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Just as foretold in the post subject I have been gifted my first vehicle, an ork battlewagon

Seeing as my experience up until this point has strictly been in infantry painting I find myself at an odd point.

Do I glue up and construct the thing as a whole then paint? Do i paint the parts and then assemble? Do I put together chunks and paint them independently?

Another question would be weather effects. I heard a few methods and I was curious what people used as their go-to's. Chipping fluid, salt n' water/hairspray, meticulous stippling, etc were options i researched.

As always links for your favorites would be welcome.

And, if it helps, I plan to paint it up like ol' Daisy from the Freebooters army of Dawn of War 2: Retribution.

Typically your best bet is to assemble the model the point where further assembly would inhibit painting. Of course this varies from vehicle to vehicle and is dependent on how much detail you are willing to put in to the model; I've never painted a battlewagon so I cannot offer you and kit specific advice.

Weathering can be done a couple of different ways. Chipping fluid/hairspray is one way to do it, but it pretty much requires the use of an airbrush. I wrote a tutorial on using AK Interactive Heavy Chipping Fluid a while back if you are interested in how that process works. Salt weathering is another technique that is heavily dependent on the use of an airbrush. I suppose it could be done with a brush, but I think you would run the risk of damaging the salt by not using an airbrush. Here is a pretty good article that covers how to do salt weathering. You could also use masking fluid, which is typically a liquid vinyl that you can paint or blot on the model and then remove when you have completed painting. It could most likely be done without an airbrush, but I have never tired it. This model was given paint chips using a liquid mask:


You can also just use the good, old fashion sponge chipping. Just rip a piece of sponge or foam and dip it in your color of choice and use it to add random chips along the model. You can use a lighter color than your basecoat and add highlights to the chips to make them appear three dimensional; it's time consuming but looks great. You can then use a pencil or graphite powder to rub the edges of any particularly worn areas to give them a metallic sheen. This model is weathered with that technique (sans the chipping highlights):


Here's a pretty cool video on some different weathering techniques. Be warned, they all use an airbrush:

 Raztool wrote:
Seeing as my experience up until this point has strictly been in infantry painting I find myself at an odd point.

Do I glue up and construct the thing as a whole then paint? Do i paint the parts and then assemble? Do I put together chunks and paint them independently?

Another question would be weather effects. I heard a few methods and I was curious what people used as their go-to's. Chipping fluid, salt n' water/hairspray, meticulous stippling, etc were options i researched

I would go with the sub-assembly (third?) method: eyballing, you build and paint what will be not easily accessible after full building (ok, I couldn't word it worse).

Weathering: it depends on how - and how much - you want to weather. Salt/hairspray may be controlled somehow... It can be donebrush-on, but that way it's slow and difficult: veeery basically, you paint rust (brown base, reds and oranges by stippling or sponging), then collect some water-based hairspray in a tiny container (i.e. the bottom of a plastic glass) and paint it where the rusted spots will be; while the hairspray is still wet, sprinkle salt (fine and coarse), let dry. Then basecoat, layer, shade, highlght, glaze (if by hand, slow and careful not to remove the salt, water may dissolve the hairspray). Don't forget markings and details, or they will be new on a worn plate.
That "warning" is just what you do when the paint is dry: with warm water and an old toothbrush, you rinse and lightly scrub away the salt; if you scrub harder, you will scratch the paint (and you may even want it, somewhere)... Gently dry it... and give the finishing touches.

For my stepsons battlewagon I painted the whole thing in a steel colour. Then laquered it, I then used washes and inks to give it a worn bare metal look. Once dry I painted the whole thing red except for some of the edges. Then I used an automotive paint cutting compound to "polish" each panel. This took off some of the paint , leaving a worn/damaged finish. Then I used the gw technical paints to add rust. I know its not the best quality painting but im sure a better painter would get much nicer results.

Another thing to take note of is that if you paint sub-assemblies before final build -- recommended for various parts such as the track assembly -- you should mask off the joining surfaces as cement doesn't always work through paint.

In the pic just above you can see that tomcat31 has masked the end of the front axle with Blutac.

So many great recommendations, thank you all.

It looks like I'll try the sub assembly after all for inner cabins and what not while attempting to keep gluing surfaces paint resistant.

And I'll keep the different methods of aging in mind the closer i get to that step.

Thanks again and if you see or can think of any other neat vehicle tricks feel free to post them.