Postapocalyptabox

Painting models is great fun and all, but it's a little... small scale. For a while now I've been looking for something to do with the case well, old toolbox, that I keep my brushes, airbrushes, modelling tools and non-GW paints in. I had originally envisaged something steampunk-y, but steampunk has become a little overdone  recently, and there's no way I'd have the time or skill to do anything that I would be proud of when I was done. Instead, I decided that post-apocalyptic was the way to go. Partially because I want to be Judge Dredd kicking the shit out of muties in the Cursed Earth and also because weathering is one of my favourite parts of the painting process. 

So this is how the box started out. Pretty standard red metal toolbox really. The silver paint came about when I had a quarter of a 'cup' of silver paint left over when I'd finished painting. I couldn't put it back in the pot as it'd been thinned, so I got creative!

A key part of my "design" was to be an old front sprocket I had lying around from my first Bike, it'd been kicking around for almost two years, but I couldn't throw it out, it's too cool! Hell, it even (by total coincidence) has the perfect number of teeth/stamped on it!

My First job was to sand down the current paint, both to give it a worn, weather beaten, look and also to provide a 'keyed' surface for further layers of paint to stick to. I gave different areas different amounts of attention in order to give different areas of the box a different amount of weathering. Generally speaking, uniformity doesn't lead to believable weathering. I used 1200 grit wet and dry paper to flatten the paint but not strip it or leave huge gouges in it. This done, I eyeballed the best place for the sprocket and stuck it in place ready to drill the mounting holes in the box.

I started drilling with a very fine bit in my Dremel/Rotary tool, first making a pilot hole then progressively boring it out wider with larger bits. This worked well initally, but by the time I was on the 3rd bit, the job had become a little too big for my poor Dremel and its attachments. Instead of boring out the hole, I was melting my drill bit! I decided that a puddle of molten metal wouldn't really fit in with my overall design and switched out to my proper cordless drill and some HSS (high speed steel) bits. By their powers combined, they made short work of the box.

With the holes drilled, I removed the taped on sprocket, and got busy with the meat of the work: the painting. Using the airbrush, I first applied coats of red in various areas around the box. Doing this helped to further emphasise the weather damaged look, but adding to the number of shades of red on the box, as if some areas had been more sun bleached than others. This is very important as post-apocalyptic worlds must always be deserts. Always.

When the red dried, I began shooting areas of orange, brown and silver. The aim of this was to simulate dirt, old rust, and areas where paint had been removed so the metal underneath had begun to show. This whole process was very, for want of a better term, organic, I had no exact look in mind so I just added paint wherever happened to feel right.

After this, I mixed up various shades of brown, orange and yellow to create a rust shade and proceded to stipple it onto the box with a sponge. The stippling was important to help limit uniformity and to give a texture that added to the look.

Finally, I pop riveted the sprocket to the top of the box. Right now it is still a little shiny, but I'm leaving it to form its own natural patina as I feel that will look more authentic on bare metal than anything I could do.