Painting Dust?

[Flightless]

The question: How do you paint dust?
If it makes any difference, this will be on Space Marine armour (and eventually tanks, but let\'s ignore them for now).
Note: paint. Oh, i know of MMP powder thingies. And all the demonstrations i\'ve seen were very good, but for mud, weathering and old dirt. I\'m aiming for dust that has pretty much just landed, rather than just settling into cracks.
It seemed such an easy thing to do (ie very light drybrushing), until i tried it, and realised that if your (well, mine anyway)drybrushing involves anything other than a completely clean brush (which doesn\'t give much effect...), you get brush marks.
I\'d just like to hear your thoughts. Know if it actually is possible to do what i want.

 

[Brokenblade]

Yep, i feel your pain, i think your best bet is to use very light drybrushing, building up in layers (otherwise it would barely be visible) this way you atleast dont get any brush strokes and can correct parts that look too dark/light easily. It will most probably take ages and ages, but will be worth the time, it\'s also woth experimenting with what brushes are best for this too,

I\'m sure someone around here will have a lot quicker, less boring more effective way of doing it lol

but thats the way i do it anyway, hope it helps in some way.

 

[bayrodney]

Thats a tough question, i dont kno if this is true but can u paint it through stippling?

 

[Modderrhu]

I\'ll go with brokenblade on this one - very light drybrushing. Drybrushing looks crappy because it makes minis look dusty. Now, that might just be the exact effect you want to achieve. But go lightly, don\'t let it be obvious that it was drybrushed.

 

[Joshua]

if your\'e searching for white or light dust i would try a very thin coat of some primer from a large ditance

if you prime minis you can see the dust of the paint flying trough the air and if i primed some something in my room (i know i shouldn\'t be doing it) there\'s white dust all over my furniture

it might work (it might es well not but i would give it a shot )

 

[Trevor]

The are a few options, I would take a test mini and er... test them.

1) Stipple paint on. Thats like drybrushing, but you poke the brush vertically on the mini. I wouldn\'t drybrush. You can use paint, or a mix of paint and/or ink and chalk pastels.

2) Dust on ground up chalk pastels, this will tend to go into the cracks and will need sealing so maybe not what you are looking for.

3) a paint glaze, this will need care to remove from the cracks with a damp clean brush.

4) for really thick mud try talcum powder mixed with paint and or ink.

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

The best way to apply dust is with a good double action air brush and really thined down paint. Tamiya makes a color called Buff and thinned down 1 part paint to 10 parts thinner applied in very thin controlled layers makes excelent dust. Basicly your painting with so little pigment that its practically opaque.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Flightless
The question: How do you paint dust?
...
Note: paint.

Good clarification.

You can do this by brush with paint but it\'s tricky, especially on a surface that has raised detail. The best way of doing it (perhaps not at this size) is to airbrush light \'mist coats\' at low pressure with the appropriate colour. Baring that the best way I know of is to use very light glazes (thin mixture but not a lot of it on the brush, not like a wash).

Einion

 

[Ogrebane]

Your right its not easy. maybe someone could do a painting class. Im up for it.

 

[Flightless]

Having tried a couple of simple methods, i\'ve found that stippling does seem to be the best way. However, it seems the coats need to be seriously light to avoid visible brushmarks, and just repeated a lot.
I am finding that all my imperfections that i thought i could disguise with paint are accentuated. Ah well, my own fault...
I\'m expecting that the airbrushing would give a better result, but as i keep telling myself, these are gaming minis, and i\'m not going to sweat all the way to perfection. Equally, i have some time constraints, so learning to airbrush isn\'t going to happen.
This current lot is a continuing process, but it won\'t be long \'til i have them done so you can examine the technique.

 

[Legacy Account]

Use powders!

Or ground up pastels. Apply them after your varnish and don\'t handle the mini!

They look perfect.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Flightless
Having tried a couple of simple methods, i\'ve found that stippling does seem to be the best way.

Stippling is a brilliant way of building up a subtle, random texture but try combining it with some light glazing work too.

Originally posted by Flightless
...but as i keep telling myself, these are gaming minis, and i\'m not going to sweat all the way to perfection.

Oh in that case don\'t even consider airbrushing unless you\'re going to do a whole bunch of them in one sitting!

Einion

 

[Flightless]

Glazing, eh?
Well, i\'ve never been too much of a fan of inks, but i\'m willing to give it a try, since legs aren\'t that hard to fix.

(if i didn\'t mention it before, i\'m only coating the lower (ish) legs in dust, as though they\'ve been walking through recently disturbed clouds of the stuff).

How would you recommend i go about glazes (citadel preferably), and what colour? My dust is codex grey, to go with a codex/fortress grey base.

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by Flightless
How would you recommend i go about glazes (citadel preferably), and what colour? My dust is codex grey, to go with a codex/fortress grey base.

???
If you want the dust to be Codex grey then use Codex grey.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Flightless
Glazing, eh?
Well, i\'ve never been too much of a fan of inks, but i\'m willing to give it a try, since legs aren\'t that hard to fix.

Not with inks! I use the word glazing in a very loose way when talking about acrylics/vinyls - just meant heavily-thinned paint, applied with a damp brush to prevent it flooding the area like a wash.

Einion