I`m at the point that I`m ready to chip an interior, but I have no experience doing that so here`s a few Q`s. What color should I use to chip the interior? I was thinking something along the lines of Vallejo Panzer Grey or Luftwaffe uniform. Should I underly these with some plain unweathered white? Any other hints and tips a noob like me should be aware of?

Ola Benjamin

Depends a bit on how far you want to go and how much is visible from the interiorFor interiors I usually keep it quite simple. Any dark grey to black would work. At least that is what I always do with white interiors. Try to visualise how a crew moves around a vehicle and try to apply the chips to the areas that will see a lot of scuffing, scratching and other wear and tear. And keep the amount of chips a minimum. Below are a couple of in progress shots of vehicles with interiors from me. To give you an idea.




I believe I usually take panzer grey and mix a bit of black through it to make it a bit darker. Some spots I also give a threatment with a soft pencil so it gleams a bit.

Ben;

Hi!

About interiors and "chipping"... There are at least a couple of "schools of thought" on that - those who like to show distinct chips and gouges, and those who like wear and (a little) tear. And yeah, there's any amount of middle ground in here, of course!

Rob B.'s examples are a nice portrayal of the distinct chipping "school". I am pretty far the opposite - much into dirt and smudge and scuff-marks and scraping and wearing- away of paint on exposed surfaces.

To me, chipping - the distinct and "sharp-edged" removal of bits of paint - is mostly really a product of heavy metal impacts. Hammers and gun-barrels and dropped main-gun shell-casings would chip the paint. Otherwise, boots - even hob-nailed boots, key-rings and brass bits, and dirt on shoes and clothing will more wear away paint and make stuff grungy than create a lot of chips. And all sorts of streaks and smudges, too. Just look at some metal play-ground equipment and see how it wears, or look in the bed of a working pick-up truck... Not that the "chippers" are wrong and I'm right, but paint looks more often worn than chipped, to me. Just my opinion, of course!

So I like to make my interiors all grungy and dirty, but keep the actual deep chipping to a tiny minimum. I like to "wear away" the paint - rubbing or gently sanding off the lighter outer layer to reveal dark gray or black beneath - and I apply generous washes of smudgy colors to streak and scuff walls, and surfaces.

For what they are worth (not much!), here are a couple of pics of recent builds with some interior... sad to say, neither is a mostly-white interior, but the treatments and effects are pretty "universal", I think.

This first pic shows my Italeri Semovente L/6 da 47/32 (comes with some OK interior - added some stuff. Painted with buff lower walls, dark green floor, sand upper walls.)



This pic is of my Tamiya Horch build. Done as a "DAK" gun-truck, I actually painted the whole thing in "Dunkelgrau" enamel as was originally done back in Germany, and followed up with acrylic sands. I wore away the sand and scraped bits off to depict some wear and tear that mostly reveals the underneath gray.



In both cases, I was hoping to depict more a worn and dirty interior rather than one beaten with hammers. The same methods and approach work well on the outside, too - particularly well to show that "famous" desert wearing DAK vehicles received.

Just a different school and approach!

Cheers!

Bob

It also depends on the nation you are doing too. German boots were harder on metal floors than English footwear - which was by regulation hobnails but substituded widely for soft leather shoes whenever possible because they gave better grip when entering and exiting the tank

And the theater. you get more wear in sandy regions I would say because boots grind it against paint

For wear I prefer the same as Rob, but dirt and grime is of course equally important

Treadplate always looks good with a nice dark drybrush on the raised areas

All have got they're merits. But a Defo is dry brushing,( TreadPlate) its it bit of a lost finish. It does seem to be coming back big time. Also Pigments there was alot of dirt/sand carried inside of an AFV Geraint

Thanks for the replies folks. That`s going somewhere. I`m basically looking to do a bit of all-round practice. The build is for the Dragon OOB campaign, so I`ve settled on a Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf F2 (an inaccurate churchill would not be bearable to live with, Chris ). As for the accuracy, I hold to the idea that interiors tend to chip more than the outside, since it was lived in. Shermans had their OD paint "cooked in" so it was very hard-wearing. I doubt the germans would have settled for anything less than a good hard coat of paint, especially in 1942 and before. Field applied stuff and white washes would wear off easier. So I`ll settle for chips around the hatches, around handles and around the gun breech. Maybe some places where you`d expect a crew to climb over often.

Robert: thanks for the photo input. I have to get back to TweNOT as well soon.
Rob: I`ll add some more dirt or dust where it seems logical. That grimy look of yours has a sort of uniqueness to it which I like.
Chris: nice flag you`ve got there
Geraint: Unfortunately no treadplate in my turret, but I`ll keep it in mind for the next interior build