How to weather the bottom of banners

The other day when I posted the results of my "week's worth of hobby," Drathmere from over at 40k Hobby Blog asked about the weathering I did on the Titan banner project I had.

It's really easy to do and get good results.
Here's the short version, it's just like adding soot stains to the end of a gun barrel except you're adding them to the bottom of a banner.

Here it is step by step.



Step 1
Get you banner and your paints. I've got an old junk banner and you only need two colors for this. Black and brown. You can use any size brush you want, I use something similar to the Citadel large size brush or the Wash brush. Anything close will work just fine.


Step 2
Take your X-Acto knife and cut away part of the bottom to give it that tattered and war torn look.


(Left banner = 1st pass, Right banner = 5th or 6th pass)
Step 3
Start with the brown. I water mine down a bit so it's transparent. I keep adding layers of brown across the bottom until I get the very bottom almost completely opaque. I only use vertical brush strokes and vary the height of them across the width of the banner.


Step 4
Finish with the black. Do the same thing that you did with the brown but don't go as high up on the banner as you did with the brown.

Things to keep in mind:

1. You can be generous with the brown but use the black sparingly. Go in small steps with both colors (especially with the black) because you can't go back once you paint it.
With weathering, "less is more" sometimes.

2. Use vertical strokes only, Especially with the black. I'll add a few small dabs of it across the bottom of the banner, wipe my brush almost clean and then use vertical strokes to pull the black up into the banner image.