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Something I've pondered but never really gotten an answer for:

In the tank modeling business, it seems in vogue to weather the tank to the point that, as one friend in the military observed: 'The motor pool sargent is gonna be pissed..."
and yet...

Troopers (of just about any army) all seem to have just come from Review??? I went through dakka, CMON, and a couple other sites, and only found a handful of troops that actually looked like they were anywhere near a war. (Mostly DKoK, and even they were largely suspiciously tidy).

So how is it that tanks look more heavily weathered then one's I've seen pulled up off the bottom of lakes after 60 years, but space marines aren't even dusty????

Probably because it's easier to make weathering look good on a vehicle than on a smaller miniature, and because it's easier to make crisp cleanness look good on a small miniature than on a vehicle.

o_0 so, you're telling me people have a hard time doing that?

*looks at Black Templars*

I so need to get a camera right now...

idk, i think alot of models look like they have been in battle. most chaos do anyways. space marines look nicer when they are clean i think.
couldnt realy make beaten guardsmen/tau because if they had gotten into close combat they would have died already.
tyranids, idk how ud make them look like theyve been through battle, i always imagined that they eat and re built their injured.
eldar are always shown to be clean and rainbowy
orks look like they may have been through battle i think. but thats rly just how they are supposed to look clean or other wise, thems dirty orkies
necrons, i gues you could break an arm off a warrior to show they ahve been through battle, or ad rust to all of them.
grey knights i imagine would have their armor repaired quite often.
i could see a rino being damaged, but the people inside being ok cuz you can repair a rino after its treds are destroied, but you cant realy repair a space marine whos lost his legs

... yeah, but at some point they're going to get muddy, or dirty, or covered in dust, or and number of other things that happen. even a guy who wasn't hit at all can look like hell, depending on what was going on.

Was the battle in a rainstorm? In a howling blizzard? in some Emperor forsaken slime filled corner of the underhive?

Even if they aren't hurt, their uniforms won't look like they just came from the cleaners.

I seem to recall some Black Templars that LBursley (spelling?) in his P&M blog and they were heavily weathered, I think it was around page 20. They looked awesome imho.

I've just started a daemon army, and I'm lacking well...any armour so far to paint, never mind weather! I had some Space Marines I was working with and was weathering them a little, I think I've got a WiP Sergeant in my gallery page.

I totally agree that the armour should look weathered IF 40k was anywhere close to being realistic, I think that having an entire armour plate highlighted the whole way round it opposed to just the top edges looks beyond ridiculous, but it's everyone's own preference.

I don't bother to highlight with paint at all. I have a big Tamiya kit, the one with the weathering compounds that looks like a eyeliner box? Works great and gives it a more subtle highlight.

According to fluff, SMs are special purpose shock troops who are only in action for a short time. They come straight from the depot, and they go back right after a short fight. They don't have time to get weathered.

I agree weathering a small model is to a large degree pointless beyond basic stuff. It works on tanks because they are large enough and have enough flat surfaces that the size of the strokes/powders look relatively realistic.

On a small, crowded infantry unit, it just obscures the tightly packs detail. I am pretty firmly convinced that if it could be done well the masters would use the techinique more often. It's not impossible, just so painstaking and delicate that it is not really something for army's I guess.

That's my 2 cents anyhoo lol

It's something that can look good in hi-resolution images blown up to two or three times lifesize on a website.

Most people would never notice weathered infantry in the middle of a game.

I feel that weathering infantry models really add character and personality to your basic troopers. Weathering Powders might be a little over the top for infantry, but I use the sponging technique on my guys to give them dirty armor, chipped plating, etc.



No one wants totally clean soldiers, unless you're Eldar....

Kilkrazy wrote:According to fluff, SMs are special purpose shock troops who are only in action for a short time. They come straight from the depot, and they go back right after a short fight. They don't have time to get weathered.

Weathering can happen in seconds. A tank shell hits the ground in front of you, boom, you're laying on your back, covered in dirt (assuming you weren't covered in shrapnel). When you stand up, you are dirty. (And without a space marine helmet, probably spitting out the nasty grit) A building you're hunkered down in takes a hit, you're covered in dust. And believe me, once a river, lake, stream, or any other form of water (or even just a damp field) gets involved, there will be mud.

Battlefields aren't neat and clean.

They're dusty, dirty, grimy, muddy, icy, snowy, bloody, oily, smoky, explosion infested portals to hell.

And when you're at the bottom of the trench crawling toward the bunker and praying to God that you live for the next five seconds as the enemy drops a whole steelmill worth of metal around you, your uniform is going to be soiled. Possibly in more ways then one.

I think its all about what a person wants to do.

