dry brushing

Dry brushing is used to show fading or wear, usually on edges, raised features such as rivets etc. It can also help tie camo colours together.

You start of with a slight lightened base colour, get some on the brush and then wipe it off, so your just left with the faint hint of paint. Then brush it over the points you want to apply it to. This can be followed with successive coats going slightly lighter each time.

Until a couple of years ago, this was about my only means of weathering on armour, now I don't use it quite as heavily, but still find it useful.

I find it helpful sometimes to use the side of the brush tip for drybrushing rather than the tip of the brush if I just want to leave some paint of a different color on protrusions, like radio knobs, It's too easy for a few brush bristles to go down onto the surface of the object and leave some paint where I don't want it if I use the tip of the brush. That can really matter if I'm trying to control where the light grey or silver paint ends up on a dark grey or black object. Plus, by using the side of the brush tip, I have more brush surface area going over the protrusion which means I can have the brush even drier and still get the paint where I want it to go.

I do a lot of dry brushing with silver, or flat aluminum, or Testors steel colors.  Does a nice job on painted metal parts depicting where wear has worn through paint leaving bare metal patches with feathered edges.  I frequently cut down the bristles to shorten them. I think this has a similar effect to using the side.  Once I start using a brush for dry brushing I restrict the brush to that technique rather than keeping it for general painting use.

I occasionally thin the paint more than normal, so it acts as a combination of wash and dry brush at same time. Puts down very little color at one time, needs to be built up, gives better control.

Although I primarily use acrylics, I use enamels for dry brushing.  I never liked the result of dry brushing using acrylics.