Well I took an extra piece from my armor. It was a spare but I had painted it any way. and I decided to test my differnt methods of battle damaging it.

I labeled them

1. is a melting with a soldering iron. It didn't quite work out like I'd hoped

2. is rust. brown paint on an old Tooth brush, then running your thumb over the bristles to get a spray. some of the outer sprays look okay but I went a little too heavy, and when I accidentally touched it it smudged

3. was done by using a lighter on the underside to soften the plastic with out burning the paint, I then used a metal tool to make the indent. I think thus will be good for bullet impacts.

and 4 is carbon scoring using a lighter on the painted side to sing the paint. also you can deform the plastic, so it might work too

All in all I think I'm going to skip the rust it's too hard to get it how I like it. I'll use the soldering iron for dings and nicks and the lighter for most of the work. maybe I could hot glue a bullet or two into the fake impacts as well.

I am thinking of using the iron on my shoulder
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1612177/

running it lightly along the faked seams to make real indents

What do you folks think?