Aluminium paint chipping – paintbrush approach

Chips and scratches

with Geoff Coughlin

Trying to create realistic paint chipping can be tricky although it’s a lot easier than you might imagine :)

Firstly you have multiple options, depending on the level and severity of paint chipping you are looking for.

The first step is to check whatever references you have or can access and, for me, the internet is king here. The severity of the chipped paintwork will really influence the best approach to take.

Here’s a project that I’ve been working on, the HobbyBoss J-29B Tunnan in 1:48 scale.

Take a look at this photo to see the aircraft I’m basing my own model on…

Notice the chipped paintwork around the front edge of the yellow nose band – that’s what I’m going to show in the video that follows. The chipping on the real Tunnan shown here isn’t extreme, but it is noticeable and I think to try and create it on my model will add a lot to the finished look – you can decide what you think at the end :)

This video is in fact, No.31 from a total of 37 HD video demos included in the Tunnan full build in SMN, so take a look at the HobbyBoss pages in Aircraft-Finished Now for the link to that build.

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HD Video Demo

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Tools and materials you’ll need for this approach:

• small pointed paint brush
• Xtracolor Duralumin enamel paint
• small amount of enamel thinner (I’m using cellulose thinners in the demo)
• small mixing ‘pallets’ for some of your paint and the other for your thinner
• solvent paint cleaner to clean your paint brush afterwards.

And that’s it!

Here’s a quick look at my finished Tunnan…

Good luck.
Geoff C.