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Trying to figure out how to paint rust, I'm making some zombie Space Marines and I want their armor to look old and covered in rust, what's a good technique right now I'm thinking

Brown paint
Followed by some thinner red paint
Black ink wash
Then highlighting with some tin metal color

But my skills are horrible, any tips?

I personally use weathering powders.

Ok, this has worked well for me

Dark chocolate brown (think doombull brown from Citadel)
Heavy, and I mean heavy, drybrush of a redder brown (Skrag brown)
Lighter drybrush, or stipple, a bright orange (Slayer Orange)
Light drybrush of metallic silver (boltgun metal) concentrating on areas which would move, raised edges, anywhere that logically rust wouldn't build so much.

A WIP of my Nurgle Soulgrinder, with the rust effect largely finished....

Brown undercoat, drybrushed with metal, then a dirty mud wash. Easy as that.

I wouldn't call it that easy, as most of the "easy" rust painting methods to not look right, IMHO, especially if they are mainly based on washes.

Weathering powders are one of the easiest ways to do it, and they add the bonus that they look natural when it comes to reflected light.

I do the same stuff everyone does: start off with something silver, then paint a dark brown on it. After that, paint or begin to stipple (I come to that in a second) some terracotta color on it. The larger the area is, the sooner you should start to stipple. Take an old drybrush or any "cheap" brush, but it down to about 2mm, stip in it the paint as dry as possible, and simply start to stipple the color on. Not only should it be uneven in the opacity, but also in the thickness/texture. My advice: never really clean this stipple brush...the more it is encrusted with dry paint, the better.

Now work up to very, very bright oranges. Yes, do it. The brighter, the better, and get a feeling of doing this "halfwet-in-wet". Your previous coat should be "nearly" dry, but not 100% dry (allthough it is no problem if it is).

Work your way up to Blazing Orange (or whatever it is called nowadays), and reduce the area where you stipple with each go.

When you are done, add some brownish wash (devland mud or earthland whateveritisnowcalled).

You can take the same route and finish it off half way with pigment.

Pigment looks more natural (Forge Worldish), while doing it with wet colors alone looks more 40kis/cartoonish.

PS: Azrael showed what the result is...and you can vary the brightness/amount of rust easily. Just test it out. It is fun, actually. That's why I buy Nurgle stuff...I don't play them, but I love painting them

regards

tuo

Cool thanks everyone some great tips in here

Try using a piece of torn sponge instead of a brush. Take off most of the paint then just dab the area.

Short tutorial I did in my P&M blog :

 Minus wrote:
How to achieve a pretty quick and - I hope so - convincing rust ? Let me explain how I proceed :

I always start painting on black undercoat, question of habits. To get a good effect I'll need several shades of brown, an orange of course, and a "silver" color. The colors I use are scorched brown, bestial brown, snakebite leather, blazing orange and boltgun metal.
These colors are not restrictive, you could replace the bestial brown wich is an orange brown with calthan brown for instance, or snakebite with another ocre color like Tausept ocre. You see ?

- I start with painting everything but the recesses in scorched brown.
- I then take an old brush with a f**ked up point to tap on the surfaces I want to rust with diluted bestial brown. This creates random spots of lighter brown all over the scorched brown.
- I proceed the same way with snakebite leather, but I restrain the areas to let the previous colors appear.
- Same with orange.

At this point, you should have a satisfying rust. Now, all we have to do is to reveal the metal under the rust. For this I use boltgun metal that I apply on all area wich I think would be subject to friction on a real object, like angles and edges, and also on random places as soon as it looks good.
You're done. The multiplication of the layers gives a textured effect. But each step is really fast.

Step by Step :


Exemples of the final result :
Depending on how much you insist on each color, you can get a more orange or a more dark rust. You can also use washes (devlan mud, wood stain) if you want.

Just for the record: There are different forms of rust, so there are different ways to achieve them. Lightly to heavily rusted, brown to orange.
There are paints, washes, pigments and even real rusting metal powder.

I've only been painting for about half a year, so...
What I've done, is layer brown, red, then orange by "stabbing" dry paint onto wherever I want rust.
I used this on the pipe of my diorama piece, although I may have messed it up a little by adding Vallejo's rust wash afterwards, that is, I think it may have looked better without the wash...

I just dab on browns, oranges, reds, etc until I'm satisfied. I hear that the weathering powders are unrivalled though.