I was wondering how to weather armor thats been in the desert for a while. Any tips would be nice.

Thanks

That depends on a lot of factors. Is it WWII or modern? Country of origin is very important as far as paint quality goes, and whether or not the vehicle has been overpainted from a European paint job.

For instance, WWII German vehicles many times had the German Grey underneath and it not take much for time to expose it. Many modelers first paint the model desert sand and then paint on paint chips in a German Grey. Then there are rust streaks and the like that can be accomplished with oils (Burnt Sienna). Then pastels placed by using thinner and then painting the paste into nooks and crannies like tracks and around light guards, etc.

Then there are modern US vehicles in Iraq for instance. Army tanks were painted desert sand and had some chipping and scratching but not a lot. They were/are also susceptible to rust in some areas as well, like grab handles and side skirts. The M1s were very roughly treated in OIF1 and suffered from paint chips and rust (again, minor) even before crossing the border since they were training in the desert for months.

Then there are the Iraqi tanks, which suffered sometimes quite a lot of paint chipping and the original Russian Green is evident all over.

Basically, once you have the base coat on, I like to use Raw Umber ooil paint for a pin wash, then some type of toanl wash with something like Paynes Grey, and then start the chipping process, and some streaks with Burnt Umber oil paint (on the vertical surfaces) and then the pastel treatment on tracks.

Also, there are the tanks in their original European camo like olive drab, and the pastel treatment really looks cool with them.

Bob.

A lot of what he said.

Desert conditions are murder on paint. The sun bakes it, wind whips sand over it. Most desert scheme paints are applied over a pre-existing basecoat (unless it's Israeli native-produced armor), and most of the desert paints aren't very high-quality. Even without the desert environment, it would chip. It also fades easily, and often unevenly.

Also, careful to not overdo it. Even though the conditions were hard, most tanks didn't live long-enough to see heavy weathering.

I do is kind of weathering with Mig productions powders and but a nice layer of powder and put the model in a 3 sided box , trash bag covering it and with little bit of air from the airbrush and spray the air from the front end till you think it looks great to you and then do the other angles like front; side; back; then the other side.Make sure it's far enough away so it doesn't clean it ; say maybe 3-6 inches away from the model. " OH "and use the fine setting on the airbrush so you can control the air to your likeing. It may take a few tries but the safe thing is that you didn't lose any powder because you had the model closed in and not have it blow all over the place and you can use the extra again. So you don't have to buy more when you can save it.

I tried it a on a few of my models and it turned it out " GREAT " for me. I thought of that one day looking out of my car one day. Driving and I was just seeing how cars picked up the sand from the beaches here in FL . And the airbrush air simulates the air blowing the sand onto the cars.

But make sure it's on low " L-O-W " AIR or you'll blow all of the powders off and not look like the wind put it there like the wind does on real sized cars.

Happy Modeling
(++) 1:35

Hi friends!
As already mentioned, the origin of the vehicles has to be taken into account, as for German stuff one needs often to base colour them dark grey (German grey).


After the base coats I usually resemble paint chips with the masking method (either liquid or Tamiya masking tape).
For the dust I use mostly pigments.

I did a German Mercedes l 3000 truck for an Africa Diorama. With the construction report you can also read some painting tricks for "dusty" Germans...
http://www.panzermodellbau.com/en_tip_merc2.html

The base-coat for ALL German vehicles was red-oxide primer. As for exposing German paint, one of the more common mistakes is to 'over-chip'. in the case of vehicles transferred to the desert, many (as far as I can remember) were indeed painted with Panzer-Grey, however a considerable amount were painted sand ON TOPe of the Red Oxide.

The quality of the German pain was also of a very high standard - lessening the effects of 'chipping' as would be found on the vehicles of other nationalities...Jim

Red-Oxide primer, was a VERY bright red. Not the brownish-red we are accustomed to...

I'm just doing a Bradley in Desert camo finish, so if you want to keep an eye on it, it can be found here

Henk

Compared to US M1's, the British Challengers were subjected to more paint wear and tear. Reference photos from Concord Publications show extreme paint chipping on Challengers, revealing the base coat olive green. This subject is recently discussed in Tamiya Model Magazine issue #106.

http://www.tamiya.com/english/news/magazine/m106.htm

I would concur with this entirely. Firstly, I spent a month in Plymouth, England, just after some of the Royal maines came back from Iraq with their vehicles. At that time, he vehicles still had their sand 'overcoat' and was it chipped

Secondly, last year, getting it from the 'horse's mouth' as it were, I was speaking to some Marines who had been with their Landrover Wolfs with the WMIK set-up. Best case, was a full workshop re-spray, worst case was paint cans and mops....Jim