HOBBY: Easy Rust Effects
“Greetings everyone! You may recognize me from the comment box, but I’m break out into articles. Lets take a look at rust effects.
What I have for you today is a solution to a problem many Ork, Space Marine, Imperial Guard, Chaos, and Terrain modellers have found few good solutions to: realistic rust effects. A few fellow gamers have come up with nice solutions, but-as good as they were-they didn’t satisfy my craving for the rich, earthy, textured look of real rust. So-after having the product pointed out to me by a fellow member of Papa Nurgle-I decided to try the Rust Antiquing Set from a Michael’s hobby store.
I decided to start this article off with a guinea pig rather than my personal models (though I will pimp them out at the end!), a simple AoBR space marine.
The Rust Antiquing Set comes with two bottles, both of which can be purchased individually in the same section of Michael’s. After plenty of stirring and shaking – be warned, the paint is VERY metal-heavy and settles a great deal – I covered the figure in a coat of the Metal Surfacer.
Once dry, I dipped the figure in the activating solution – which was poured into a discarded dice box for ease of coating – and left it to dry overnight, giving it a second dip within a couple of hours of the initial dip to ensure coverage.
And, after curing…
Have a look at THAT! The discoloration and texture of real rust-because it IS real rust! Follow up with highlights and selective drybrushing of Boltgun Metal on hard edges and places that would recieve wear and tear…
Give it proper sealing and you’re ready to game! One thing I noticed is that sometimes excess activating solution will pile up into a white substance. Initially I thought that it was reacting with the primer and that I would need to re-paint, but it instead was build-up that running the model under running water fixed in short time.
Now, for proper pimpage, here’s some Plaguemarines I converted and used the aforementioned methods to weather. I went a step further and gave them a coat of Gryphone Sepia, shading the models further, helping to seal the rust a bit better, and tinting the bare metal to look dirty and weathered, blending the rust in better. A few touch-ups and I do believe that these fellows might be painting contest-worthy!
William Osborne, is Louisiana’s local conversion and painting guru-who’s looking for pupils! He started 40k as a Tau player, but his secondary army – Chaos Marines, a Nurgle-centric Iron Warriors warband – became his primary when he actually started winning games! His fingers are crossed for a new codex for either one soon!
That’s all for now, folks; it was my pleasure to bring you this article, and look forward to soon bringing you a proper modeling article concerning an awesome Kharn conversion!” You like?
