The Jankiest Rust Tutorial Ever

Late Night Rust Tutorial

I’m telling myself this is the last late night video. Got a request on how to do rust, and in 2025 there’s really just one way—spend 20 bucks on a bottle that does it for you.

The Products

• Dirty Down Rust - The main attraction
• AK Interactive Rust Streaks - More versatile enamel option
• Secret Weapon Rust Orange (RIP) - Matte, heavily pigmented orange

Base Coat

Using Warc Colors silver and Vallejo Air Steel. The steel is an air paint but very opaque—quick one coat, not overly metallic. I don’t like when you can see metallic specs. Five minutes to base coat all the spears.

Dirty Down Rust Method

Critical: You HAVE to shake this. There’s a ball inside—get it off the bottom and shake for at least two minutes. Use a vortex mixer if you have one.

This stuff will destroy your brushes. Smells terrible—like pennies and cat piss. Stipple it on thick, focus on flat areas. Let it dry (it’ll look dark and terrible at first).

The Magic: Get a brush wet with water (not dripping). Reactivate the rust by edge highlighting off sharp points. This creates texture AND restores the silver edge underneath.

Pro tip: Use the same water you washed metal paint with—the silver flakes add realism.

Dirty Down benefits hugely from Typhus Corrosion underneath for texture.

AK Interactive Rust Streaks

Functions like streaking grime. Because it’s enamel, you can:

• Let it dry on palette for different effects
• Remove with mineral spirits
• Use as filter or wash

More versatile than Dirty Down, traditionally used for streaking rust down from rivets on tanks.

The Sponge Method

Rip up black foam. Dip in rust streaks, stipple it on, then use clean foam to stipple down hard edges. Way faster for batch painting.

Final Step

Light dry brush with original silver on edge highlights. This is what transforms everything and makes it come together.

The Results

The optimal Dirty Down rust looks SO good—like a little cartoon guy with a real metal spear tip. Almost looks bad because it looks so good.

But doing that 90 times? The sponge method is close enough for army painting.

Tomorrow: painting all the skin and getting closer to finishing Goblin Town.

Transcript

I’m telling myself this is the last late night video and going forward I’m going to make really cool legit videos every day not last minute in the middle of the night. Got a request on how to do Rust and in the year of our Lord 2025. There’s really just one way. [laughter] You spend 20 bucks on a bottle that does it for you is uh is how you do it. Uh there’s a couple other ways too.

Like I um before that product, I used this product for Make It Interactive. Um and before this product, I just painted stuff brown with sponges and dry brushed sponge like like a sponge spongy dry brush with orange and browns. Uh I got a ton of spear tips. So we’re going to go through all of them maybe uh and compare them, I think. Man, I’m so tired.

Look at those eyes. Look at them. Okay. But we’re going to paint some rust and then we’re going to go to sleep and then tomorrow we’re going to make high quality well produced videos every day. This silver, it’s uh it’s by Warc Colors has become one of my favorite silvers.

So, I’m going to use this. Uh and also steel just by uh Vallejo Air is another silver that I really like. Okay. I just base coated the spears. Uh, and I did his little homies in the back.

I got to leave these guys for other other methods. Uh, but I just did those in exactly five minutes to get all those spears in. That’s why this is with Vallejo steel. It’s an air paint, but it it’s very opaque. So, like it’s a quick one coat.

It’s not overly metallic. Uh, which is why I like I don’t like when you can see the metallic specs. Like, um, it’s kind of matte. And it’s also part of that is just cuz mine’s so old. Uh, but it’s it’s how I like my true metals.

So, now I’m going to let this dry. Um, we’ll do some with rust streaks. Show you how this works. And we’ll of course I’ll show you how to use this with this. Uh, you have to have a vortex mixer.

I guess if you don’t have one there, you could just shake it for a very long time. But if you don’t shake this like there’s a ball inside of it and I’m shaking it right now and you don’t hear there’s the ball. like if that you have to get that ball off the bottom and then you seriously got to really shake it for like two minutes at least. I’m going to put it in the vortex mixer. Let it go crazy.

Um I’ve used so much of this that I’m getting kind of low on it. Uh but the trick with this is to make sure it is shaken up and maybe even scrape the bottom of it. You put it on, you get it wet, reactivate it, and then you go from there. So, uh we’ll jump into that next. All right, we are fully shaken.

