How to sculpt battle damage on a 3d resin model

[hd3]

I recently was gifted a 3d printed rhino transport. I was going to turn it into terrain by making it a bombed out hull of a rhino. But I'm not sure how to sculpt it to make the model convincingly look like it's taken a fatal barrage. I was hoping to appeal to the community here for advice on how to make the Rhino look appropriately bombed out. 

[Maximus]

The best thing to do is to scour the internet for reference pictures of bombed out/ destroyed AFV (armoured fighting vehicles). You may have to get creative sculpting bent and impacted panels. The paint scheme needs some consideration too; has it been recently destroyed, if so there will still be identifiable colours but with charing etc., or is it an old wreck which has turned rusty and the paint has deteriorated. I follow a modeller called Nightshift on Youtube who has done various "weathered" vehicles, which may be worth a look for you.

Look forward to seeing the end result.

[Sky Potato]

Maybe try fully painting it and then setting a firework off inside it?

[NovemberIX]

One of the pieces of advice I was given was use the terrain to tell a story, which way did the fire come from? what caused the damage and how did it affect the piece in question.

 

Because it's a 3d printed model you may have to take extra care in applying damage, prints tend to have clean edge breaks, so making it look like battle damage will probably require some sanding and filing, which means wear a mask unless you wanna breath in toxic particulates that'll do a number on your lungs.

[hd3]

 

One of the pieces of advice I was given was use the terrain to tell a story, which way did the fire come from? what caused the damage and how did it affect the piece in question.

 

Because it's a 3d printed model you may have to take extra care in applying damage, prints tend to have clean edge breaks, so making it look like battle damage will probably require some sanding and filing, which means wear a mask unless you wanna breath in toxic particulates that'll do a number on your lungs.

 

Does that still apply to using a soldering gun to heat it up and / or cut into it? Also do I need a proper mask or just a cheap cloth mask from the convenience store?

[LameBeard]

Please be careful! Sawing, sanding or applying heat to this could be quite nasty. Would you consider a different story, like chaos infestation? Add tentacles instead of taking out chunks?

[NovemberIX]

Honestly, I've never considered trying a soldering gun on printed resin, but I don't think it'll work out well. The fumes are likely to be toxic, and 3d printed resin just doesn't act like cast resin, much less plastic. 

 

As for a mask, if you're just physically working the material, then a simple cover should be fine, as long as you don't breath in the particulates you're ok, anything beyond that and you're gonna want a more robust solution. Trust me, you do NOT want the breathing issues that come from dealing with resin in your lungs, it sucks, and it doesn't go away.

[hd3]

Maybe i'll just leave this intact and buy a blown up rhino model off esty...

[Oxydo]

Resin does have the advantage of bring easy to chip and crack.

 

If you want to saw, sand or drill, just do it wet and you won't get any dust. Just cutting or breaking isnt dangerous.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Some time ago, GW made a terrain piece called "Battlescape" which had a destroyed Rhino and some craters, and Forgeworld made an abandoned Chimera - it might be worth having a look at those for ideas? It does a good job of conveying a story, as @NovemberIX suggests.

 

One of the main things to consider is what caused the Rhino's demise:

• A mine would blow the track off. If the vehicle's already been printed, this probably isn't a viable option.
• Small arms fire tends to create small "pin-point" holes, although GW tends to depict them as miniature craters with raised edges and a slight "starburst" pattern. You could probably do this with a small drill (and greenstuff if you use GW's approach).
• Solid anti-tank rounds tend to make neat holes when hitting perpendicularly, and rather large gouges when hitting at an angle (e.g. front and back of a test plate). This could be modelled with a drill for a neat hole, or a dremmel at an angle for a more messy entrance.
• Laser weapons would probably just make a neat hole.
• Melta weapons were traditionally modelled with a neat hole (drill) and then the surrounding area melted a bit (plastic glue, but you could probably do it with greenstuff).
• Tyranid acid would probably be modelled similarly to melta weapons, but possibly with some "sagging" of the metal (probably greenstuff for this).
• A direct hit from an artillery shell would likely cause catastrophic damage, so it's probably not a viable option if the vehicle's been printed. A near miss would likely tear a bunch of large ragged holes in the panels near the impact, although I'm not sure how you'd model that.

 

You could also model the Rhino as partially submerged into the ground to give the impression of "general decay and knackeredness", a well as give it a bit of a rusty paint job.

 

I would suggest being careful if you do an image search due to the nature of some potential image matches.

 

Don't know if that helps any?

Edited October 4 by Firedrake Cordova