Okay, so let's get down to the brass things.

We're not going to work on a VW bug, Instead we're going to work with the drill bit to a Squat Hellbore

It's pretty simple, we don't have to do a lot of fancy schmancy stuff to it, and it covers something the needs to be talked about while doing this effect. Specifically, direction of wear.

So lets start with the bit.
I've primer-ed it (black) and laid on a nice steel look to it. In short, I've got it to look like it's made of metal. But to be honest, it's boring (pardon the pun).
I mean look at it, it's got no character. It's come out of the forges, it's been cleaned and polished and it's never bored through anything... ever. It looks BLAH!

So we're going to paint it up in Caterpillar yellow orange (as in the construction vehicle color) and then flake the paint and then add rust and wear effects later to make it look like it's been properly used to do it's job.

>>12982767
so we've got a nice silver look to the bit.

So what do we do next?
Let it dry. 14 hours at least so that the paint hardens and has a chance to really cure well.
This technique REQUIRES that your undercolor be fully cured and adhering properly.
Once that is done, you coat the piece with HAIRSPRAY with a paint brush to all areas you want to flake the paint off. (don't worry about being too neat though)
Just coat your paint brush in the hairspray, and start applying it liberally.

>>12982805
Now here's the thing.
Think about what the piece does that you're doing this effect to. In this case we've got a drill bit, so it goes forward and spins while digging into dirt and rock.

So the hair spray wil need to go everywhere that the dirt and rocks will go and abraid the coat of paint that will go on top of the metal. The rock and dirt are always going to be wearing away at the paint, scouring it, but there will also be pocks and cuts into the metal that will have happened over time, and the drill bit will have been periodically sand blasted and repainted during maintenance. That means that in those pockmarks and cuts, paint will settle and be protected. Likewise, look at a bulldozer blade, there are areas of stuborn paint that just refuses to come off no matter what abuse is done to it.

That's the effect we're going for. Paint that refuses to come off.. it hangs on in patches and in cuts and gully's in the surface.

So we let the hairspray dry good and proper, and we airbrush on our first coat of paint.

f5 f5 f5 f5 f5

>>12982863
Now, we're not trying to get a coat of the caterpillar yellow in one coat, we just want the first coat to be nice and thin ON TOP of the hairspray. It's just giving our next coat of yellow something to hang onto.
Let it dry and then give it the next coat.
Now, look at the black cap and see how thin a coating that 2nd spray of yellow really is? It's just a mist really. Just enough to finish obscuring the steel and such underneath.
What we're going for here is a nice coat of paint that will crack and flake off realistically.

And here's the reason why.
Acrylic paints are actually semi permeable to water. And this is why this is such a neat trick for painters

Once your overcolor is painted on and has dried, we're going to gently wet the surface of the paint, and that will cause the hairspray underneath to gently dissolve enough that the paint will not have anything to adhere to.
We hen break out the toothpicks, break one, and use the slightly jagged end to tear the overcolor off and expose the undercolor

>>12982932

Ahh, but I'm getting ahead of myself here, so let's get back to the step by step of this.
I've now applied 3 VERY thin coats of yellow paint here, and you can see now that the steel undercolor is completely hidden.
So we've let it dry overnight and I break out the paintbrush and the pot of water.

>>12982966
Brush the water on the mini. Don't be afraid to apply it all over, we're going to be taking the yellow paint off so it's not a big deal.

Let it sit, for about 5 minutes. And here's the thing. Don't get impatient.
As time goes by, the paint will be easier and easier to flake off as the water works it's way trough the paint o the hairspray.

And here's the cool bit. Because the surface of the mini is uneven too, the hairspray will be thicker and thinner in spots, so some paint will simply have worked right past the hairspray and attached itself to the undercolor and WILL NOT flake off.
This is good, because that's part of the effect we're going for here. To have some paint stick and some to not stick. Just like in real life.

Once it's ready, take a wooden toothpick, snap it in half, and you should have a sort of rough edged wooden chisel.

Start scraping your toothpick chisel edge along the direction of wear that the model would experience.
In this case I started by dragging it down the surface of the drill bit. (replicating the bore going into the rocks and dirt)
Then I started dragging it around the direction the bit would spin. All the while the paint started coming off like so (see pic)

>>12983043
Now, I know that the paint looks a little thick and puffy here. Like someone didn't thin their paints, yeah?

Well believe it or not, that's the water that got brushed on, and the paint retaining some of it as it works it's way through the paint to the hairspray.

When the paint and hairspray redries, it'll go bak to being properly thin.

Anyway, you keep scraping at the paint, and as you can see you get microscopic detail in how the paint flakes off.

