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I painted my drop pod in Dark Angels livery and I want it to look like it has just made atmospheric entry. Can anyone suggest good ways to add that - freshly burned look to the drop pod? I tried to drybrush chaos black with a wash of Devlan Mud. It does not look burnt enough. Thank you for any help.

Call me crazy, but as a kid I built way too many jet fighters and wanted the same kind of scorch marks on them.

I used,...um.

Well, I used a burning piece of sprue and held the model at an angle where it could collect the soot as it flowed across the model. Then sealed it with a clear matte spray.

It looks great, but if you try this be aware that the plastic from the burning sprue will drip like melting wax. Be careful. You should also do this in a garage or something out of the wind. The soot will float everywhere after about a foot of straight up.

Do not burn the Drop Pod or any other form of plastic. That is an idiotic way to do it and dangerous for your health.

There's two real ways to do this:

1) Painting it on. To do this, look at the engines of the Space Shuttles or the Apollo capsules. You'll have varying degrees of color and paint chippage--the outermost edges of the burn will be bare metal where the heat has taken the paint clean off, while the next step down will be a lighter brown, the next step down will be a darker brown, and then the bottom and most noticeable part will be a mixed blackish-brown.

2) Weathering powders. Here you'll get a nice, even finish and something that quite frankly will be fun to do.
What I like to do for weathering powders is I take a small amount(half a teaspoon will do) and put it into the top from a can of spray primer. Ideally one that just has a flat inside, rather than some which have a kind of 'guard' built up around the nozzle itself.
Once you do that step, you'll take a matte medium(Vallejo makes a good one) and put in two to three drops, depending on the consistency you want.
Following that(or prior to. It really makes no difference), you add in two drops of an Acrylic Paint Thinner(again, Vallejo makes a great one).

Now are you ready for the fun part? Now, take something like a ratty old brush or the body of a ball-point pen, or even a cut piece of sprue and stir/grind the mix up really fine. Once you can put the mixture onto a piece of paper and it flows--you've got the right mix. Apply it using a cut piece of the packing sponge that comes from a blister, then let it set(doing this AFTER you've already painted and sealed the entire model I should add). Once it's set, look at it. Has it gathered in the places you want? Does it look 'right' or does it look like you just piled dirt on it? To go back and correct things like this, take a small amount of rubbing alcohol, and apply it to another cut piece of sponge. Rubbing alcohol makes it flow far far smoother and even gives you the ability to make 'streaks' as you want them on there.

However I should note that I hope you have some form of surgical gloves or rubber gloves to work with, because this method is messy as all hell. I suggest doing it outside. Also--remember to wear a respirator or a dust mask, even with proper ventilation. Weathering powders, for the most part, are safe to inhale and potentially digest--but the mixture you've made isn't. And breathing in fine particulate is never a good idea anyways. So be safe.

Find a way to suspend the model so it is hanging.

Then shoot black primer (lightly and controlled) upwards from underneath it. Touch up as needed.

@ CT GAMER - or just turn it upside down and spray downwards... then you don't make quite so much mess and get paint all over yourself

Get a little blowtorch, and gently move it over the model, enough to blacken it, but not enough to melt it.

JDM wrote:Get a little blowtorch, and gently move it over the model, enough to blacken it, but not enough to melt it.

DO NOT DO THIS...

JDM wrote:Get a little blowtorch, and gently move it over the model, enough to blacken it, but not enough to melt it.

I guess this would work if your model is made out of a block of wood.

Man, the bad advice in this thread is really really bad.

What do you mean? I have been burning plastic models all morning and i....uuuuughhh... (collapses and dies)

Thanks for the advise- being ALL MAN myself, I love the idea of taking open flame to my carefully built, lovingly painted and sealed creation! I can't wait to light a fire under it! LOL
Thanks guys- I do appreciate the help. I'm going to try to post pics of the finished product soon.

PS-- Sorry that my request for information caused the expiration of Nurgleboy77!

Clearly, what you need to do is this:

1: get a space ship
2: drop your drop pods from orbit to a location near your home.
3: Recover the drop pods

this is the best way to get the most realistic bun/scorch effects.

But really, weathering powders are your real best bet on this.

I'm going to just throw in yet another post saying that you should NOT EVER burn the plastic to get a burnt effect. It will look sloppy, easily destroy the entire model, and lastly, will not be fun for you or anyone around you. Don't burn the plastic, dude...

I would just use black weathering powders. First of all it gives great results. Plus as said before it does not take alot of it to get the results you want plus it is cheap. Take a look at pictures of space capsules for a good idea of near stright on re-entry. So using the weathering powders start heavier on the bottom and go lighter. But with the this type of weathering on such a large model it will give you a good chance to pratice with weathering powders since with re-entry weathering I do not think you could really over do it.

Here is a picture of a Soyuz with a major re-entry burns:


I would think that only the bottom half of the drop pos would look this burnt and any piece sticking out would have burn marks across the bottom and sides.

DO NOT USE FIRE ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR PLASTIC MODEL OR SUPPLIES! DEATH COULD OCCUR!

Soviet Yam wrote:Clearly, what you need to do is this:
1: get a space ship
2: drop your drop pods from orbit to a location near your home.
3: Recover the drop pods

This is what I do all the time. It really gets an effect that it has gone through over thousand degrees of heat. And sometimes, you may even be able to find the miniatures! However, it takes a lot of time to build them again so if you hate building Drop Pods (like me), this is not recommended.