Armor Weathering and Painting, Part 6: Painting your first weathered coat.
6.0 WEATHERING METHODS AND APPLICATION - THE FIRST WEATHERED COAT
There are a variety of methods used for weathering armor, and just about any experienced painter is going to add to the ever growing list of them through experimentation or the sheer luck of discovering something. However, what I'd like to do in this step is to show you how to do two different kinds of weathering - one very basic method that every Mandalorian should know, and another method which is slightly more complex, but quite rewarding. Fortunately, anybody can do both with a bit of practice and intestinal fortitude:)
6.1 Using Masking Fluids and Masking Mediums for Weathering
Masking Fluids, also known as Masking Mediums, are a variety of materials that are designed to be used, in lieu of masking tape, to protect part of an artists surface while she's adding another coat of paint at another point in her work and doesn't want the two pants to mix. As costumers, we can use these materials to do just that, but we can also use them to do a very nice trick, which is to deliberately prevent certain areas from receiving paint, hence "exposing" the layer of paint below and creating an excellent weathering effect.
When choosing masking fluids or mediums, you have several choices. There are a number of artists "masking fluid" type products on the market, mostly consisting of various forms of liquid latex and designed with the idea that you apply, then allow them to dry, paint over, and then peel them off.
The problem with artists masking fluids is that they are, for the most part, uniformly thin, and very difficult to work with. In addition to being hard to position on a curved surface (such as a helmet, for example), they are so thin that a good coat of paint may obscure them to such a degree that you'll soon have forgotten where you actually PUT the masking fluid. I have used several, and I've never been satisfied with any, but I do find that, if carefully manipulated, they can make for excellent blaster "splash" damage. This, however, is something that requires some practice, and I really don't recommend it for your first go.
The second option is to use a "home made" masking remedy. Now, everyone has his or her own favorite masking medium. Some people use toothpaste, some use peanut butter, even mayonnaise, mustard, or ketchup, and they all swear by them. But I would like to suggest that you stick with the safest of these: the first I've mentioned, that being toothpaste.
What do I mean by "safe"? In the first place, when using a food product to mask, you have to be absolutely certain that once you're done using that product, you've -completely- ruined it. A food item can go rancid (unless you use honey, and yes, some people even use honey to do this), but it can also add odor, and, even if thoroughly removed, it has a tendency to stain plastic. Let me give you an example....
When I painted my Rebel pilot's helmet a couple of years ago, I had never weathered a large scale piece before, and I was looking for something to use to do the "masking" method of weathering. I'd tried masking fluid from the art store and I wasn't impressed. However, one individual had posted a tutorial on another forum suggesting that the best masking fluid he'd ever used was Mustard. Plane old, ordinary yellow mustard. The material, he said, was great, because it was thick enough to stay on, and to remain visible under a coat of paint. It was also, he said, more likely to dry, and as such, made handling a masked piece easier until you were ready to remove the masking medium (the mustard.)
Unfortunately, I took his advice. It certainly did work well for creating interesting weathering patters. And I had no problem finding it! But, in the first place, it didn't dry at all, and in the second place, it did something rather nasty - it completely stained my white plastic helmet yellow in every location I'd applied it. I scrubbed and I scrubbed, but I never quite got all of that mustard tone out. I was not pleased.
Instead, I prefer toothpaste. Toothpaste is useful because it's designed to be applied, manipulated, and then rinsed away. It's thick enough to be noticed under a layer of paint, and if you happen to miss a piece of it here or there, the most offensive smell you'll notice is a rather minty flesh aroma....
6.2 Application of Masking Fluids and Masking Mediums
In order to do this, you will need the following tools:
- The armor piece you're working on
- A pair of gloves (latex gloves, gorilla gloves, really anything that allows you to manipulate things with your fingers without leaving prints)
- A toothbrush and or/regular brushes.
- Masking tape.
Begin by selecting the first color you'd like to weather. In this case, I was working with a desert themed helmet, with predominant shades of desert yellow (also known as "Afrika Mustard") and a good medium grey. Both are Army Painter color primers ("Desert Yellow" and "Uniform Grey," respectively.)
Once you have selected the color you'd like to weather, use your masking tape to mask off any areas that you don't wish to paint in that color. In my own case, I had already painted the t-visor area and the rear plaque in bronze, but I wanted to begin by painting the dome and the mandibles Desert Yellow. So I masked off the bronze areas, as well as the areas below the helmet "ridge" (the line that typically divides the top and half of a Mandalorian helmet) minus the mandibles, and left the other areas exposed for weathering and painting.
Next, find a comfortable spot to sit, and begin applying the masking material. What you're doing here is "drawing on" the damage to the coat you intend to paint on next. Think of it as sort of painting in reverse. Instead of adding bits of your base color to the top of your first standard color coat, you're instead covering select areas of that base color so that they will be exposed once the first standard color coat is applied.
Manipulate the shape of the material by using your fingers and by using the tools I've suggested. Look for the natural weathering spots I mentioned previously: right angles, raised edges, places more likely to be struck by weapons fire, and apply it there. Don't like the way something looks? Did you leave a fingerprint? Wipe it off with a lint free cloth and a bit of water, dry the spot, and then try again. Toothpaste should not adversely affect or stain the vast majority of paints, so you should be fine doing it once or twice before you decide upon what you're looking for. Remember... less is more. So start out lightly. You can always add more weathered bits with your next color.
Once you've got the areas masked off with your fluid or medium, either set your piece aside to add another kind of weathering material, or place it in your painting area and prepare to paint over the whole thing!
Here, you can see images of selected areas where I applied the toothpaste to create damaged/worn effects. You'll also see some elements of salt chipping (which I describe below.)
The first area I began with sort of suggested itself. When my helmet was shipped, a very small portion of the dome was dented (very slightly.) I could easily have fixed this but I thought to myself, "Hey, Boba's got a dent, so I want a dent, too" and I left it there. Seemed like a good place to start for leaving bare metal, and I sort of worked from there.




