Painting weathered metal

I know many painters know this already, but for the benefit of beginners, I'm posting this...

Basically, when you want to paint metals, most beginners just paint it straight Silver or Gold or whatever metal you want the part to be. But, if we look at it from the point of view of the game's story or premise, not all warriors have access to methods of cleaning their weapons. So, you might be wondering now how we will get a weathered look out of metals. Well, I'll tell you two different methods of doing this...

Method 1:

Basically, you are starting with a black basecoat, then using drybrushing. You could either just prime your mini black or just apply a basecoat of black to your mini. I personally use white primer and add a black basecoat to the parts to be painted with a metallic paint. Then, using the drybrush method(hopefully you at least know how to do this), drybrush the metallic color over the black basecoat, and it should come out looking beaten and weathered...

Method 2:

This is an easier method(in my eyes). Simply basecoat the mini in the colors, including the metallics. Once that has dried(should be a few minutes if you are using an acrylic water based paint like Citadel), take either Black ink or watered down black paint(watered down to the point where it instantly soaks into a paper towel), and do a wash of it over the metal. This should also produce a beaten and weathered look...

Whichever method you pick, they should work. Personally, I've used both methods, and they both did their job. Hope this is helpful to all you beginners out there...