Weathering and Battle Damaging 40k Tanks: Part One

Hey folks.

I've finally managed to stay awake for writing time for the first time in a couple of weeks so I thought I'd better thrash out this weathering article now.

For the weathering project I decided to go with a Spacemarine Vindicator tank.  I've always liked this model.  It's a big Brutal siege tank with a massive Demolisher cannon, designed for smashing the defences of heretic scum.  I also decide to use this opportunity to do up a model for the Raptors Chapter, which have to be one of my favourite factions of the legions Astartes.

Here is an image of the model once I had striped off the old paintwork.

As you may be able to see,  I have used grey stuff to model in Weld lines.  I'll cover how to do this kind of detailing in a future post.  Today is for weathering and damage.

To start with I wanted to have some bullet holes and divets in the the Vindicator's armoured hide.  These are illustrated in the unfortunately blurry photo below along with some scrapes and the beginnings of a melta damage hole (I'll get to these later in the post)

To make the bullet holes take a pin vice and drill a hole a few millimeters deep.  Then take a modeling knife and put the point in the hole and twist it round so you get a ragged edge. (Be careful the blade doesn't break) This gives a nice little bullet hole to show a direct hit.  For a ricochet get a little Green stuff and role it into a ball a couple of mm wider across than your drill bit. Drill a hole in the surface you want the ricochet on and press the ball into it using a round tipped tool.  Draw the tool down to squash the greenstuff aside leaving a rim at the top.  (See below for a clearer image)

The Melta holes were made by drilling a hole and expanding it by twisting a modelling knife around in the hole until it reached the desired radius.  I then used some Green stuff to build up a rim and some dripping metal.  I was aiming to make it look like the melta had caused the armour of the Vindicator to boil away.

 The trick with melta effects actually comes from the painting, so I'll give you a glimps at the finished effect below, but the how to paint bit will be in the next episode.

In the Image to the left and above you can also see gouges in the armour.  This is achieved by cutting a v shaped channel into the plastic surface with a modeling knife.

Anyway,  here's that Melta damage.

That cover's the Pre paint work.  Now Bung a Black spray undercoat on it and next time we'll talk about the paint. That is to say, achieving weathering and battle damage with paint effects.  Then there will be a final article in the series covering the use of weathering powders and a couple of nice little cheats to take the model to the next level.

Cheers folks.