Tutorial — Add-On Armor Panels Vehicle Conversion

The Old-School Vehicle Conversion Technique That Still Works

A Better Way to Add Custom Armor Panels

A tape template, a vector file, and a sheet of plasticard are still enough to build custom-fit armor for tanks, skimmers, walkers, and anything else that needs to look repaired, looted, militarized, or thoroughly corrupted.

Armageddon is burning again, and this time GW gave the arsonists better armor. Look closely at the Intercessors in the new Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon launch box and you'll notice their plating isn't uniform — it's a deliberate mix of fresh Mk X pieces and older, scavenged components, built to sell the idea of a strike force that's been grinding through a long, ugly campaign. GW walks through the whole box here if you want the full rundown — but the short version is that "mismatched armor" isn't a weathering trick anymore, it's the headline aesthetic of an entire edition.

The Orks are in on it too. The new Trukk kit leans hard into kitbash energy — swap in a grabbin' klaw or a buzzsaw, a spiked ram or a dozer blade, and no two builds look the same by design. If you've been putting off learning how to scratch your own armor plating, this is the week the hobby is actively begging you to try. A few ways to put a scratched panel to work on a Trukk before you've even opened this tutorial:

• Three-plate patchwork on the side hull, each panel a slightly different shade, like it got welded together from parts of three different wrecks
• Checkers on the ram or dozer blade — the oldest "get out of the way" marking there is, and it reads as pure ork
• A riveted patch over the wheel arch in a color one shade off the rest of the hull, like a Mek fixed it in a hurry
• A stenciled kill-count panel positioned to be the first thing an enemy sees coming — the whole point is the flinch, not the math. The Greenskin decal sheet compliments the job nicely.

Before every upgrade came on a downloadable file, hobbyists made armor with sheet styrene, masking tape, a knife, and an alarming amount of conviction. This is that technique — cleaned up, re-illustrated, and rebuilt for 2026.

The Nine-Step Process

1. Tools and Materials

What you'll need? Nothing exotic. If you've built a terrain piece before, you probably already own most of this. Gather it all before you start so you're not mid-project hunting for a ruler.

Materials checklist:

• Thin sheet styrene / plasticard
• Low-tack masking tape
• Hobby knife with a fresh blade
• Metal ruler
• Cutting mat
• Temporary or repositionable adhesive
• Solvent cement
• Pencil or fine marker
• Printer paper
• Optional: sanding sticks and clamps

Fresh blades, a flat surface, and a ruler will save you more grief than any of the fancier tools on this list.

2. Capture the Surface, Then Design the Shape

Press two or three overlapping strips of masking tape over the section of hull you want to armor, and burnish them down into the contours by hand until the tape reads the shape of the surface underneath. Then, while the tape is still on the model, sketch your panel design directly onto it — this is where you decide how far the plate reaches, where it dips and points, and whether it wraps around a rivet line or a vent you want to keep visible.

Don't rush this part. Whatever line you draw here is the line you're committed to once you start cutting.

3. Trace, Trim, and Lift the Template

Cut carefully along your drawn line with a fresh blade, working slowly through the tape layers. Once the outline is fully cut, peel the whole shape off the model in one piece — that's your template.

Tip: Fresh blade, take your time. Clean cuts now mean cleaner panels later — this is not a step to power through.

4. Digitize the Template

Flatten your template on a plain white sheet and scan or photograph it dead-on at 100%. Whatever method you use, include a scale reference in the shot — a 50mm line is plenty — so you can size the design accurately once it's digital.

If you don't own a scanner, a phone camera works fine as long as the template is flat, well-lit, and shot straight-on with the scale visible.

5. Clean and Design the Panel in Vector Software

Import the scan and trace over it in your vector program of choice. Lock the scan on its own layer so it stays put as reference, then build a clean outline on top of it — smooth the wobbles out of your hand-cut edges, balance the symmetry if the design calls for it, and add whatever detailing you want baked into the shape itself: vents, rivets, notches, or the sort of points that make sensible engineers shake their head.

Before you move on, check:

• Outline is closed and clean
• Symmetry is balanced, if applicable
• Scale reference is still accurate

Already Cutting Your Own Masks?

The same vector workflow works with Fallout Hobbies SVG stencil bundles. Scale the file, cut your mask, and add the markings after the panel is installed.