6.3 The Salt Chipping Technique
"Salt Chipping" is the slightly more complex method I mentioned earlier in this post. It was originally developed by model airplane enthusiasts to represent the effect that wind and debris can have on an aircraft moving through the sky at a high rate of speed - a kind of splattered pattern of various chipped areas, exposing the color of the airframe metal below. It was subsequently used by model railroaders and model tank builders, and now it's becoming popular with wargamers. As a very convenient incidental to us, it also works pretty darn well when doing up a piece of Mando armor.
In this case, I wanted to expose an area of my helmet to show that it had been affected by the elements, particularly the violent sandstorms and weather patterns of the planets I typically work on. I decided that the line of the front edge of the dome, near the crown of the helmet, was an area that was very well exposed to such environmental effects, and I wanted to use Salt Chipping to reflect this.
In order to use the Salt Chipping technique, you'll need the following:
- Masking tape (if you haven't already used it for this stage)
- 1 x Medium Artists Paint Brush
- 1 x Shallow dish
- Salt with large crystals (Kosher or Sea Salt work best)
- And access to water....
Assuming that you've already masked off the areas you don't wish to weather at this time, then we can move on. If not, go ahead and do that now, then come back.
Ready? Ok!
Begin by mixing together a soloution of about fifty percent water and fifty percent salt. If you need to add more salt, do so. The point here is NOT to dissolve the salt, but rather, to create a sort of "paste" of highly saturated salt.
Next, dip your brush into the solution, and get it saturated nicely with the salt. Then drag that salt encrusted brush over the areas you wish to "etch" or "chip" with the salt. Once you're satisfied with all the coverage you want, for this round of painting, rinse your brush thoroughly and set the helmet aside. Within a short period of time (usually an hour or less), the water inside the salt will have evaporated, leaving the salt encrusted in the areas where you've painted it, and more or less stuck on well enough to remain while you apply the next coat of paint. Trust me - what it does will really please you, when all is said and done!
The example photos below show my helmet with the masking materials added for the first coat.
Here's an image showing where I applied my salt chipping formula. You can clearly see two, ragged lines across the front of the dome.

6.4 Painting over Weathering Materials
This bit is quite simple. Just paint as I've suggested before - with the "Flicking" technique, and get the coverage you need, and allow the entire thing to dry for a good, long while. Don't worry about your masking materials - chances are, they won't dry, and that's fine, because it actually makes them MUCH easier to remove. All we're concerned about here is an nice, clean coat. Here are some shots of my helmet after that initial coat of desert yellow was added. I have intentionally avoided adding the full front shot of the helmet, and this is because I want to use it to illustrate another technique - double layered weathering.


Once the paint has dried, you have two options. You can either prepare to do a double layered weathering job (which I'll explain in my next post), or you can go ahead and remove the weathering materials. These are removed quite easily - simply find a running source of water, a sponge or lint free cloth, and completely remove the masking material. You'll find that the paint on top of that masking material simply falls away with the masking material itself. No harm, no foul. That's the point. The paint may have cured, but it cured on top of an uneven, temporary surface, and now we're simply "stripping that away" with running water and a tiny bit of elbow grease. At this point, you'll have some exposed areas of bare metal - and you'll think to yourself, "Hey, this looks awesome!" And it does. Pat yourself on the back and take a break. You've earned it, and you've already learned the most important essentials of weathering and painting!