Knight the ODST
New Member
Hello everyone! I’ve had some people reach out to me asking for a tutorial on how I weather my armor. With this thread, I hope to create a digestible and comprehensive guide on how I achieve my weathering. Weathering is probably the most important part of your costume—it’s how you hide mistakes and what separates your costume from looking like a store-bought one to an actual genuine piece of military hardware.
Key things to pay attention to:
The Triangle Method
Swipe and Dab Method
2 different weathering colors
Dirtier the better
Step 1 - Prep
First step is easy. Just sand or get your prints to your paint ready stage. I only go above 600 grit on weapons. Armor can stay rough, its battleworn.
Step 2 - Metal Undercoat
Lay down an initial coat of chrome like spray paint OR rub and buff, this looks best over a black base coat but I’ll do it on the primer sometimes.
Step 3 - Liquid Latex/Triangle Method
Apply liquid latex (or toothpaste) on areas that would receive the most wear. (Hard angles, areas more likely to bump or rub into stuff). A very helpful tip I learned for achieving balance in aesthetics and random is try to aim for weathering in triangles. Try and mold your liquid latex patches into triangle-like shapes AS WELL AS triangle like formations. Also avoid placing your latex and weathering in square like formations and AVOID SYMMETRY Triangles are structured, but can be scaled to be random, unlike squares or rectangles. This is one of the most important ways you can sell your weathering.
Step 4 - Primary color/masking
Let your latex dry and set down your armors primary color (grey in my case). After letting this color dry, mask off your secondary colors now.
After masking, apply more liquid latex, this will allow for interest between your primary and secondary colors. While using the triangle method, avoid cluttering your flatter areas, so you dont lose coverage of your secondary colors. Aim more for edges of the masking tape this time, but dont be afraid to mix it up. Nature/elements will often wear on armor in unexpected and random ways
Step 5 - applying Secondary color
Remove any relative masking and use the back of your thumbnail to remove as much liquid latex as you can. This will give you a raw paint chipped piece like so.
Use this opportunity to lay down any stencils or decals
Step 6 - Swipe and Dab Method
Now that you have your decals and all of your latex off the armor, its time to build up your armors' dirt. This is by far the most important step, as un-weathered colors pop out and look too cartoony to be believable. What you want to do, is get a cheap chip brush from Home Depot or your favorite hardware store and then get some black acrylic paint. Water down the acrylic paint in the cup, and then start dabbing it into the recesses and hard edges of your armor. Keep wiping it off with a paper towel quickly, over and over again, aiming for a vingette like affect on the flat areas of your armor, and a almost black buildup in the recesses. Illustrated below.
The dirtier the better. Being conservative here will sell the effect a lot less and will be harder to see in photos and on the con floor.
Now remember, your armor wont have seen just one combat zone, but multiple, across multiple biomes and against different enemies. To reflect this, you will want at least 2 different colors to weather with.
After dabbing your brush over and over again, it should be a mess and not resemble the perfect square brush at all, bristles going in all sorts of directions. This is what we want. Now what you will do is take that DIFFERENT color to represent mud or dirt, such as a tan or brown color, and lightly coat your brushes bristle tips in it. Do not water it down. No lightly swipe your dirt on the edges and random areas of your armor, best illustrated here on my chestplate:
After building up your vignettes and dirt, you should have a finished prop! Now just hit it with matte varnish and you're set!
Thank you for reading, I really hope this helps you. Please feel free to reach out with questions!
Key things to pay attention to:
The Triangle Method
Swipe and Dab Method
2 different weathering colors
Dirtier the better
Step 1 - Prep
First step is easy. Just sand or get your prints to your paint ready stage. I only go above 600 grit on weapons. Armor can stay rough, its battleworn.
Step 2 - Metal Undercoat
Lay down an initial coat of chrome like spray paint OR rub and buff, this looks best over a black base coat but I’ll do it on the primer sometimes.
Step 3 - Liquid Latex/Triangle Method
Apply liquid latex (or toothpaste) on areas that would receive the most wear. (Hard angles, areas more likely to bump or rub into stuff). A very helpful tip I learned for achieving balance in aesthetics and random is try to aim for weathering in triangles. Try and mold your liquid latex patches into triangle-like shapes AS WELL AS triangle like formations. Also avoid placing your latex and weathering in square like formations and AVOID SYMMETRY Triangles are structured, but can be scaled to be random, unlike squares or rectangles. This is one of the most important ways you can sell your weathering.
Step 4 - Primary color/masking
Let your latex dry and set down your armors primary color (grey in my case). After letting this color dry, mask off your secondary colors now.
After masking, apply more liquid latex, this will allow for interest between your primary and secondary colors. While using the triangle method, avoid cluttering your flatter areas, so you dont lose coverage of your secondary colors. Aim more for edges of the masking tape this time, but dont be afraid to mix it up. Nature/elements will often wear on armor in unexpected and random ways
Step 5 - applying Secondary color
Remove any relative masking and use the back of your thumbnail to remove as much liquid latex as you can. This will give you a raw paint chipped piece like so.
Use this opportunity to lay down any stencils or decals
Step 6 - Swipe and Dab Method
Now that you have your decals and all of your latex off the armor, its time to build up your armors' dirt. This is by far the most important step, as un-weathered colors pop out and look too cartoony to be believable. What you want to do, is get a cheap chip brush from Home Depot or your favorite hardware store and then get some black acrylic paint. Water down the acrylic paint in the cup, and then start dabbing it into the recesses and hard edges of your armor. Keep wiping it off with a paper towel quickly, over and over again, aiming for a vingette like affect on the flat areas of your armor, and a almost black buildup in the recesses. Illustrated below.
The dirtier the better. Being conservative here will sell the effect a lot less and will be harder to see in photos and on the con floor.
Now remember, your armor wont have seen just one combat zone, but multiple, across multiple biomes and against different enemies. To reflect this, you will want at least 2 different colors to weather with.
After dabbing your brush over and over again, it should be a mess and not resemble the perfect square brush at all, bristles going in all sorts of directions. This is what we want. Now what you will do is take that DIFFERENT color to represent mud or dirt, such as a tan or brown color, and lightly coat your brushes bristle tips in it. Do not water it down. No lightly swipe your dirt on the edges and random areas of your armor, best illustrated here on my chestplate:
After building up your vignettes and dirt, you should have a finished prop! Now just hit it with matte varnish and you're set!
Thank you for reading, I really hope this helps you. Please feel free to reach out with questions!
