So on my recent Ork Mega Dread paint up I wasn’t all that impressed with the paint chipping technique of simply sponging on colours. I found that to get a good blotchiness the paint had to be left relatively thick and thus caused the chipped areas to be raised, when in fact they should be sunken.

I want to add some fuel drums and stuff to a simple diorama base for the Mega Dread and decided it would be a good chance to try out the hairspray paint chipping technique, as described in many places online and in Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Vol I.

I was very annoyed to discover that I must have disposed of any 40k fuel drums I had when I sold off a heap of terrain a year or so ago. Idiot! Fortunately a pack of Tamiya 1:35 German fuel drums/jerry cans can be bought for $10.00 at the local hobby shop so I grabbed that pack and assembled one to use as a guinea pig.

The process I used was as follows:

1. Prime with Tamiya Surface Primer
2. Paint the entire drum dark brown
3. Stipple on some lighter brown over the entire drum, giving a patchy, rusty effect
4. Give it a coat of cheap hairspray. I borrowed a can from my grandmother 😛
5. Airbrush on Tamiya flat white (thinned with isopropyl alcohol)
6. Airbrush on Vallejo Model Colour Deep Yellow (thinned with Windex)
7. 10 minutes after airbrushing use an old, stiff brush loaded with water to chip off the paint

Here’s how it turned out:

I’m quite pleased with the result! Obviously it still needs some further weathering (rust weathering powder will make a big difference) but the chipped paint effect is great. I especially love how the white coat under the yellow is visible around the chips, giving the effect of primer. You do have to be careful with the water as if you get too much on the model you can end up removing large chunks of paint (this may not be as bad if you leave the paint longer to dry before chipping).

Since this has been so successful the next step is to assemble the rest of the drums and paint them all up batch style!

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