weatering and battle damage question

If you're trying to replicate worn paint where the metal underneath is showing through, use some sort of silver paint mixed with a bit of black. You don't necessarily want a screaming bright silver. Tone it down a bit with the black and experiment to see how much to use.

You can apply it straight, that is simply brush it on over small areas. Or you can dry-brush it and get a blended look. This is usually effective for areas where crew or infantry may enter or exit the helo.

For the soot, these guys already mentioned my fave; pastels. I use a variety of chalk pastels (not oil pastels) to replicate a variety of things, including exhaust staining and chordite streaking.

I use a few different brushes to apply the stuff, my favorite being what's called a Cat's Tongue. Filberts are also good, but any brush that you're comfortable with is what you should use. I don't recommend applying pastels with your fingers because of the oils in the skin.

You can either apply the stuff with a streaking motion, or a swirling/scrubbing motion. I just go with what feels good, I've been doing this for so long.

There are many techniques you can try to in order to get the desired results. I'd recommend trying as many as possible to see which may or may not be "for you".

Fade to Black...

The best method for the soot is to go to an art supply store and pick up some actual charcoal drawing sticks, grind them down and use a dry, soft bristled brush to dust it on to the surface.

After each light dusting, blow the loose dust off the surface, with each dusting, more will stick to the surface. You may want to spray some dull coat between each dusting to make certain nothing gets out of place from one dusting to the next.

I used this technique on the exhaust area of a 1/72 Vickers Challenger tank and it came off great. it also works great for gun exhaust areas, afterburner areas on jets. any place you need a sooty appearance, charcoal dust is the best stuff I know.

Why immitate soot when you can use the real stuff? :-)

to get the black soot, gring up pastel powder, not the oily stuff, and rub it on with your finger. to get the metal get a small paintbrush and dip it in metal and carerfully put on chips of paint.

Battle damaged areas on any flying machine, ie chopper or aircraft, would involve installing a patch over the damaged area. Sometimes the maintenance people would paint the patch any color available to match the surrounding area. The color did not always match. At times the patch would not be painted at all and would be natural aluminum. After constant use the paint would start to peel away from the patch.

Sometimes a bondo type patch would be applied over small damaged areas. It would have an almost flesh color to it. If damage was extensive, whole sections would be replaced. An example would be glass areas or panels or doors. These would have a fresher looking paint applied to them, or in case of glass the frame would be new looking.