Easy carbon scoring

Make sure your Star Wars scale models look like they’ve seen serious action

April 28, 2021

RELATED TOPICS: STAR WARS | SCI-FI / FANTASY | WEATHERING

Whether it’s the Millennium Falcon or an atmosphere-bound snow speeder, you know they’ve seen their share of battles by the numerous scorch marks and carbon scoring left behind by laser blasts. Reproducing those on your Star Wars spaceships is an essential skill, and FineScale Modeler Aaron Skinner shows you how to achieve just the right look. And if you’re interested in seeing Aaron’s complete build of the Revell 1/48 scale Star Wars X-wing (originally from FineMolds) as Red Three, make sure to pick up Out of this World Modeling, which includes that and 15 other sci-fi projects.

Pastels provide a subtle, controllable, and fairly forgiving method of adding streaks and scorching. Start by scraping a knife along several pastel sticks (black, dark gray, light gray, burnt umber, raw umber, and raw sienna) to make piles of powder.

Wash your hands after handling pastel sticks so you don’t leave fingerprints all over your model. To apply a color, pick up a little on an old paintbrush. You may want to label this brush because you won’t want to use it for paint again. Keep it for applying pastels and pigments.

Touch the brush to a point on the model where a streak of color will start. Don’t press hard—just use enough pressure to deposit powder on the surface. Then lift the brush and gently blow the excess off the model.

Now, return the brush to the surface and gently sweep it back from the starting point across the surface in the direction the vehicle primarily travels (typically front to back). The result will be a fine line of color that decreases in density toward the rear.

Where there are chips in the paint maybe caused by a laser blast or quickly extinguished fire, gently scrub dark gray pastel powder over them. It helps blend them into the overall weathering so they aren’t so stark.

You can run tape along select panel lines and brush and scrub powdered pastels along the edges. This produces hard-edged weathering that may indicate where panels have been replaced, giving the vehicle a used feel that all Star Wars ships (unless they’re from Naboo) should have.

Scrubbing pastels around laser blast marks adds scorching to the battle damage. There’s no limit to this effect, but if you’re trying to model a ship you’ve seen on screen, find reference images or still shots to help guide you so your model can be as accurate as possible. Then again, who’s to say you’re modeling the ship from the time it was seen in the movie? Ultimately, do what feels right and enjoy yourself while doing it.

May the Fourth … uh, the Force be with you!

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