With Mad Max Fury Road storming into cinemas in a visceral assault on just about every sense other than taste and with more events with Post Apocalypse elements or outright Mad Max inspired it made sense to share some tips on how to distress and age your kit properly, after all there is nothing worse in a post apoc world than clean kit.
First we will cover how to make clothing and kit go from off the shelf new to that dusty used look seen in so many films.
To begin you will need a few things, a bucket full of dust (I use a mix of cement, fullers earth and ash) a clear matt sealant, a tub of matt paint and gloves.
Next you need something to age, for the purposes of this I have chosen a military style thigh mounted pouch. This is not off the shelf new but has had no ageing treatment thus far.
Step 1
Apply the matt black paint to the item you want to age, try and spread the paint over your entire hand to avoid your clothing or kit to end up with big blobs of paint over it. Rather try and get an even finish over the areas you want to age.
Step 2
Now that the paint is on you want to get the dust on as quickly as possible to ensure it bonds with the still wet paint.
Step 3
You now need to pat the dust into the material. You can do this as hard or as soft as you fancy, the aim is just to get the dust into the paint. Once this is done you need to spray the areas with dust with clear matt sealant. Do this from a distance of at least 12 inches. When you do this you will notice in some areas the paint becomes visible again, fear not.
Step 4
The last stage is to apply another layer of dust, this will bond with the still wet sealant and get rid of the obvious paint marks.
You now have something ready for the apocalypse, this effect works on just about any material and you can adjust the dust you use and how much you use according to what level of ageing you want on the kit. Other effects that work on top of this technique are oil and grease from engines, good quality fake blood and tearing the fabric to really add depth and charachter.
Below are a few examples of these other techniques used on top of the dust ageing
The next tutorial will focus on guns and firearms of the apocalypse and how to create and age firearms that would make Nux smile!
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