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I'm working on painting up some Grave Guard, and am hoping to go for a really tarnished effect on the armor (bronze). Anyway, I started painting my test model last night and was hoping to get some tips on my aging effects.

BTW, these pictures really point out that I need to highlight the cloth some more.. there is so much more depth in person, but I guess it's back to the drawing board there. It also looks much more.. teal in the pictures than I am intending to go for.. Mostly looking for input on the armor, however.




BTW, if anyone is curious (and hopefully it will help with some tips!!), the way that the armor is currently painted is:
- An extremely thinned down coat of charadon granite (I find when it's thinned it kind of reminds me of boltgun but without so much silver to it).
- Super super thin boltgun metal is painted around the edges and the high points, and a few other places that just looked like they'd have tarnished *that* bad.
- Snakebite leather washed over most of the metal parts.
- Extra thin hawk turquoise in all of the crevices and randomly around the metal wherever I felt like slopping it (I didn't want to have a tarnish "pattern").
- Ice blue with a touch of dark angels green to "highlight" the hawk turquoise.
- Touch ups with boltgun and snakebite to bring a bit of luster back into the model.

Thanks for looking!!

Looks pretty nice. Vallejo also makes a color called Verdigris Glaze (Vallejo Game Colour #96 Verdigris Glaze), which is a nice tarnish effect. To get an uneven pattern, you can also use a mascara sponge brush to apply glaze.

Is the Vallejo color all goopy and super thick like the verdigris paint that you get at an art supply store, or is it actually of a manageable consistency? I'll have to look into using a makeup sponge -- I've got oodles of them lying around the house. Thank you for the response!

There was a set of Undead a couple months ago someone had painted up with some pretty amazing tarnish effects/verdigris. If you look back to early April, you might be able to find it...I'll see if I can't dig it up.

I am a big fan of using thinned glazes of VGC Scurf Green, Falcon Turquoise, and Jade Green. Unlike normal progressive washing, I usually start darker and pool lighter and lighter in the recesses to simulate accumulation. It all depends how heavy you want the corrosion (heavily corroded copper based metals will probably not show any metallic color unless the patina was somehow chipped off). Also, pooling abit on rivets and the like then pulling downward can make convincing water/drainage streaks. Patches of corrosion can be fun to do by taking a slightly damp sponge or brush and lightly dabbing areas. Work in layers until you get the patch as heavy as you like. It also helps to vary the colors a bit in the patch as heavy scaling tends to show some color variation.

As always, pictures can be very inspirational. Just google pictures on copper corrosion, bronze patina, etc. For example http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/7980/dscn5928cr9.jpg illustrates just how green copper based corrosion can get!

A suggestion on your cloth: Try using greys or tans in your highlight and shadow colors as this will make the cloth look less bright. Adding tans and browns to lighter colors makes them look more stained and greys help fade colors. Also, you may want to try using shadows that are a different hue or warmth (warm shadows on cool colors, cool shadows on warm). For example, mix a bit of deep green into your red shadows or brown into your blue shadows.

One great thing about the undead is that the allow experimentation with tons of techniques!

One thing you can try with the sponge is dabbing little spots of dirt/mud onto the bottom edge of the cloth, make it look like its been dragging on the ground.

Monkeys: I went back and looked through May / April but didn't find the undead that you were talking about, unfortunately. I probably skipped over them somehow..

Skaven: Yeah, I've been toying with the idea of adding some mud, etc -- it looks a little funny with the tarnished armor and ripped clean cloth!

Jmurph: Thank you for all of the suggestions. Some gray might be just what my cloth needs to get the icy look that I am going for.

That armor looks really good.

What I generally do though is paint pure boltgun metal over something. Then I will wash it with a thin mix of chaos black, water and a couple drops of matte medium. The medium seems to help it get in the cracks and stay there. I will usually wash it 2-3 times letting it dry completely each time, so the metal looks almost all black.. then I will add a wash of bestial brown on more of the raised parts, and when that drys I'll wash it with vomit brown in a few spots.. but this gives more of a rusted look than a "tarnished" look. I've only tried in on test pieces but I plan to use it for my chaos tanks, I want them to look old and rusted out and covered in mud.

I believe Monkeys was referring to this thread:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/208110.page

HF: Thanks for linking those!

Necros: I'd be really interested to see what you are working on -- when are you planning to get going on your Chaos tanks?

Beat me to it HFJor! Those were indeed the ones I was looking for. I just found them and was going to post the link.

hehe well the tanks were going to be last on the list! But, i'm going to be finishing up my plague marines this week so once they're out of the way maybe I'll start on the land raider next

If you have a hobby store near you another thing you can look into is weathering pigments. I have a hobbytown USA near me that sells Tamiya weathering kits, they're like 3 colors that look like makeup with the little sponge applicator and all. You can use that to get some nice dirty and rusty effects. You just use the sponge brush to spread it on, then a paint brush to kind of buff it.. but I think you will need some spray varnish when it's done so you don't rub it off. I was planning to use it for my marines but never got around to it since I had so many men to paint.. but I might go back to them when the rest is all done.

Also, here's a great tutorial on how to get some rust going, but more for a big tank than for little men.. it's in french but if you plug the url into on of those translator sites it comes out a mostly readable

http://forum.warhammer-forum.com/index.php?showtopic=108600

and here's the site I used to translate it

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt?fr=avbbf-us

Wow, that's some super-crazy rust technique going on there in French. Holy cow...

yeah .. but it's really not that bad he did a lot of extra steps.. it's just paint it like rusty metal, put that goopy stuff on it, paint the top color, then peel the goopy stuff off.

They make a kind of brush on matte thing for airbrushing that's kind of like rubber cement.. you just paint it on and let it dry, then spray then peel it off. This will work for tanks but for little army men you can prolly stop at the rust effects and skip the worn paint stuff.

Also he got some different shades of brown pastels and scraped them into powder, then added turpentine to make a rust wash with that.. I've seen that on a few other tutorials too, so I might give that a shot for mine.

Though I do think those first guys with the snakebite leather wash look real good just as is

you could try my method - http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/213887.page,
but yours are looking lovely already.

Hmm.. when I go look there, all of the pictures are broken.

that's strange, it works for me :(

he did another post on WIP, maybe this one will work

http://z11.invisionfree.com/Work_In_Progress/index.php?showtopic=12187

The one that you just posted works, and interestingly enough when I went back to look at the original link again, the pictures are working.. Maybe his webhost went down for a minute just as I was looking? Eh -- who knows.

In any case, those look really good. Perhaps a little bit more green than I'm planning to go with my own (I think it'd be overpowering on the GG since I'm also doing a blue/greenish cloth), but it looks awesome on the marine-y doods!