Tutorial: Battle Damage

Hey everyone,

So while I’m settling into my new pad, I figured I’d finally throw up that tutorial on Battle Damage you all wanted! Its honestly a very simple and easy process, but the results look amazing! So here we go!

There’s a couple different methods for doing armour chipping and battle damage. Some people actually use salt and hairspray during their basecoats to achieve it, some use sponges and other irregular porous material to do so, and some just paint it straight on. I prefer the sponge method.

I use standard Blister foam, but you can use any type of sponge for any different looking damage.

Now when doing battle damage, you don’t want to just use straight silver. It wont look natural or even correct. I start off with one of two colours: Chaos Black and Charadon Granite. Both have a dark quality that resembles shading or chipping really well.

On my first example, an IG Autocannon team, I started by stippling the sponge with a little black paint onto the Gun shield.

 

Then with a fine tipped brush, I painted silver inside the black splotches.

As for the Charadon Granite Method, I did something a little different. My example is my new World Eaters Rhino (GASP!) I’ve been working on, and I wanted the damage to have some texture and height to it.

I started by stippling the Charadon Granite onto the surface of the door.

 

I then dipped the sponge and stippled it onto the Charadon Granite sections.

Now you can see the way the light  hits the metallics that it has a textured apperance to it.

These methods can work on any scale or any sized model, from a Leman Russ to a standard Guardsman. I actually got a compliment from Goatboy at BoLScon on my detail work and the chipping on my Company Commander.

Like most detail work, all it requires is some patience and a steady hand!

So I have a major commission coming the next coming weeks, so get ready for the scum of the underearth, the chittering squeaky masses, so begin scurrying their way onto the blog! I’m also working on some Heavy Weapons teams before I finally get to travel back to Aztec/Farmington and kick some butt!

Granesh