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Friday Quick Tip: Liquid Mask Tank WhiteWash
By: grey_death


One of my favorite finishes for armor has to be the World War 2 style white wash. It's always had a special spot in my tread head heart since the first photos I'd seen looking through library books when I was a kid. It just holds so much story for the vehicle, the crew, and the environment. When I made my first steps into wargaming, I always knew I'd love to do a tank in that manner, and luckily it's a cinch to achieve the effect!


To get started, you'll want to paint your base color. This is your vehicle's typical summer pattern. You could start with any color, though usually you'll get a more visually pleasing look with a bit darker color choice. I went with VMC Brown Violet for my base, painted on using an airbrush.


The star of the show for today's tip is Liquid Mask. You can typically find this at any arts and crafts shop and it won't run you too deep in the pocket. My applicator is a simple piece of blister foam, with the edges ripped up a bit for a nice random effect.


Apply the mask as heavy or as light as you want, paying special attention to high wear spots like hatches, flat surfaces, lower quarters along the side armor. If you think the crew would be around an area often they would likely wear away the whitewash around it.


Here you can see the dried mask. This make goes on white and dries clear, but I've seen other mask that goes on different colors or stays a color. Be a bit delicate when in this stage, as you don't want to prematurely rub the mask off. It's rather easy to remove!


When it comes to liquid mask, I've found that it comes to painting over it for removal later, thinner is better. You don't need an airbrush to get thin paint for this step. So if you're without one, take your time, water your paints down, and do it in layers. If you have thick paint on top of the mask when it comes time for removal you're going to be pulling up big chunks of paint around the mask that you didn't mean to!

For my whitewash I've used VMC Off White painted on lightly using an airbrush.


When it comes to removing your masking you can use a few different tools. I have used a hard eraser before to good effect for this. For this tank, I've gone with a ball of sticky tack that worked like a dream. To start removal, just rub your finger along the surfaces to pull up the big spots. Remove as much of the mask as you can this way, and when you get to working in the small details break out the sticky tack. Be sure to loosen the tack up by ripping it apart a few times and mushing it back together. Don't push into the model too hard though, as you'll end up removing more than just the mask!


You can also use a light scratch with a fingernail to add some streaks of pulled up paint along the sides or rough up other areas a bit more. Again, just be careful not to push too hard or you'll end up pulling your base color up as well.

The effect is extremely easy to achieve and relatively quick. A bit of detail work as well as some additional weathering, and the tank will be ready to deal its death to those who oppose it!

There are a few other methods for whitewashing vehicles that I hope to cover someday in the future, but I'll leave it up to you, the readers, to figure out what works best for your vehicles!

Nice paint job, i like the white wash too, But to make it more realistic around the hatches, and in front of the tank and around the tracks would be more woren down( due to contact with the crewn and the terrian) I did the same effect with my flames of war german armour division and half tracks .... after studing picture and looking at pictures of tanks that have white wash on them, I noticed the pattern..... FYI

But its get I love it... Have you tried it with water down poster paint too it more of a translouscent white.

Hey StarGate, thanks for the reply!

I have gone back in using some 1500 grit sandpaper to add just a little bit more wear and tear to the tank since the final photograph here. I did this tank entirely for the tutorial though, so I wasn't terribly worried with the end product, just trying to show the technique as best I could ^_^.

I used an airbrush and could have gone a bit lighter for the final whitewash for sure. But it was late and my eye for it left me about halfway through painting it on x.x...

Would it sort of be like reverse minus extra coating of white paint , if it started as white paint and just dabbed the brown violet with the sponge?

LunaHound wrote:Would it sort of be like reverse minus extra coating of white paint , if it started as white paint and just dabbed the brown violet with the sponge?

That's one of many methods you can use to get to this effect ^_^. This is just the one I went with for this first tut!

Why were tanks white washed? I'll be using this for sure.

They were white washed for winter warfare and in other areas where snow was laying about.

edit: And just to comment on the tutorial, it covers pretty much all the points I can think of where you might be sitting there thinking "and how exactly do I do that?" while trying to paint using a mask. Good stuff.

That's what I figured, but I didn't want to assume.
It's an awesome idea. Is it possible to achieve the same effect with something house hold? I'm kind of isolated right now.

primeministersinister wrote:It's an awesome idea. Is it possible to achieve the same effect with something house hold? I'm kind of isolated right now.

I've mever tried it, but I have heard that you can get a similar effect using hair spray and salt.

You prime the base colour, then spray the areas of chipped paint with the hair spray and pour on the salt (make sure to arrange it in a way that looks good) then let it dry.

When dry, tip off the excess salt and paint in the over colour. When dry, gently run the model under a warm tap and gently wash off the salt (I have heard that if you rub too hard, the paint which is over the hairspray may come off as well as the salt).

Then you will (hopefully) be left with a paint chipped tank. I also understand that you will need to seal the tank to prefent the paint over the hairspray layer from peeling/getting chipped off etc.

Tutorial: http://thepaintingcorps.blogspot.com/2009/04/friday-quick-tip-salt-hairspray.html

I got a nice effect using Jelly and spray paint. Primer the model in one color, then flick bits of jelly on it (strawberry in my case) then spray your base color over that. After the second coat dries simply put it under the tap and wash it off with a tooth brush.

Just make sure you get all of it, since it is a little gross to find later One thing though is that depending on how thick the jelly is, you might not get as small of blotches.

Here my white wash for flames of war, Its poster paint water down, IN some cases you can see the Camo pattern underneath the white wash, and some time you can... I made sure i did research on the German white wash techniqic.....

Thanks for the tutorial! That's a really cool effect you have going on there. Go Bruins!

The salt technique tends to give hard edges, it's what I used for my Nitty Gritty Tank, though I stuck it on with water, not hairspray.

Marmite can be used to give a blobby pattern mask like the Liquid Mask. There is an article about it in Dakka Articles.

Just wanted to chime in and say that I tried this technique out using white spray paint instead of an airbrush, came out fan-fething tastic.

I am going to have a set of 9 tanks painted with this method. thanks for the guide!

(the army that is getting this done to it will be in the Adepticon 2010 team tournament, see if you can spot it if you are going!)