As Neil Young said, rust never sleeps. If you want a way to makeyour haunt look even older, apply a rusty patiina to some of the objects for a creepy effect.

Some prop makers create intricate details on their props, but they still look new and shiny, even though they are covered with blood. Many people buy props pre-made, and if they are of the mass-made variety, they might not look as old as they should. How do you age them? If they are metal-looking props, throw a coat of rust on them!

How do you make them look rusty? 

There are several methods, but one of my favourites is outlined by Grim at GrimVisions.comin his excellent article Creating a Realistic Rust Patina where he explains about using a 2-part product, and his trials in perfecting the method. Learn from the mistakes of others and follow his words.

What if you don't want to purchase another product? If you have colours of craft paints that are rusty you can easily create your own rust. But first you need to do a little research to make sure it looks authentic.

Smashing Magazine has a great resource in their Texture Gallery: Metal, Rust and Industrial that you can study. These high-resolution images are normally used for textures when creating other images, but they provide a great reference point.

Also, search for rust images:

• Google image search for rust texture
  
• Bing image search for rust
• Yahoo image search for rust
• Also check out other image resources such as Stock.xchng and istockphoto.com
  

As you've been doing some research you'll see that many of the rusty images are bumpy, rough, uneven. How do you get that texture? One simple way is to add some sawdust to PVA (white glue) until it's thick, and gunk it on where you need it. If you need flakes of rust, paint several layers of PVA onto a sheet of parchment or wax paper, and when it dries, glue it onto your props. Then paint away!