder into a brown wash and then paint it heavily over a plain metallic color.

Of course this is just one approach, and you can get different effects with different methods. The best thing to do is get some scrap parts and test a variety of powders and application methods until you find one that works for you.

xCamdenx wrote:
How long does a pot of that powder last. The fw are the ones ive kinda been eyeballing.

It will last a while, even if you're using them really heavily you'll be able to get several superheavy tanks (or even more smaller things) out of a single pot. Just make sure you use them over a sheet of paper to catch anything that drops off the model, then you can dump it right back into the pot. In my experience if you're applying them dry you'll have more powder end up on the paper than on the model, so you really want to avoid wasting it.