Industrial Digital Stencil Bundle Military Lettering Digital Bundle Chaotic Digital Stencil Bundle

6. Print and Mount the Design

Print your cleaned vector file at 100% scale — print a small test square with a known measurement first to confirm your printer isn't resizing the page. Once you've confirmed scale, mount the print to sheet styrene or plasticard using a repositionable adhesive.

Any low-tack option works here — repositionable spray adhesive, a low-tack adhesive sheet, or thin double-sided tape. You just need it to hold still through cutting and come off clean after.

7. Cut Out the Panel

Score along the straight runs with a metal ruler, and take the curves and detail work slow, following the line rather than trying to power through it in one pass. Once every cut is complete, lift the panel free from the sheet.

Tip: Keep the blade near vertical and let the ruler do the work on straight edges. If you end up with small nubs on the cut edge, a light pass of sandpaper cleans them right up.

Make It Looted

Now's the moment to think about how the new plate gets marked. Checkers, caution stripes, glyphs, kill marks, and aggressive edge trim are what sell a panel as salvaged rather than freshly cast.

Checkers Stencil Checker Decals Caution Stripes Greenskin Decals Jagged Teeth Edge Trim Square Teeth Edge Trim Triangle Teeth Edge Trim Jagged Flames Edge Trim

Shop Armageddon Orks

8. Form and Attach the Panel

If your surface has any curve to it, gently form the styrene to match before gluing — warm plasticard bends more willingly than you'd think, and thinner sheet takes a curve far more easily than thick. Once you're happy with the fit, attach it with solvent cement.

A quick safety note here: solvent cement like Tamiya Extra Thin gives off real vapor, and it's meant to be brushed on, not aerosolized. Work with good ventilation, and don't try to turn it into a spray — that's a bad trade for a slightly faster glue job.

9. Remove the Paper and Finish

Once the bond has fully cured, soak the paper backing off with water or a damp cloth and clean up any adhesive residue left behind. From here, the panel is just part of the model — prime it, paint it a shade off from the rest of the hull, weather it in, and it'll read like it was always there.

This Is Where That Panel Came From

The wave-shaped design used throughout this tutorial isn't a made-up example — it's the actual panel from this scratch-built Drukhari Raider conversion. The first four images show the bare styrene work. The last three show how it disappeared into the finished paint job.

Bare styrene to finished vehicle: the panel is structural at first, then becomes part of the scheme once paint, markings, and weathering tie it into the hull.

A Few Other Places We've Put This to Work

Chaos Marine Patrol Boat

A fully scratch-built hull with hand-cut chaos trim, made the same way: designed in Illustrator, printed, transferred to sheet styrene, and cut out by hand. Never a kit, never sold as one — this was always a from-scratch build.

Chaos Marine Jet

A converted Cobra Command "Stellar Stiletto" toy jet, with wings built using essentially this exact process: template measured, designed in Illustrator, printed, mounted to sheet plastic, cut, glued, sanded, and riveted.

Chaos Baneblade

A Nurgle-themed super-heavy conversion built on the Baneblade/Hellhammer chassis. The base kit is still current; there still isn't an official Chaos Baneblade kit, so this is a conversion now the same way it was then.

Where Else This Technique Works Right Now

The panel-and-template method isn't locked to one silhouette or one faction. A few places it fits this week's releases in particular:

• Ork Trukks — mismatched plate colors, checkers, hazard stripes, and jagged edge trim on the new swappable-parts kit
• Scratch-built Guard regiments — salvaged panels are a fast way to make a homebrew regiment read as field-worn instead of freshly painted out of the box; add military lettering once the repair is painted
• Legions Imperialis Titan carapace plating — the same process at epic scale, though you'll want thinner card and proportionally smaller stencil work to match
• Trench Crusade heavy armor — rust, salvage, and mismatched crew-painted panels are practically the house style over there, and their Carcass Front starter set drops July 29

Gear Up

New in the Store

Mariners Blight APC / Battle Tank 28mm Vehicle STL Set. One modular hull, two builds — an armored personnel carrier or a battle tank. We're not spoiling the upcoming build tutorial today. Consider this your heads-up.

Grab the Vehicle Set

Now go put armor where the kit designer never intended.

This article is a tools-and-technique piece. Questions on a specific step? Drop them in the comments — we read every one.