Today, we speak about a ‘simple’ technic to creating chipping on model kits : The salt. Yes ! You’re read correctly, a simple salt to obtain a nice chipping on your gunpla. It’s a technic which work with an airbrush. I think it cannot work with brush … But I’m not sure. Maybe I will test one day.

I make a HG Jo hound model kit few month , and I wanted to obtain a heavy chipping. I decided to use only my brushes and little pieces of sponges. But this time, I decide to use the salt.

Prepare your model

First, you need to prepare the surface of your gunpla. For the example, I use the hand of the HG RX-79 ‘Ground type’ (1/144) from « the 08th team » anime.

Like for a classic preparation, I use a primer. In this case, I was a black primer from Vallejo mecha color. After, I added the rust coat. I used a red/brown primer color from GreenStuffWorld. You must a really hard paint because we will be ‘violent’ in a future step.

The Salt technic

Now, it’s time to use the salt.

Put some water gently at the surface of the piece where you want obtain chipping (often on the edges). Personnaly, I used a little sponge. Then put the salt directly on the piece like it’s raining salt. It will be trap by the water. To obtain various effect, try to use different sizes of salt. In my example, I used a really fine salt to try to respect scale.

Some advises :

• Don’t forget to protect the parts where you do not want salt.
• You can do that directly in your kitchen … because you’re going to salt everywhere … Believe me.
• WAIT ! To paint, you need to have a dry salt, so wait ! … 8 or 12h in a dry place ?

Paint (when the salt is dry)

Paint your part as usual, the salt will work like a mask. You can use a pre-shading if you want. But becareful to the pressure you use on your airbrush. If the pressure is too high, the salt will be remove. On this example, I worked with the Mr. color white C1 diluated at 50% and applied at 1bar.

Salt chipping

To finish, You must remove the salt. I used a toothbrush with some water and I brush … brush … and brush again. If you remember, I said you must use a hard and dry paints. That is the moment where you’re going to see if your paint it’s good.

Salt chipping on gunpla is a good way to have random chips on a your paint. I think it’s a simple technic which give good results.

See you soon 😉