Weathered or not weathered its all up to the painter.

Cases can be made for weathered and/or clean pristine troops and vehicles.

Tau are supposed to be clean and pristine. I have painted a group of Tau vehicles and made them look like rust buckets. The fluff of why is up too you.



Its a big ole universe out there.

You have hardened battle forces or you have some green horns fresh off the farm. You make the call.

Love that weathered look on tau.

Just had a look through your gallery Stump, those Tau vehicles are awesome, in the true sense of the word. Brilliant

On topic: Regardless if the Space Marines are shock troops or not, it doesn't take 3 days for dust to stick to your boots, obviously depending on the terrain they're deployed on, trudging through mud will take seconds to dirty your boots, whereas running through a destroyed city, through ruins etc, you're gonna get some dirt on ya pretty quick.

But as I said, it's personal preference. Imho it's one or the other, having heavily weathered vehicles and shiny, spotless troops just looks wrong.

I often add a little mud and dirt in places, but I think it is easy to overwhelm the models with mud and such. Especially considering that if it isn't a very rainy day or you are not trudging across shelled out no man's land, it isn't too unreasonable to only have a little mud and some very light dust, since people don't kick up as much as vehicles. A little around the boots and perhaps knees and the bottoms of long coats should be enough for most guys who haven't literally been rolling around in the mud (which can also happen!)

I've started weathering my infantry -







with weathering powders its not too difficult.
Mix up a wash of the powder & water, spread on liberally, wait for it to dry completely then use a stiff brush (I find the GW stippling brush or an old toothbrush work great) to take off most of it. I also use my fingers as the grease on them really helps.

BaronIveagh wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:According to fluff, SMs are special purpose shock troops who are only in action for a short time. They come straight from the depot, and they go back right after a short fight. They don't have time to get weathered.

Weathering can happen in seconds. A tank shell hits the ground in front of you, boom, you're laying on your back, covered in dirt (assuming you weren't covered in shrapnel). When you stand up, you are dirty. (And without a space marine helmet, probably spitting out the nasty grit) A building you're hunkered down in takes a hit, you're covered in dust. And believe me, once a river, lake, stream, or any other form of water (or even just a damp field) gets involved, there will be mud.

Battlefields aren't neat and clean.

They're dusty, dirty, grimy, muddy, icy, snowy, bloody, oily, smoky, explosion infested portals to hell.

And when you're at the bottom of the trench crawling toward the bunker and praying to God that you live for the next five seconds as the enemy drops a whole steelmill worth of metal around you, your uniform is going to be soiled. Possibly in more ways then one.

Codex Marines armour is painted with teflon and equipped with an ultrasonic vibration pulse to shed dirt as soon as it touches.

Great topic, and very good timing as I've been struggling with these issues myself as I re-make my SM army. It's been all planning and building to this point, but I'm about at the point as which I'll need to start painting.

We had an interesting discussion on my thread about damage vs. weathering & how the high level of maintinence that SM armor gets would effect things. Consensus was that you probably wouldn't see any major damage or schmutz on armor between one conflict and the next as it would be taken care of the marines, servitors, etc during down-time... unless some was left on purpose as a kind of battle trophy. So the weathering would reflect more the stage of battle you were modeling... if you're modeling the opening minutes of the conflict, your marines would probably be pretty tidy and neat... mid battle when all hell has broken loose would be a different story. They'd be dirty & there would be damage to the armor plates, etc.

So, it's a personal decision as mentioned previously... but I do agree that the effects should be consistant across the army... just for asthetics.

Kilkrazy wrote:
Codex Marines armour is painted with teflon and equipped with an ultrasonic vibration pulse to shed dirt as soon as it touches.

Yes the only thing it apparently doesn't repel: "Cheese"

Young Man, please point to where the ultrasonic vibration pulse touched you, on the picture here.





An aside: There appears to be everything you could possibly want inside that armor, except a way to take it off. Or room for someone to wear it, let alone a seven foot tall superman.

From a fluff viewpoint SM would probably be very clean. They spend very little time actually fighting and more time traveling from warzone to warzone. The game doesn't show it well but SM usually Drop pods / deep strike/ drive up to important targets kill everyone in sight then jump back on their ships. They aren't used for holding objectives and don't spend much time on the battlefield as they very rarely walk anywhere. When not in use their armour will be kept in perfect condition.

As for models in general as others have said a lot of weathering techniques are lost on small models. Vehicles have enough room for weathering and the normal colours, whereas if you weather nfantry it usually coves up the armour's main colour. The main way of weathering infantry is sponging lightly as this does work quite well.

For those who care, I updated my gallery, including my muddy Emperor's Champ.