Uh the thing to know about this is it’s going to totally destroy your brushes. This is my uh devoted 30 down rush brush. Um this stuff smells terrible, too. It smells like I don’t know, like pennies and cat piss. So you come in.

I just dipped the whole Whoa. What’s a little bit too much? Load up the brush. Of course, I’m going to be out of focus. And we’re just going to come in and we’re going to stipple it on pretty thick to start.

And we want to focus it on these flat areas. This brush might be too too nasty. Let’s see. Keep messing with it. Okay.

So, you can see you just kind of throw it on there and then uh onto the next one. We’re going to let it sit. We’ll let it dry and it’s going to look dark and it’s going to look terrible at first, but that’s okay. Okay. I got a different brush cuz that was actually a little too far gone.

I’m using a janky ass setup right now because I got all the goblins. This thing. Come on, baby. All right, there we go. Sorry about that.

Finally fix this. Focus. See, I’m just stippling it on. Of course, it stops and on the flat parts. It’s okay if you go off the edge because this is water soluble and we’re going to reactivate it on purpose anyway.

Okay. All right. All right, we’re going to try something so I can hopefully make sure you can see what I’m doing here. So, this I’ve done five of these. And I’ve stippled it to get this texture on it.

Uh, if you have typhus corrosion, I would definitely use that. Like, tus corrosion is like the best thing GW makes right now. Uh, I have some, but it’s totally dry. So, this is the first layer. I’m getting that same brush that I was using and just water on it.

I I washed all the all the stuff off. So, kind of wet, but it’s not like it’s not like dripping off. And now we’re just coming in and we’re just reactivating it. And we’re going to like I’m edge highlighting it off the sharp points. This is so ter such a terrible video.

Uh, if that’s out of focus, you got to imagine with me. And what this is doing now is one, it’s reactivating the stuff around the points that we’re doing this at, and it’s just creating more texture and just more interesting rust effects. But it’s also restoring that silver edge underneath. Right. And we It’s very easy to get carried away and like wash off all your effect now.

So what I’m going to do and you can also you can get really gnarly with it. Like down here like it’s pretty thick right here. If I was going for like the grim dark look or wanted to go like super crazy with it, I would keep that there. But I really don’t want these to be like crazy grim dark. I still kind of want to stay true to the the original.

So, and if you have a heat gun, you can hit it. It’s not like uh it’s not like the moss where you like have to have a heat gun to activate it, but if you have a heat gun, it you can get different effects with it. So, see this right now? This one’s like pretty much just dark. And if you had typus corrosion on this, you could get a lot more texture with it.

and dry that brush off a little bit. And also, I’m using the same water that I washed the metal off of the my first paintbrush with. So, I have the metal flakes in it. So, the water that’s reactivating the sturdy down rust has the silver flakes in it. So, even in the spots and you kind of see like I’m just trying to show you the brush motion.

Oh, god. Broke this one. These What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Even so, even though it’s spots where it’s just water, it’s going to have the metallic flakes in it.

And like this is a lot of this is just kind of vibes like rust. Okay. Next method. Uh rust streaks enamel. Uh, this kind of functions like streaking grime.

Uh, so you guys ripped off black foam. Just going to come in here, get some on here. And uh, maybe my rest has gone bad. very liquidy. So, usually a little bit thicker.

Let me see what’s going on here. All right. So, this is rust streaks. It’s still kind of wet. Um I think my rust streaks might be a little bit too old.

So, it’s it’s usually a little bit thicker, but it still made it work. And you can see this goes on way wetter than uh our dirty down rest does. And we’re still we’re still going to come back and reactivate this a little bit more. Uh but you can see it’s starting to dry. Um it’s still it’s very much like you got to work it to get good results, but we’ll come back to that.

So now on these guys, I’m going to rip up some more foam. I ripped off another piece of foam that’s clean. And now what I’m doing is I’m just stippling down that hard edge. And same stipple stipple stipple. See, there’s a lot more that we can do with it.

And I got to let this dry some before I come keep going back in and messing with it. But the thing about >> about the AK interactive rust streaks is that because it’s an an enamel paint, it’s not a onetrick pony like reszer rust is. I think Rizer rust. Uh this is not reser rust like dirty down rust is. is you can do all the enamel tricks, right?

So, you can leave it out on a palette and let it dry some and then put it on. You can put it on and you can remove it with mineral spirits. You can use it as a filter. You can use it as a wash. There’s a lot more things that you can do with it.

