Basic Mud

This is a quick overview of some basic mud effects, how you achieve them, and what supplies and equipment you'll need. I'm still very new at this. I only started experimenting with weathering at the beginning of 2010. Where possible, I've tried to draw on my real world experience with muddy vehicles.

Why Weather?

Well, it just looks pretty darn cool. Warhammer 40K is supposed to be a grim, gritty world. Vehicles aren't supposed to look like they just rolled off the assembly line. Necron's have been entombed for millions of years ... don't you think they would have accumulated a little bit of dust? Here's my latest example, a Baal Predator with mud on it's tracks and a little bit of chipping on its armor.

As I mentioned in the intro, as of this posting, I've only been doing this for a couple of months. I'm happy to report that I'm quite pleased with the results and more importantly, how easy it is to do.

Step-by-Step

1. Assemble and paint your vehicle. If you're doing any armor chipping etc, do this first, as the dust and mud would collect on top of this.
2. Gather the dry ingredients for you mud. I use some basic sand, a spoonful of static grass, some snow flock, and the contents of a teabag.

   

3. Now you're ready to add your wet ingredients. I use some Liquitex Burnt Sienna acrylic, white glue, and water. The Liquitex and glue help the mixture adhere and stick to the model.

   

4. Mix all of these together. This is what it looks like when everything is first added.

   

5. After mixing a little, I try it out on a piece of newspaper. Hopefully it looks a lot like chunky muddy water.

   

6. I then use a #6 flat brush to spoon the mixture and 'paint' it all over the tracks, lower skirts, and up on the fenders where mud would get thrown. Do some on-line research and look for pictures of muddy vehicles and see where mud gets thrown. Put your vehicle on some wax paper to dry. Don't leave it on newspaper, otherwise you will find that your vehicle has become glued to it.

   

7. After the mud mixture is dry, drybrush with Citadel Snakebite Leather and the P3 Rucksack Tan. This will lighten up your mud to the color of dried mud.

   

8. The next step will be the application of weathering powders. Before you start though, seal your work. This will ensure that if you're not happy with the results, you clean the powders off and start over. There are a fair number of manufacturers of weathering powders. Forgeworld makes a really nice set. MIG carries them. I've been using AIM Products ... mostly because that's what I was able to find first (at my local model train store). I use a 50:50 mix of their Dirty Yellow and Medium Earth and mix it in a small fruit cup container (from my kids) and apply it with a powder brush(from my wife).

   

9. I use the brush to apply it pretty liberaly all over the areas that I mudded. The large size and round shape ensures that I can put down a pretty nice layer of powder without a hard edge. I apply successive layers of powder until I think it looks 'right'.
10. The last step is sealing our work. You have to be careful here, because the sealer coat may/will change the color of your powder layer. In my case, the reason I go with a pretty light color is because the matte spray darkens it. Your effect will also change depending on the unlying color of the paint. I would encourage you to experiment a little first and see how your paint, powder, and matte coat interact.
11. And here is the final product ...

    

Notes

Last updated	5/22/10
Author	Michael Kan
Pre-requisites	None
Related Articles	None