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Recently I was painting a knight whose armor was silver and I didn't know how to approach making it look chipped and worn. Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,
Duff

Just a few to name below.




http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/how-paint-chipped-armour-battle-damage

You could make the silver look like its painted on by using black then a duller metalic in the middle . otherwise a darker metalic to show off scratches and gouges, then in the deeper gouges add in some tarnish like rust.

It depends if your armour is silver because its intended to be bare metal, or if its intended to be painted silver... like a silver car.

A silver painted car quite likely (but not necessarily) has white primer. Your average ford moondust silver (which is the colour of 99% of all ford fiestas in the UK, has white primer)

So to chip you would have a white primer edge showing, then possible the etch prime (which is a yellow colour), and then bare metal which would be likely more shiny and mirror like metal than the paint was. and could be rusted and coroded too - as its now exposed - the paints job is to protect against that, its not really about looking pretty as such.

does anyone know of any fluff describing how a marine's armour gets coloured? Like its the year 40'000, are they still using spray guns like we could do now...? Id expect atleast powder coated, or some new high tech colouring method during manufacture of the ceramite.

It might be coloured all through, and scratches wouldnt necesarily be silver... Is ceramite even silver? it sounds like ceramic, which I'd have as white. And ceramic wouldnt corrode.
Theres no reason to assume that ceramite would chip and scratch the same way a modern day tank would without more information to put it as a metallic material painted like we paint vehicles now (a tank would be painted with a pressure pot spray gun I bet)

The armor itself is silver, not painted to look that way. That's why i'm having trouble.

Googled for 'scratched metal' ;



For fresh scratches; the white / bright silvery lines.

For old ones, black (really dark brown) as dirt will get trapped in them

They might also rust inside the scratch more quickly where its not polished, which could run across the plate with rain and crate patches of rusty stain and corrosion spots.


edit; another thought I had on the matter; the black ones might not be full of dirt atall, and could just be scratched from an angle against the light, while the bright ones could be from an angle towards the light

You might need to have a think about how the scratches are meant to have got there and the angles from which theyre made. where the bright spots are just reflecting light at different angles rather than showing under laying primer or materials or even dirt.

Youre going to have difficulty here. Kind of like highlighting white. The easiest option would be to use the brightest silver on the darkest silver. You could maybe try mixing the chip colour wi th a tiny amount of light bronze paint, or, what i think would work best, start with a darker metal colour, then smash on all of the gradual silver highlighting, so only the very edges of your armour plate are the darker shade, then apply your chips to this.

Actually another idea is to do shallow cuts that would reflect light differently.

Take black or a dark metal or mix your silver with a little black and make a line where you want a chip

Then take your silver add some white or whatever and line the underside of the black line. to make it look 3D.

And the mega lazy way is to just use a graphite pencel. it should be darker than most silvers so should look ok on silver (but varnish first)

You may want to possess a consider the way the scuff marks should currently have there and also the perspectives from where they are really made. in which the vivid spots are just highlighting mild with different sides instead of showing under laying primer or even components or perhaps grime.