Whereas with Durown Rust, uh after playing with it, you can maybe get some good results. I mean, you’re definitely going to get results. It’s very realistic and very good once you get used to handling it. Whereas AK Interactive is more of a like a versatile medium that you can use for different things. Uh it’s it’s more so used to like wash like say like a nut on a tank or something or a rivet on a tank and then like drag it down and you get those realistic rust streaks which is why it’s called that.

Um but there’s just a lot that you can do with it. So I’m going to let this stuff dry. Um I’m going to get my favorite rust tool uh which I don’t think you can get anymore. So, I feel kind of bad showing it, but it’s uh Secret Weapons Rust, and that’s the orange I’m going to use. It’s just a very matte, heavily pigmented orange paint.

Um I think you could use like any bright orange to do this part. Uh but that’ll be the last bit, uh before we do a dry brush. Secret weapon. Uh rest in peace, yellow rush, rust. I’ve been hoarding this stuff.

Uh so I probably uh won’t be using it on all the goblins just because I’m hoarding it. Uh but what you do is so uh ripped up foam just got a little bit on the on here and again I’m just getting a little bit off of it and you approach it. Uh let’s find a spear I can reach. Sorry I broke my my tripod broke. it tipped over, but I’ll have that fixed soon.

And with this, you just dry brush dry brush stippling. So, just like this. And I’m going to do that on these and then I’ll come back for group shots and really like show you how everything looks. But this is the method to it all. Okay.

So, this is the one that was the oil wash brown on the middle and then stippled just a bright orange on top. And we need to still come in one more time with our original silver. And then this is the dirty down rust over here after a ton of back and forth uh reactivating it. Oh man, I’ve missed the mold lines. Oh god, how did I miss that spear?

But this this is the dirty down rust with just a ton of back and forth. So what do you do? You just get it wet. You add it. You get it wet.

You add it. Uh a ton of [ __ ] around with it. Uh, it looks great, but it’s just like it’s expensive for a tiny bottle of paint and you really got to finesse it, you know. And on some of them, I also still stippled on some of the bright bright orange just cuz I wasn’t quite getting it as bright as I wanted still. This one, this one is turning out great.

Like that’s how it’s supposed to look when you do it right. And and the dirty down rust definitely benefits from typhus corrosion. I think it needs that underlying texture to really kind of pop off. Uh so that’s like don’t judge the product on that that I’m just out of type corrosion. So now what I’m going to do is take that original silver and I’m just going to give it a very light dry brush on the edge highlight.

So like a edge highlight dry brush. And this final like dry brushing is really what transforms it and makes it all come back together. Uh so now it looks great. Uh, love it. Tomorrow I’m going to paint all this skin and these guys, the skin and the teeth and the lips and these guys will all be done.

Uh, the shafts. I’m going to I’m going to paint in wood grain on the staffs probably cuz I’m insane. Uh, so I’m going to say that for the last part, but I’m hoping tomorrow we’ll actually have some some more finished goblins. So, I really wanted to show you this. This is like optimal dirty down rust after we’ve come in just to cut the hard edges back in with a dry brush.

Uh it looks so good. Like it like it seriously it looks like I got a little cartoon guy and the tip of his spears in the real world. Like it almost looks bad because it looks so good, you know? Um but this is why like when you get it right, it’s good, you know? It’s just it’s just so much work to get it right that I honestly don’t know if I’m going to do it cuz doing that 90 times would be a little bit crazy versus the wash method with the with the the sponge.

You know, it’s like close enough. Uh I don’t know. I’ll probably end up doing a little bit of both. All right, here’s the final effect. All 10 guys, all 10 10 goblins.

And remember, these didn’t have any texture on them. It’s all painted texture. Like so that like this one on the right here, that’s uh a little bit of texture from the rust, but like this one right here, that’s just oil wash, baby. That’s oil wash and dry brushing. Same thing.

This texture, oil wash, dry brush. There’s no real texture there except for maybe just a little bit of of paint thickening. Uh this one’s dirty down rust. This one right here is dirty down rust. Uh it looks sick, though.

This one’s dirty down rust. That one’s got a lot of texture from uh from the rest, but I love it. Thanks for watching. I’m going to bed. Uh this concludes tonight’s episode of the Goblin Chronicles.

The Chronicles of Gabwania.