So I’m painting my Cryx. I wanted a completely rusty, old, decaying metal on them. Not just some rust effects, but completely messed up “undead” looking metal plates and joints. And for once in like 15 years, I went from theory to practice with the same actual results! So here’s how I did this.

I painted my model with chainmail from Citadel Colour. You can see the little guy down here, but of course I needed to experiment somewhere else, so he was not the test subject after all. I decided to try this on a piece of plastic scenery I had lying around.

1- Paint your metal on your figure. Easy, done. Now, the next steps are done with a wash and some Tamiya weathering powder. I swear, I never learned to use that bastard, but I thought it would be useful. I scratch some powder on a palette and mix it up with some Devlan Mud wash.

2- Once the metal is dry, I apply this orange wash all over. I wait for it to dry, and apply a second wash of similar color and texture. Down here you can see both of them. The second one takes the metal to a quite bright tone. Metallic paint still coming through the wash, which is great.

3- After the second wash is dry, I do a simple wash of Devlan Mud to mess it up and darken the recesses. After that is dry, I make another wash like before, only this time making it very orange, and thick as normal paint. I apply that to raised areas and exposed metal, anywhere you want your rust to be more obvious. Below you can see both of these steps.

4- Light a cig and continue to paint the figure. Yeah! That’s it! And the results are way more than satisfactory. At least for me. The bare plastic around the painted example gives me a comparison to check how real the effect looks. I think it will do great.

Recap:
1. Paint your metal
2. Wash with mix of Devlan Mud (or any other oily, dark wash) and Tamiya weathering powder (or any other brand you like).
3. Wash again with the above mix.
4. Wash with Devlan Mud.
5. Detail with a thicker, more orange version of the first wash.

Here’s some detail pics.

I’ve already applied this technique to the test model, and it’s great. You will see the little guy painted here in a couple of days. Hope you can use this technique!!