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Last night I had a good conversation with a couple of folks at the local shop about Weathering and all of the crazy different techniques that folks in the Military Modelling world have been using. Here's a post from my site that I put together to help direct folks to some really great tutorials around the web.

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I've been doing a lot of reading as of late into model tank weathering. My search has led me to many different methods and takes on the subject and I've landed squarely in the land of military modeling, where many wargamers fear to tread.

Over the years, I've done my share of weathering experimentation and even created my own tutorial for a very simplistic approach to the subject that many wargamers out there could emulate with what they already have available to them. But my increasing interest in the subject had me really searching for more effective ways to weather tanks and vehicles to the next level.

Today, I happened upon Exponent Wargaming, where I found a few really great links to some really great sites. Some I'd already seen before, others completely new. And it made me realize that the biggest problem people have figuring out this whole weathering thing, is finding a lot of information in one place. So I decided to put together a small cross section of the best, most informative step by step tutorials I could find.

FichtenFoo's T-74 Painting and Weathering - A great all around from the start of the painting process to the finished weathering and a lot of things in between.

IPMSStockholm's AFV Weathering - An easy to follow step by step on Filters, Scratches, Paint Chipping, and Dusting.

Ultrawerke Painting And Weathering - A 4 part series of posts, quite possible the most in depth step by step on the subject I've seen out there.

I know I'll be pouring over all of these amazing resources for weeks and months to come. For those of you who might have some more links to some other sites, feel free to leave them in the comments section! I'm always down for more reading!

I hope more wargamers out there like myself will feel inspired to take their craft to the next level and really push the boundaries wargaming realism.

Excellent work, this will provide a great source of reference. Cheers!

I like work with pastels they give a good finish, as can be seen on this pic, mainly around the track and on the wheels. All shading on the base is with pastels too. It's not ideal for handling though which rules it out of wargames models. Some people create dust effects with an airbrush but that's not something I've tried.

Some quick and easy weathering tips:

Thinned black and brown around rivets and bolts. Draw it slightly downward for liquid streaking. Also works well on overhanging panels.

Thinned earth colors on a soft brush. Lightly dab around tread and wheels and bottom of hull/undercarriage. Can lighten with a khaki layer to look even more dusty. A darker brown will look more like mud.

Thinned colors slightly lighter than your base color and wet drybrush hitting edeges, wheelwells, etc. to lighten paint. Can then lighten some more for more extreme scratches.

Thin browns and let it pool on metallic areas to represent corrosion. Highlight by lightly dabbing thinned orange patches for rust. For copper based metals, use a green or blue green wash instead and dab a jade green for scaled verdigris.

Thin black (maybe adding a bit of dark brown) and lightly dab around cannon barrel ports, engine exhaust ports, etc. to reflect carbon buildup and charring. Engine exhaust pipes also benefit form generous brown washes.

Excellent list of tutorials! Weathering on models looks nice. It gives lots of depth and adds character. IRL weathering is not realistic except for vehicles fulfilling an extended role in theatre. Having been in military service the first thing that happened when you came back from training in the field was to wash and clean your vehicle. There could not be a spot of dirt anywhere. Vehicles were usually painted regularly as well. Even after aa extended stay in Turkey, we spent a solid week washing vehicles. Though that was more to prevent any indigenous critters from coming back to the States that could be harmful to the ecology.

Rymafyr wrote:Though that was more to prevent any indigenous critters from coming back to the States that could be harmful to the ecology.

The Ecology? Seriously? After going around the world firing off rounds of depleted uranium they worry about bringing back a spider or something???

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Rymafyr wrote:Though that was more to prevent any indigenous critters from coming back to the States that could be harmful to the ecology.

The Ecology? Seriously? After going around the world firing off rounds of depleted uranium they worry about bringing back a spider or something???

Yep, introduce the wrong varmit into an eco-system and you'll have a major catastrophe. Down south, Kudzu is an example of something introduced into our hemisphere that has no natural predator here in the US. That's only a plant, but when you see it smothering entire acres of forest (because it grows up to 1 foot a week) you gotta wonder. There's also a Bull Frog of sometype I'd heard of introduced into some region that is having an impossible time dealing with them.

That's a good couple of sites there GD... if anyone's really serious about treating their 40k tanks and other gaming tanks like 'real' armor models, I'd long to strongly recommend a perusal of www.armorama.com as well... it's one of the premier communities for historical modelers with alot to be learned there and an amazing community of some of the most talented modelers.

My tip: Use an old toothbrush for mud splatter.