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Hey all,

I’m working on expanding my chaos collection with some Nurgle demons. I’ve been searching the net for advice on how to paint a good rust effect but they all seem to be focused on using powder pigments. My gaming models are heavily used and even with a matt coat, powders tend not to survive for long. Therefore, I humbly submit my request to the hive mind of Dakka.

Has anyone had success creating decent iron rust effects with GW or Vallejo inks/paints? The areas I’m looking to paint are rather small such as hooks, chains, hand weapons, armor trimming and other fiddley bits.

Please, any info or advice is greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to paint yet MORE space marines….(shudder).

I have had quite good results going from tin bitz -> dwarf bronze -> blazing orange.

You can even go straight from tin bitz to blazing orange if you paint the orange onto freshly painted - still wet tin bitz.

Stipple and drybrush the bronze/orange over the tin bitz.

For rust, I just base whatever I want with boltgun metal, then use tin bitz (or an orange/brown, depending on preference).

The "rust" is applied using either a stippling brush (a pain to use, but I've figured it out over time) or using the normal brush in a stippling pattern. For the little parts, I recommend the second method. It works pretty well for me, though there are probably better ways to do it.

To make my ork weapons look corroded, I paint them boltgun metal, & give them a very sparing coat flesh wash, I mean, hardly any of the stuff, just to give it a slight patina or stain, as opposed to the way you'd normally use an ink.

They don't actually make fleshwash anymore (I don't know what Im going to do when I run out), but Im sure theres an analogue in the new inks they do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To make my ork weapons look corroded, I paint them boltgun metal, & give them a very sparing coat flesh wash, I mean, hardly any of the stuff, just to give it a slight patina or stain, as opposed to the way you'd normally use an ink.

They don't actually make fleshwash anymore (I don't know what Im going to do when I run out), but Im sure theres an analogue in the new inks they do.

I put a metal object in water, leave it for like 6 days, then take it out and scrape off the rust. I then paint it on with watered down white glue. Easy.

Use a little bit of thinned Blazing Orange and Bubonic Brown. You can paint this into crevices and then drybrush over it.

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll try some of these techniques out with a few test models I have.