Salt Masking to simulate rust or flaking paint

[Shipbrook 19]

Apparently this is a well-known weathering technique amongst the scale modeling community, but I only recently learned of it and gave it a try (and it worked pretty well), so I figured I'd pass it along for anyone else who'd never heard of it either.

With salt masking, you start off by painting your object a rusty color (varying the tone for best results) and letting it dry.

Then, using a paintbrush, you moisten areas that you want to have rust on them. After moistening each spot, sprinkle coarse salt on it (it should stick). For heavy rust, cover it completely; for small rust flakes, sprinkle the salt lightly.

Allow the model to completely dry.

Then airbrush your intended colors over the model, painting salt and plastic alike. Once the final coat is dry, simply brush off the salt. Everywhere the salt was covering the surface (and therefore preventing the paint from reaching it), the "rust" will show through:

A similar effect can be used to simulate metal showing through flaking paint; just use a metallic paint as the base coat, rather than rust colors.

(Stimpack model printed in PLA on an Ultimaker 2.)

[SandervG 1,521]

Thanks for sharing this! Sounds pretty easy and your model looks really cool.

[oddoutput 7]

Oh i'm gonna have to remember that one