And this is a great spot to stop for a moment and talk about the pros and cons of this technique

>>12983100
Okay, first lets talk about the con's because there are so few of them.
First, wear.
Because you have this layer of hairspray between layers of paint, you have to worry about the overcolor flaking off for real due to wear.
That hairspray, when it dries, will never adhere as strong as paint on paint, it just won't. And it will always dissolve if water is applied to it (so no playin with your minis in the tub during bath time or the paint might come off)

This can of course be corrected with a proper SEALANT coating over the mini when it's finished.

That's about it.

Next the pros

>>12983146
Pro's
Well first off I've seen lots of people try all sorts of techniques to achieve the faking paint look.
Some try painting the exposed paint on top of the base coat.
This simply does not work. There's a certain 3 dimensional quality that this effect requires.. And here's where the strength of this technique really shines.

But putting a real coat of paint on top of another coat of paint, you get this marvelous 3d effect when the whole thing dries.

The overcolor really sits on top of the under color, and it's got a genuine "thickness" to it.
If you tried to paint the flakes on top of the undercolor... you wouldn't get that same uniform thickness to the overcolor that you get by genuinely tearing the paint off with the toothpick
If you painted on the chips individually, it'd take much longer and the paint would dry with graduated edges.

By tearing the paint off... you get jagged edges to the paint patches, you get tiny little details on the edges of them that your paintbrush just can't replicate.

In all, the real strength of this technique is that it can help you create that "worn" look to something just by tearing the paint off in tiny chunks in the same way that nature and real wear and tear does it... just speeded up a lot.

>>12983269
So, you're probably asking... Okay, neat... but show us a cool mini that has had this effect applied to it.

So here you go.

Look it over closely and you'll see the effect used all over this mini.

So, questions?

>>12983343
Ahh, year, before I forget.

I sort of ran out of time before having to head off to work to finish "chipping" the paint off. I have lots more chipping to do (around the sides and base of the drill head mainly) which I'll be doing when I get home.

Also, the final bit of work (that I am saving for when I get home tonight) is to weather the bit... Some iron paint and some rust activator, and a little pigment powder from MiG and a wash of hazelnut ink I'll have a completed bit for the mini.

The ultimate goal of course is to try and make the piece look interesting and fun to dink around with... and this is fun technique to learn. I'm sure you'll get lots of use out of it once you try it yourself.

Another mini using the hairspray trick

you sir are awesome and should feel awesome!

i will use this handy guides for my future endavours of painting tanks of the glorious imperial guard!

can it be any hairspray or just that one?

>>12983472

Always happy to help our boys in green.

>>12983496
Any cheap hairspray works. Though I recommend getting ultra hold stuff.

Cheap hairspray is all you have to get though.

are there any matte sealants you can recommend? I'd like to try it but I feel like the mini will look like crap eventually if I don't seal it.

It's weird, this affect is so impressive that it is unimpressive. What I mean is, the result of the technique looks so realistic that you kind of overlook it because it looks so damn real. This is a really amazing thing you've done.

>>12983545
I've got floquil crystal coat matte in cans and more than I will likely ever use up.. but I've used that for ages. I'm not sure what normal people use for their varnish now.

I know vallejo makes a varnish coat, so I'd try that.

>>12983647

Thanks.

Oh yeah , there was one last thing I forgot to mention.
I'm sure someone out there is thinking
>>But won't the toothpick just scrape right through the undercolor and go right through to the metal? (or plastic, or primer coat)

Nope, it will not.
The dry acrylic paint used for the under color should be plenty strongly adhering to the primer to withstand the toothpick's wood.

All you should have happen is the outer coats of paint (the overcolor) should flake right off leaving the undercolor exposed but completely intact.

Honestly, it's an amazing effect that you've gotta try first hand to appreciate it.

Thank you for this tutorial. I''ve had my Dreadnought's painting on hold for ages because I just couldn't think of a way to make it look convincing enough.

One question, you have hairspray in bottles. Is it how it's sold over there or have you extracted some from an actual spray bottle?

Yours truly,
>>who Recley

>>12983770
I just opened up a pump bottle of hairspray.
Here's an example bottle though
http://www.alltravelsizes.com/01-c-07-r.html

You can just buy a funger pump bottle of hair spray at the local super market in the hair care aisle.

Then just unscrew the top, pour some in a little bottle (or an old empty paint pot) and you're ready to go.

>>12983920
errr..i mean finger pump.
Also called a non-aerosol bottle.
http://www.amazon.com/Vitalis-Hairspray-Pump-Maximum-Hold/dp/B000Q660AM
Like that. You can just unscrew the top and pour some out.