This is my first go on what is generally termed weathering effects, which means making something look used and worn. In my case I wanted to add battlescarring on some shields for my Empire swordsmen to give them a worn and hardened look, signifying their veteran status.
Highlight first, then shade
Normally you shade first and then highlight. In this case you need to undo your normal way of thinking and first apply a thick line of heavily lightened up color, where you want the scratch. How thick, how light? You ask. Well, the next step is to draw a second thinner line inside the highlighted line, so don’t make it too thin. In terms of whiteness it depends on your basecoat tone, but a rule of thumb would be “much whiter than you think!”, which for those of you who insist on using math over intuition I’d say 80% white.Secondly, paint a thin black line inside the highlighted area. Use black, not ink. If the scratch is on an edge, as on my shields, the black line should be broader near the edge.
Cutting is not a must
These shields are plastic so it would have been easy to use a sharp knife and make actual cuts into the shields. However, the decision to add scarring was made when the models were nearly done, so I didn’t feel like applying a knife at that stage (when I use tools it most always infers collateral damage to other parts of the model). The point of this tutorial is therefore also to show that you don’t need to actually cut into the model, as shading and highlighting alone does the trick.
That’s it.
Slowlypainted 