Grey Knights Land raider complete - First time with Weathering powders

I've taken my first step into using weathering powders and the results are what I would class as "okay".

The first stage of weathering is chipping. This is really fun to do and makes a great effect - particularly if you use a sponge.

The technique that I used is taken straight from this video. The basic principle is that you run two stages of sponge dabbing. The first uses a base coat colour. In this case I used Abaddon Black. This is supposed to represent the base coat of the tank under the dark grey and should be applied relatively sparingly. It represents the frequent chips that the tank gets which are surface scratches.

the second dabb is with Leadbelcher. The trick here is to dab over the areas where you put the black, but make sure there is less  paint. This represents the deeper chips/scratches that go through to bare metal.

I enjoyed this process, but admit that I probably dabbed on too much silver. The result is that the silver chips are not surrounded by any black. It looks okay, so I'm probably being picky.

Then it was the turn of the weathering powders. Powders go on after the chipping because I wanted to show that the chips occurred over time, whilst the dust was newly accumulated.

I've tried to use two information sources to help me with this. The first was some tutorials in the Forge world modelling master class, volume 2, and the other was a you tube video that you can find here.

In line with the video tutorial, I purchased some surgical spirit and some matt spay lacquer. I deliberately stayed away from GW's purity seal as I have heard that it's quite thick and really dulls the paint colours - to date, I've never used a matt varnish spray on any of my models. In fact the closest I've come to using it is when I paint Lahmium medium over transfers.

So: first things first, I applied 2 techniques as follows:
1) Dabbing the weathering powders into corners of my vehicle and then gently touching surgical spirit over the top. Surgical spirit spreads over the powders and pulls them together in corners. However I also noticed that due to the alcohol content in the spirit, it leaves marks on the paintwork. I'm therefore in two minds about whether to use this again.

2) Dabbing the powders over larger surfaces and then leaving them as they are - spraying with the matt lacquer to seal them in. As mentioned above - I've never used acrylic spray paint lacquers and I'm not sure about them now! The lacquer dulled my paint scheme significantly, it hid a lot of the the more subtle weathering dust effects that I had put on...and gave my vehicle a slight blue sheen, which is disappointing. I'll be keen to see how different it looks by lining up next to the rest of my army.

I used 5 different powders: Grey ash, Light Earth, dark sand, black soot and light rust.

I used the first three on the sides of my vehicle, and the light earth/dark sand combo on my tracks. Going forward I will keep earth colours to a minimum on the sides of my vehicle as I don't want it to look too brown or dirty...I want dust, but not mud to be honest.

Soot was used around exhaust ports and a little light rust around the bottom of the exhausts.

Powders are very messy to put on and they WILL wreck a good brush so beware. I'm aware of a technique where you can put powders on and then re-activate with water so you can keep moving them around...however I didn't try this technique. I simply tried to put them on and fix them this time round.

You will see from the photos that the effects are relatively subtle - this demonstrates how the lacquer seems to hide a lot of the finer-layered powders.

All in all, the effect it not bad, however I  would have been happier with it all had the matt varnish not changed the colour of my land raider so much....I'm going to have to look at alternatives to fix the powders to be honest.

I hear that Humbrol have released some excellent tutorials on weathering powders - will be looking here for some more tips.

All in all thought I've really enjoyed this project.

I added grey ash all along the side of this, but most of it has disappeared, it has pooled in places around the bottom of the tracks. Notice the earth colours on the white area at the front. On the top of the white stripe you will notice the silver chips. On this side I clearly went too heavy on them as there is no black surrounding them - contrast this with the effect on the small shield which looks far better - good learning experience here!

The ash powders gathered well in some areas of the top father tank. You will also note some fine streaks in places. These are meant to represent where rain water partially washes the dust over the armour. This is achieved by running the powders in streaks whilst the surgical spirit is still evaporating. 6/10 pleased n this area.

Slightly more pleased with the chipping on this side on the red/white stripe and the shield. It's so important to be less generous with the silver versus the base coat used. Notice how the dust has gathered in places under the lass cannons. Also - not too pleased with the muddy effect on the front here....far more than I would have wanted.

I like the ash weathering powder - but don't like how it concealed here....this is to do with applying the surgical spirit as opposed to just leaving it and spraying lacquer over it.

Meh exhausts....culd have been more generous with the soot and rust