Hey boys,

I've seen ALOT of great models with the battle damaged/ chipped paint effects. Is that a technique of detailed painting, or actually scratching off dried paint? Its a wonderful looking effect that really gives the models individuality. I'd like to try this out. Any help would be great.

-Ziggy

Personally i use a method that i found in a magazine a few years back:

When the paint on your tank/building/whatever is still wet sprinkle salt on it in the areas you want chipped.
Wait for the paint to dry.
When paint has dried scrape off the salt with a hobby knife or something of that nature.
You can also scrape off some of the paint around the salt to add even more chippings if you please.

My regards
John

So simple, its brilliant....

The chipped paint effect is visually interesting, but like all modeling fads, it is being dreadfully overdone. Factory applied finishes were pretty durable, and wartime military vehicles rarely served more than a year or two (if that) before battle damage or obsolescence sidelined them. Take a look at a two-year old bulldozer--see a lot of chipped paint?
Exceptions would be winter finishes, which were usually lime wash or or water based paint, and some desert finishes, which were applied in the field in less than satisfactory conditions to dusty or greasy surfaces.
For a vehicle's basic finish to look really chipped, faded and rusty, it would have to go decades without repainting (possible in some Third-World armies). Realistically, for a WW2 vehicle, most wear and tear should be physical damage to sheet metal items and a general, overall layer of filth. Most "paint fading" seen in photos is simply a fine layer of road dust.

A friend of mines family have an old tractor. I think it's around 50-60 years. It has less paint chipping than many WWII tank models I've seen, and this tractor is used regurarely for farm and forest work and as far as I know it has never been repainted.... Think about it.
Just my two cents...

I've only tried making chipped paint once. I used a kitchen sponge and some Humbrol liquid masking. Basecoat the model (The color you basecoat with, will be the color you see, when you've chipped the paint) Dip the sponge in the liquid masking, then lightly touch the sponge with a piece of paper or cloth. You don't want to much masking liquid. Then apply the liquid to the surface where you want the paint chipped. Once dry, you paint the model, as you would normaly do. When dry, the easiest way to remove the masking is to use a cotton tipped stick, dipped in masking liquid. Just rub the stick lightly back and forth over the masking and it comes of quite easy.

Hello All

I must agree with most of you. In actual fact, if you closely examine an old piece of farm equipment, paint does come off, where scrapes and nicks occur. There is however, very little exposed shiny metal. These ' holes' quickly oxidise and the marks actually become darker in colour than the surface paint. Like all weathering effects, moderation is the key!

Regards
Garth

For my paint chipping I use a mechanical pencil.

Gerald makes a valid point. I remember talking to a Normandy veteran years ago whose unit was sent to a do a recce on a village a few days after the initial landings. The point and second vehicle were knocked out by an 88 and brewed up. My point is that these vehicles had come ashore a few days earlier so there wouldn't be that much wear to the paint. The question is how many vehicles would survive enough combat to look that worn on the surface?

Hardly any, I reckon. Those that did would not be permanently in combat anyway and would no doubt receive lots of maintenance, not least to maintain paint coverage and prevent rust.


Sean

Be fore doing ANY chipping, do something far more basic. Reseach. The net has a plethora of period photographs. Look to see if there's any chipping and if there is, where is it? Chipping might give a model individuality, but so would painting a Tiger candy apple red. Doesn't mean either one is at all realistic.

Just another point: On our old old tractors most of where the paint is peeling is where oil etc has spilled on to it, and so the paint work is cracked up with lots of little black lines, and that area has a general dull black look to it. You do get the odd bit of chipped paint from where it has grazed heavily pass something, but after a while the bare metal turns from silver to a rusty colour, with a rough finish. Harry

this might be a bit off topic, but it's important to take into account the type of vehicle and where it was produced and who did the paintwork. for example, many uniformed forces around the world purchase the usual military vehicles from major manufacturers and then paint their own in-house livery over the factory paintwork. The paint work might be poor quality.

We used to have a utility 4x4 at the navy band, it was painted in bright yellow (our regulation navy colour for all wheeled vehicles don't ask me why) and even with just 12,000 km done, there were lots of chips, peeled paint, rusted bits and what not.

how does connect to modelling? If you're going to build a vehicle where there is a chance that the paint work was a bit slap dash, then go ahead and weather as much as you like!

I'm almost certain Candy Apple Red was the most common color Tigers were painted.





#:-)

Try using sea salt. Apparently the granules are not so regular as common table salt so you can get a better effect.

Haven't tried it myself just had it passed on from a mate in England.

Des

Personally, I don't like chipping, & I never do it on a (German) tank. As others have said here, most vehicles didn't last long enough for the paint to become damaged in the way it is often depicted. I agree it can be effective to look at, but from 30 odd years of buying photographic references on WW2 German subjects, I'd say it is almost 100% unrealistic. In my view it is an "artistic" effect rather than a realistic one.
An example - when 9th SS Panzer transferred to Normandy after being in reserve in the Ukraine, they "picked up" the I (Panther) Abteilung of the Panzer regiment en-route (this battalion had not been committed @ Tarnopol, as it was still "working-up" with the new equipment). They only got about 2-3 Panthers back over the Seine in August 1944. Total service time of the new Panthers - about 3 months at best. How battered was the paintwork going to get in that time? Particularly since with usual German precision, that paint work was (well) applied at the factory.
Also, soft skinned German vehicles used over Russian roads may have got very dirty, but paint chipping? what was there to hit? Maybe rocks on the underneath of the chassis, but not much on the bodywork. As others have said, it was in North Africa where photographic evidence most shows poor paintwork, & if "Panzer Colours" is to be believed, this is often because it isn't paint at all, but painted on mud! Also, Winter white finishes were less durable anyway, some were just whitewash, but also were not removed at the end of winter, but allowed to "wear off".
Conversely, modern vehicles can be in service for upwards of 20 years (Centurion AVREs built in the 60s, still in service in the Gulf!). Despite normal army "bull", they are still going to look pretty battered in places in comparison. Don't apply modern standards to history - it doesn't work!

Hi guys

I can´t understand what you are dicussing here On the one hand, when somebody publishes pics of his model with all the wear and tear and some good looking scratches, the opinions are "hey well done, looks great, etc."
And now the majority says that the don´t like it
I`m with your opinion that it has not to be overdone, but scratches,or maybe some more are not unrealistic. I read many books from former german tankers and this may help to understand. Think about the following: During fighting in the Normandie there was much ship artillery fire, artillery fire, endless airstrikes and so on. There were "things" flying trough the air (shrapnells,rocks, pieces of wood) and hits the tanks where ever. So I can imagine that any tank which survived this massacre will have several scratches, dents etc.
The same counts for the eastern front (with its artillery, katyushas and IL-2 sturmoviks)

best regards
TC

You know, the only ones Ive actually seen in film footage that had any type of paint chipping and wear, were white washed tanks at Bastogne. I'm assuming thats because the paint was spread out so thin that when tree branches scratched them, they left scrapes.

The most recent documentary about Bastogne from the show "WWII Battleground" on the Military channel has an excellent bit of footage of a Sherman with this kind of damage.