Painting Battle Damage

[pacopaco]

Anyone have a good technique? Also, I get floundered when painting chips and sctartches on my various models because I don't really know what colors go with what. For instance what colors are under blue armor? I have a space marine helmet that I painted as an Emperor's Children casualty/trophy and I wanted the helmet to look like the marine inside took a real beating, but what color is under pink? I do stick to corners and places where more wear would be visible (i.e. near the the treads of a Land Raider where rocks and debris would be kicked up) but most of my battle damage endeavors still end up looking unrealistic.
I''ve seen the sponge technique, but I still don't get the colors right.

[travinius]

i've gotten some deece results with a shadow grey under any grey-ish hue with the boltgun metal in the middle of that. after i have a fair amount of scratching painted i ever so gently apply a thin border of bleached bone or skull white to the scratch to give it that chipped paint look. as for your color dilemma, i'd try a khaki or bleached bone with a white outline for blue or purple/pink. i've seen a lot of real battle damage on humvees and the like and sometimes there is wacky coloring under the outer layer so, really whatever looks good would work!
hope that helps.

[pacopaco]

i've gotten some deece results with a shadow grey under any grey-ish hue with the boltgun metal in the middle of that. after i have a fair amount of scratching painted i ever so gently apply a thin border of bleached bone or skull white to the scratch to give it that chipped paint look. as for your color dilemma, i'd try a khaki or bleached bone with a white outline for blue or purple/pink. i've seen a lot of real battle damage on humvees and the like and sometimes there is wacky coloring under the outer layer so, really whatever looks good would work!
hope that helps.

really? I guess I was thinking of using a color I similar to one I would use to highlight. For example, If I was using red armor, I would paint the chip pink then metal inside and stop there. no wonder my stuff looks more like funky camouflage than damage and weathering.

[Skeletay]

I think the problem with most people's battle damage is that they use silver. The key to good weathering is subtlety, and streaks of silver is anything but subtle. Silver works with Orks, because you can imagine an Ork taking a piece of steel and slapping some paint on it, but I.G. tanks, SM power armour and things like that look way better with dark grey underneath. The way i usually do paint chips is painting the scratch in the lightest highlight of whatever colour I'm painting, then fill it in with grey. I find it much quicker and easier to leave a tiny outline of highlight than try to paint a really fine line around the scratch.

[SandWyrm]

I usually just start with a base of boltgun metal and highlight with light touches of chainmail. The key to making something look worn isn't so much the exact color as where the underlying metal shows through. Think about what bits would be rubbed on/banged up the most in day-to-day wear and paint the metal on those. Exposed edges and protruding bits will wear faster than surfaces that are down in the cracks, so to speak.

[pacopaco]

I think the problem with most people's battle damage is that they use silver. The key to good weathering is subtlety, and streaks of silver is anything but subtle. Silver works with Orks, because you can imagine an Ork taking a piece of steel and slapping some paint on it, but I.G. tanks, SM power armour and things like that look way better with dark grey underneath. The way i usually do paint chips is painting the scratch in the lightest highlight of whatever colour I'm painting, then fill it in with grey. I find it much quicker and easier to leave a tiny outline of highlight than try to paint a really fine line around the scratch.

I think that's my problem. too much boltgun metal and silver paints. as you said, on my orks it looks cool, because orks wouldn't care id something were bare metal. Space Marines and IG, however, a different story. Space Marines are guys that keep their armour and vehicles in pristine condition until a battle.
When I look at real life examples like pictures of tanks or a construction machine at a job site, there are browns and greys showing below the metal. In extreme cases, the scratch will have gone down into the bare metal. I'm having trouble replicating that look.

[gorepants]

Chardon granite is a good start colour for mid-light armour. This 'looks' realistic, but like Trav said, real undercoat is usually a wacky colour (I believe reds are common). For dark armour you want something lighter as a contrast. I generally perfer matt colours since exposed metal tarnishes pretty quickly and chips fill up with grime (used to fix scooters and I've seen a lot of beat up old Vespas and they could get pretty ratty). You can then add shiny around frequent wear points as a highlight.

Easy way to do tests is is paint a large swatch of you armour colour and start sponging on different base colours. Cool Mini or Not has lots of people going crazy with chipping. A lot is a little over the top, but you might get some colour ideas.