How do you make a nice-looking spaceship part texture?

[shimmy00]

This is something I've wondered about, as I've been trying for some time to create my own parts using Blender and GIMP. This is not so much a technical question as it is an artsey one: what is the technique one uses to make nice-looking spaceship metal, where it has a base very slightly (but very "neatly") mottled/scuffed appearance together with various grooves and the like drawn into it, and the occasional spatter or scratch? I particularly like the artwork seen in @Nertea's mods and was wondering how/what techniques or tips there are for doing this besides just "more practice" in drawing - after all, if there's stuff others have done or know about doing this in terms of technique I'd like to know it so as to not have to "reinvent the wheel", so to speak.

In particular, I want to know how to make the "base" of a texture like shown below, which is from @Nertea's "ReStock" mods (hope this is "fair use"). Note the scratchy, mottly high-detail stuff.

[Randazzo]

Looks hand painted, probably done with layers. GIMP or Paint.net are some decent free paint programs you can use to achieve this sort of look.

Basically lay down a background layer with the color you want. Then add a few transparent layers on top and start experimenting with different brush shapes and transparencies in various layers to get the look you want.

[Randazzo]

5 hours ago, shimmy00 said:

This is something I've wondered about, as I've been trying for some time to create my own parts using Blender and GIMP. This is not so much a technical question as it is an artsey one: what is the technique one uses to make nice-looking spaceship metal, where it has a base very slightly (but very "neatly") mottled/scuffed appearance together with various grooves and the like drawn into it, and the occasional spatter or scratch? I particularly like the artwork seen in @Nertea's mods and was wondering how/what techniques or tips there are for doing this besides just "more practice" in drawing - after all, if there's stuff others have done or know about doing this in terms of technique I'd like to know it so as to not have to "reinvent the wheel", so to speak.

In particular, I want to know how to make the "base" of a texture like shown below, which is from @Nertea's "ReStock" mods (hope this is "fair use"). Note the scratchy, mottly high-detail stuff.

Ok so my first response wasn't particularly helpful. So here's a quick and sloppy video to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. This was done in three minutes with blur effects. Spend more time, get prettier/nicer/uglier results. It's done in paint.net but GIMP has similar features.

So paint.net is much simpler to use, but doesn't have a lot of the tools that GIMP does. One tool in particular I used to love in GIMP was the smudge tool. It's great for making painted edges look worn out or scuffed. I used it a lot on edges to make things seem overused.

Ugly texture there, looks ok on the model (or so I think anyway)

Final Disclaimer: I have no actual idea what method @Nertea uses, this is just one simple way.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Randazzo