How to apply chipping medium with a paint brush to your scale model
Show wear and tear on small, focused area without firing up your airbrush
There are many ways to achieve chipped-paint finishes on your scale models, be they an AFV, ship, car, or sci-fi vehicle. And chipped paint screams used like few other things. For heavily weathered subjects, there’s nothing as convincing as actual chipped paint achieved with a chipping medium. For focused areas or small parts, you don’t even need to load up your airbrush.
Dilute acrylic chipping medium 2:1 medium to thinner for both brush and airbrush applications. Vallejo Chipping Medium and Ammo Acrylic Thinner work together.
Once thinned, brush the chipping medium onto your pre-painted part, making sure that the base coat is thoroughly dry first. Chipping medium is glossy and will require a few passes with the brush to coat the part. You can see how it beads up as it is applied. Don’t worry: Successive coats will provide even coverage.
Allow the chipping medium to dry 24 hours. The next coat of paint must be water-based acrylic, like Vallejo, Ammo, Reaper, or similar paint. The top acrylic color does not brush on smoothly or evenly, but that is part of the effect happening already.
At this point, if you wanted only minimal scuffing, you could stop here. As you can see, the base color already shows through the dry top coat.
To show more wear, let the paint dry for 15 minutes and then gently scrub it with a wet toothbrush to remove chunks and chips of the top coat. Rinse the brush and repeat. Note: Be careful and not overly aggressive. You can always remove more if you want.
Finish with a flat clear coat (varnish) and the process is complete. Here, the part looks like painted wood that is well worn. Further weathering will enhance the effect, but for parts that are partially hidden, a quick treatment like this is all that is needed.