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Over the years i have been painting spacemarine's armour as brand new and clean. I now want to paint battle damage and chipping on te paint etc. I dont want to go over board though! Thinking about my army (darkangels), i was considering that the marine of the army might not get the same level of importance as say a deathwing knight when it comes to repairs and so would have more damage build up over the years? Let me know what you think and feel free to post weathered spacemariens pics.

Thanks

Based on the 'fluff' a normal marine legion has armourers that repair everything between battles, but if your particular group happen to be on a deeply embedded campaign without support staff, then you could totally justify some (or even lots) of battle damage built up over time.

I like the idea that the higher rank people would have the best repairs too - assault marines/scouts could have a lot of 'blade damage' type marks, devastators with burns/dirt, tacticals with the occasional bullet damage, scuffed up knees etc.

I think to be honest you'd be hard pressed to make it look too much.

I have recently seen some images of deathwing with extremely realistic looking paint damage. Was so good. The rest of the paint job was not so great but there was a lot of talent regarding the chipping. Thanks for your response. Good to know that they get a touch up now and then for their efforts. Wanna see some pictures of peoples efforts in this.

i enjoy doing chipped guys, weathered guys, and pristine guys...
here are a few pics of my attempts at chipping and weathering...

this was my first try at chipped paint:



this was my second attempt:



my third try, where i think i got some nice depth with the chipping:



applying what i learned from my experiments to a competition mini:



and finally, where it all came together:




now i am working on some heavily weathered Marines...

with rust:




without rust:



i hope those give you a little bit of inspiration...
good luck!!!

cheers
jah

Jah, not to hijack but do you mind sharing what you learned? This is an area I've just started working on, and I like your results.

Yes, please teach us you ways.

Very nice! Just what I had in mind. Rust is a nice touch I'm looking for just the right color. There are loads of youtube videos with chipping mainly on tanks. I hear ak chipping fluid is good, looking forward to trying this out!

Well, thematically, since there are only 1000 space marines in the whole chapter access to repairs should be an issue

I think it's just a question of taste; which you prefer on the taqbletop.

@lechine and Stormwall: i am not sure what i have learned, as i keep trying to achieve new visual styles with each mini...
all i can say is that the chips on these guys are all hand painted, in order to have complete control over the size and placement of each chip...
none of these guys were painted to a deadline, except the Salamanders Captain, so i could take my time and really push outside of my comfort zone...
if you look at the Salamanders Captain versus Logan Grimnar, you can see that i was able to spend more time on Logan's chips, and as a result, they have more depth and variation...
for DC Tycho, it was all about trying to figure out how to give the black a light enough tone that the chips would show up, yet not be too garish...

for the Ultramarines, it is just the opposite...
they are painted on a very tight deadline, and i had to come up with a simple, effective way to visually represent that they are fighting on Tyranid infested worlds, where even the atmosphere has become toxic and corrosive...
the rust wash was used as a quick technique to replace shading, and the sponged on metal was a quick replacement to edge highlighting...

@Kani: the rust is P3 Khador Red Highlight (orange) and Vallejo Smoke at a 4-1 ratio, mixed with an equal amount of water...
once that dried, it is covered with a glaze of pure Vallejo Smoke mixed with an equal amount of water, in order to tone down the orange...

i have seen the AK chipping fluid, liquid mask, and hairspray/salt methods used on tanks and Dreadnoughts, but i am not sure how well any of those techniques will work on a smaller infantry model, which is why i just hand paint the damage...
if you try out some different stuff, put up a WIP blog here, and share your results...
i am sure loads of people will drop in and give you tips and tricks there...

cheers
jah

One trick I've learned with orks (since they are ridiculously weathered/chipped) is to paint their armor a dingy metal first and then just add some colored paint here and there...might look really interesting on a marine and has the added effect that the metal layer is actually deeper than the colored layer.

As little as possible. None, even.

As heraldric knight equivalents, I think SM look best factory fresh at all times.

Agreed. I've never been a fan of weathering. But that could partly be because I remember when weathering and battle damage became all the rage and it was just so overdone much of the time, like NMM after it and OSL is now.

One thing I look for is to have the weathering in specific areas - the leading edge of power fists, knee plates, shields, etc. More 'random' chaipping doesn't always look as good to my mind - sometimes it looks more corrosion-like than battle damage. Think about shich surfaces get the most abuse and work on those.

I've done battle damage some on a few previous marines and I do like it, but I prefer to have the armor be somewhat pristine personally, barring some general grime on the armor/dusting around the feet, and scorched/hot metal effects on the muzzles of weapons.

To each their own, if you can pull the effect off over an entire force effectively, it looks amazing on the tabletop for sure. But as for me, I prefer to have a fairly 'clean' appearance overall.

Just my thoughts. Take it easy for now.

-Red__Thirst-

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Agreed. I've never been a fan of weathering. But that could partly be because I remember when weathering and battle damage became all the rage and it was just so overdone much of the time, like NMM after it and OSL is now.

Like OSL and NMM, weathering is rarely done well because to do it well takes a level of artistic talent most people don't possess.

I like subtle weathering on Space Marines but I concede I lack the skill to produce what I think looks good. Forge World on many (but not all) of their Space Marine models produce some pretty good weathering. For me, it's about the *subtle* paint chipping and rubbing, a bit of grime here and there, the sort of things that don't stand out at a distance but add some visual depth and it's only when you get up close you can see the work that went in to it.

Sometimes it's as simple as using brownish tones for shades and applying edge highlights as scratches rather than sharply defined lines. A bit of dust around the boots. That sort of weathering, IMO, rarely detracts from a model and can often add a bit of interest.

From Forge World:






From winterdyne's blog, some really nicely weathered Space Hulk figs:
http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/images/commissions/victor/noctis_done_final.jpg

Good weathering is beyond me, so I stick to clean Space Marines...


...and only do weathering on my more historical stuff...