How to Paint Rust

Painting convincing rust and other weathering patterns can take a figure from "mediocre" to "good". Today we're going to talk about rust. 

Rust is something we all familiar with, but when was the last time you really looked at it with intent? Today we're going to do just that. 

An abandoned truck is our first subject. Note the differences between the horizontal and vertical surfaces. Note the color, I see mostly reddish browns, but no bright red or orange. What colors do you see? I also see very vertical streaks, gravity makes things go straight down. 

How about here? The pitting is heavy, and the edges have less paint left than the middle of the flat surfaces. Note the paint around the rivets. The rivets themselves are rusted but paint remains in the crack, this is opposite to the way my smooth brain usually paints them (I tend to put rust in cracks).

Again, more corroded at the edges where more paint would be naturally chipped off. 

What about here? A large air tank sitting on the ground. Note the lack of homogeneity in the paint, excessively homogeneous surfaces aren't really a thing. Remember that.

 

More gravity streaks, keep direction in mind, also note the difference from rust from below/within vs rusty water dripping from above (the result is different). Is the finish satin or matte? 

 

So this is a bit of turd as far as tutorials go, since the tutorial wasn't really about how to paint something. The tutorial was about looking at objects and asking questions. Now the next time you go to paint ask yourself the same questions. What color is the rust, where is the rust, is the surface up or down, is it an edge or inner flat area. Keep it up, and together we'll add a few wrinkles to our brains.

Good luck,

HMP