How to Paint Rust Effect

The rust effect is an interesting painting technique that I will teach you today. Painting rust is a beginner skill, not requiring any special paints, brushes or mastery.

To paint the rust effect you will need:

Black Paint (Preferably matte)

Brown Paint (i used Toffee, but watercolor brown works great too)

Orange Watercolor Paint

Rough Paintbrush (Preferably big)

Small Paintbrush (For details)

To make the rust painting effective, you will need a dark background. If your surface already has a dark background you can skip this step. Otherwise, just paint the surface black. You want complete coverage, so if your paint is thin you will need to do 2 coats

Wait till the black coat has dried completely, then paint the brown on. It doesn't matter if you have some streaks, it only makes the rust more effective if some black shows through.

For this step, you need a very dry brush. Use your larger brush for this part, and literally dip your finger in water and touch it on your brush. Next, try and collect some orange pigment on your brush, if none comes off, dip your finger in water and touch it on your brush again. Repeat until you get orange pigment, but make sure you don't over do the water, otherwise you will ruin it. Now, brush on the orange pigment. You should get little particles of orange covering the surface. Make sure the whole car is covered in orange particles.

Now, get some silver on your brush and paint it on some edges to make it look scratched. If you're stuck on this step, ask yourself this question, "if i were old and run down, where would i get scratched?"

Finally, spray your car with some Crystal Kote (or any other clear varnish) to prevent the orange rust particles from coming off.

Now you're finished! The rust effect is a fun way to paint, and can be quite effective if done right. If you have any questions about what paints I used, of how I did a step, feel free to ask me in the comments and i will try and get back to you as soon as i can.