Weathering a Venerable Dreadnought...see what I did there?

In warfare, is this not truly where the tank or APC lives?

I think it is.




In the grim far future where there is only war that is 40k I think we all forget that. Dust, oil, rust, MUD, martian mud whatever.

Not a single one of my vehicles has ever had a scratch on it. Not one has ever had oil or rust or muddy tracks (in fair eldar and tau skimmers seem to fit with being clean...just my view)

It has been the treadhead of the Imperial Guard who has recreated 'life like' tanks. But no more.

Clearly, I am not a pioneer.

No S... Sherlock!

But for me, this is new.

My cheap AOBR Dreadnought converted to the Blood Angel cause began life like this:



Yeah me, dirt cheap and not too funny looking, although as was pointed out the converted powerfist is more a pneumatic weapon than a fist - able only to smash in a straight line or with a inflexible swing of the arm...but hey ho :)

So I painted him up... and then weathered him. Breath! Shock.

He came out pretty good for a virgin weathering....

Now I am quite chuffed with this.

Scratches/Chipping:
These are achieved by simply painting with a dark brown, I used GW Scorched Brown which in fairness...is not that dark...but I felt that this would compliment the colours already present on the model greater than by using Chaos Black.
You can of course use CBlack as your first chipping colour.

Once this is dry, use Boltgun metal and paint inside the lines (just like at Primary School...) leaving some brown/black still showing all the way around.

This creates an illusion of depth on an other wise flat surface.

For more 'recent' battle damage/chipping, use a slither of Mithril Silver in place of Boltgun. Now, I have not done this, but after seeing how much the model has been dulled down by the Weathering Pigment I can see that one should not be afraid to use the brightest of bright...it'll only look a touch shiny!

Mud:
This was created using MIG Pigments or can be done using Forgeworlds Weathering Powders.
Simply mix your mud with 40:60 pigment to acrylic resin ratio. This gives a great, gritty consistency.
This consistency can be further made more realistic by throwing in modelling sand, stones etc.
On really big tanks (I'm thinking ambitious Land Raider projects already) you could even throw on filed or sliced figure heads, legs etc to represent bodies crushed under the relentless advance of the metal behemoth! Ahem. Yes. Carried away!

Slap on your mix where appropriate, tank tracks, lower 3rd of the vehicle all the way around...heaviest at the bottom, most gritty at the bottom etc

This needs to dry for at least an hour before advancing to...

Dusty, dried mud stuff:
Yes, the above is a technical term.
Using the dry pigment and an old drybrush, whack it on the vehicle. I believe that dust would go ALL over the tank so brush it on all over...heaviest just above the mud. First use the same pigment as you used to create the mud, then you can seal this with a quick, light spray of varnish. After this layer has been sealed, you can then drybrush on a lighter tone of powder. This lighter tone represents newer mud, less ingrained.

The dust effect can be done equally well by actually drybrushing. Using scorched brown mixed 70:30 with graveyard earth you can create a pretty good colour. When completely dry use a 50:50 SB:GE mix and dry brush this on.
Make sure the drybrush is completely dry before putting on the next mud tone.

OK. So this is not a comprehensive guide. Nor am I an expert by such a long way!
See here for a better one from the Painting Corps.

Try it out. It looks wicked. I have also learnt that if I wish to seriously photo miniatures I need to get a new camera and learn how to do it!

I'm going to weather all my vehicles...so in the current BA model collection its 13....thats alot of mud.

Once I've perfected it I'll do a stage by stage with photos.

Venerable