Hello all,
Lately the technique of chipping has caught my interests. I've been trying to master this (which will take a while). But i see people use the sponge technique, and achieve excellent results. But i also read a page where a guy was talking about how the sponge technique wasn't all that great. He recommened using a small sharp tip brush for chipping process. Now this leads down to my question. What brush would you recommend for this paint chipping technique, on ebay.
Also what colours are best? Dark browns, Greys? Any of those?
Thanks everyone.
Callum.

i believe Adam Wilder wrote somewhere he uses a stretched piece of sprue (made from heating a piece) and used a pin vise tool to hold it. it would then be a super tiny tip that did scratches/chips really well. i use the sponge for some mud or large rust areas but for random chips i use a 20/0 brush known as a "spotter" and plan to try the stretched sprue trick as a compliment to this tiny brush.

cheers, bd.

I find a 10/0 or a 5/0 can work well but I usually use a Tamiya 'High Finish Pointed Brush Ultra Fine' (mostly known as 'High Finish Ultra Fine'). You need to get the paint consistency correct aswell. Too thick and it tends to 'blob', too thin and it won't do much at all.

Hope this helps.

The finest brush the better. As for the sponge technique it has a different effect that chipping with the brush so it's good to practise and know both.

What's equally important is to understand how the chips work or should work to represent them realistically. Take some moments to think where on your vehicles chips are bound to appear, for what reason and how heavy they are expected to be.

Colors : All the colors you mention can do the work and it depends on what you want to show. A chip that has exposed the metal underneath the paint and has rusted should be brown, but a chip in a DAK vehicle could just be Panzergrey as it's the base coat underneath the Sand top layer.
In 1/72 scale I am working it's almost impossible to tell the colot of chips so I just use Panzergrey.

P.A.

Hello gents,
Thanks for the replies. I found them very helpful. I've bought the tamiya fine detail brush off ebay and i'm looking forward to improving my chipping and weathering.
Thanks again,
Callum.

If you have the time, I would recomend using both techniques (oo brush and sponge) This will give your model two different chips and add to the random and varied effect keeping the chipping off balance.
The color would depend on the base color of your model and the material that you are representing as exposed with your chip. Vallejo chocolate brown & black grey work well.