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I've seen a number of well painted figures on CMON with the battle damage painted on.....the scuffs and chips highlighted to make it looke like a gouge. Heck, I've seen model plane decals used for the same effect.

Do you think this is a good way to represent damage, or is acutally cutting and scuffing the armor on the figure better?

Just looking for opinions.

I'm in the 'battle damage is a conversion' bathtub, and it should be modeled not painted.

It depends. What if you want chipped paint? This doesn't need to be 3d. The same goes for Kaple style scratches (where you add a line of dark colour and a line of light underneath). Bullet holes etc should be drilled. Gouges should be cut with a knife.

Yeah you should do both.. for just regular scratches and paint chips you can paint that on, but if you want to show bullet holes use a little drill and then chip around the hole with a xacto knife.. I've also done some deep gouges using my model cippers, just find a corner and clip the clippers in about half way. It'll give you a nice big dent & hole and kinda look like some big nasty critter tried to rip a chunk out. I've also done lazer burns too, where I heated a piece of metal rod or paper clip over a candle, then stuck it in the model, you get a straight line with bubbled plastic around it, so it looks like it got shot at with something really hot and it melted part of the metal, then paint the area with black drybrushing around it to make it look like the paint is all charred.

Orks and Guard are the only two armies I can see modeling major damage on, then I usually model hasty battlefield repairs as well. On Eldar, Tau, Marines and such, most units with significant damage would be rotated to the rear and repaired, so I stick with worn/chipped paint and the occasional small arms pock. I am interested in doing an army that would be stuck on a world fighting for months or years without support. The conversion, wear, and jury rigging opportunities would be terrific.

Krak_kirby wrote:Orks and Guard are the only two armies I can see modeling major damage on, then I usually model hasty battlefield repairs as well. On Eldar, Tau, Marines and such, most units with significant damage would be rotated to the rear and repaired, so I stick with worn/chipped paint and the occasional small arms pock. I am interested in doing an army that would be stuck on a world fighting for months or years without support. The conversion, wear, and jury rigging opportunities would be terrific.

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