Easy Weathering

Transcript*

Intro

Hello all. This is David from Loisirs vers le soleil. You know, we all have our bad habits. Mine personally is an insatiable appetite to peel and pick at things, thus resorting to drastic measures. But I am happy to say that for the past two minutes, I’ve been on the mend. Stop it. I need something to occupy my mind. I got it. Oh, chipping fluid. Perfect. In today’s video, I’m going to show you how to work with chipping fluids.

Today we’re looking at chipping fluid or chipping medium, whatever you prefer to call it. You do you. So chipping fluid is essentially a water-based top coat used to simulate worn effects. This could be on anything such as painted battle armor or a worn out tank. It’s essentially allowing you to uh paint the base coat with maybe a silver or a certain color primer and then paint the main color on top of that. And then use this to kind of uh peel away little fragments of the paint. so that it looks like the paint has been chipped off, revealing the color underneath.

For my test subject, I’ve got this aluminum painted fuel tank. Now, some uh things of note that are important. Since these are water-based, whatever paint you’re using on the very bottom layer, i.e. The paint that’s going to be revealed through the chips has to be either a lacquer or an enamel paint. Uh I mean because these are acrylic, they will only work on acrylic paint.

So the whole idea is to have a strong paint underneath so that you can put acrylic paint on top which can easily peel off with these. And another important note is whatever color you’re using, it is preferable that it is either matte or semi gloss as gloss paint will just make this stuff run and it’s just not going to work. Now, do you brush this on or airbrush it on? You can do both and you don’t have to thin it for either case. So, normally I would airbrush this on, but I really don’t feel like cleaning out my airbrush four times. So, uh, I decided I’m going to brush these on with some disposable brushes. And we’re going to compare how each one of these fare out.

Now, between you and me, I fully expect all of these to perform the exact same way. Uh, however, these two are called Worn Effects. Uh, Ammos is heavy and, uh, AK’s I think is a little heavy, too. So, I do expect more of this to chip off than these, but that really doesn’t have any effect on anything. All right, so I’ve got my fuel tank labeled. I’m going to brush these on and uh we’ll see what happens next.

Heat.
Hey, Heat.

So, these are now painted on there. And we’re going to want to give it some time to dry, but not too much time because this stuff still needs to be a little damp once you uh activate it. So, I would give it at the most 30 minutes to dry. And then after that, I’m going to paint some Vallejo Model Air RLM74 on top. And I don’t care if it’s accurate or not. Just using it as a demonstration. Going to paint this over everything. Then give that maybe five 10 minutes mats to dry. And then we’re going to get some water and we’re going to activate this. So, one moment.

So, all the paint is on there and has had some time to dry. So, now I’m going to take some plain old tap water. And then you’re going to want to get a fairly stiff brush. Not too stiff. So something like this AK flat brush should be just fine. You’re going to want to get it wet.

And since Tamiya has had the longest time to dry, I will start there. Brush it on there. Uh, don’t be too rough. So, yeah, as you can see, it it definitely chips off. Now, to be honest, the effect is better when you airbrush the chipping fluid on, but uh, like I said, I just felt like brushing it on for this demonstration. So, as a result, it kind of peels off more than you’d like, but it gives you the desired effect. Now, let’s do AK. As you can see, the the AK one is more like how you’d want it to look, more subtle.

Next, we have Ammo. And again, more how you would like it. Nice and subtle. And to close this off, we’ve got Vallejo. And while I’m here, another technique you can use if you want more precise chips in certain places is to take a toothpick and just rub off the areas that you want. So, when I started this video, I was fully expecting all four of these to perform the exact same, none being better than the other. But there actually is a favorite here for me at least, and that is AK.

Now, um, different products could have different drying times. Uh, the Tamiya evidently does seem to need a little more drying time.
But uh AK it just chipped perfectly if you asked me. But uh the hobby is all about experimenting. See what works, what doesn’t. I mean, I’m sure with um proper drying time for all these products, they would perform beautifully.

In conclusion, chipping is basically all about timing. As you could see in the video, even I didn’t quite get the drying time right for some of the products. But it’s just all experience. You live and you learn. So, if you were unsure of the chipping process, hopefully this video helped clarify things for you. So, you can find all the chipping products I used at Sunward Hobbies in store or online. Thank you very much for watching this video.

Remember to like, comment, subscribe, follow us on our socials, and until the next one, adios.

About the Author:

David Peckam has built scale models since he was 12, specializing largely on military aircraft. He is a makeup artist and background actor for films and TV. He enjoys watching hockey and of course, movies. He has an excellent knowledge of hobby products and if you have questions concerning scale model airplanes.

*Video by David Peckham
Video Edited by Daniela Castellano
Transcript generated by youtube
Edited by Angelo Castellano