FAQ: Painting White

[Brother Daeger Helsir]

Hey there ekkanus! I'm no master painter, but if you need to get white onto a black basecoat there's a "noob combo" for beginner painters like us that I recently discovered. It's actually rather simple- Paint over the basecoated area that you want to be white, with mithril silver. Then simply paint white over the mithril. The mithril paint is light enough for white to show properly on top of it, and strong enough that it will completely cover up the Chaos Black beneath. Thus allowing for a decent looking white without having to obtain the mind-bending skills of some of the master painters on this site.

[solid snake drive]

Hey there ekkanus! I'm no master painter, but if you need to get white onto a black basecoat there's a "noob combo" for beginner painters like us that I recently discovered. It's actually rather simple- Paint over the basecoated area that you want to be white, with mithril silver. Then simply paint white over the mithril. The mithril paint is light enough for white to show properly on top of it, and strong enough that it will completely cover up the Chaos Black beneath. Thus allowing for a decent looking white without having to obtain the mind-bending skills of some of the master painters on this site.

 

 

That seems interesting. do you mind putting up some pictures for us?

[asmodai_455]

Hey there ekkanus! I'm no master painter, but if you need to get white onto a black basecoat there's a "noob combo" for beginner painters like us that I recently discovered. It's actually rather simple- Paint over the basecoated area that you want to be white, with mithril silver. Then simply paint white over the mithril. The mithril paint is light enough for white to show properly on top of it, and strong enough that it will completely cover up the Chaos Black beneath. Thus allowing for a decent looking white without having to obtain the mind-bending skills of some of the master painters on this site.

 

 

That seems interesting. do you mind putting up some pictures for us?

 

Dont use mithril silver, use codex grey. Mettalics are a bugger to cover up. For best results use These bad boyz! drybrush the white straight on top of the black!!

[Berzerker Pezz]

I do an undercoat of shadow gray, since whites seem to look whiter over blue tinted colors

[LunchBox]

May I recommend...in the future of course...priming the mini in gray. You can wash on shdaes of black, and highlight other parts up to white. Just a thought.

[MithrilForge]

With a basecoat of black ...and the need for a white topcoat :)

go with a coat of the new Foundation paints! i've found Astronomicon Grey is the best for putting a white coat over the top of without a thousand coats of paint.

 

Mithril

 

p.s Lunchbox has ther right idea though,go and get some grey primer next time :tu:

[6ix]

What I do is use two thin layers of bleach bone then two think layers of white . Or however many it that you want.

 

Hope it works.

[Grey_Death]

I do the trim on my marines in white as well as some other details. I use a very simple Chaos Black - Codex Grey - Fortress Grey - Skull White progression that gets a rather nice looking white. White is a tough color to get down and smooth. Just keep at it and you'll get the hang of it. Lots of thin layers is what i've found works best for me.

 

Here is how it comes out for me.

[battle captain corpus]

Grey_Death Posted Today, 02:31 AM

I do the trim on my marines in white as well as some other details. I use a very simple Chaos Black - Codex Grey - Fortress Grey - Skull White progression that gets a rather nice looking white. White is a tough color to get down and smooth. Just keep at it and you'll get the hang of it. Lots of thin layers is what i've found works best for me.

 

Here is how it comes out for me.

@Grey_Death: Thats a really good white, going to try that in next couple of days, great "recipe"! Cheers! :jaw:

[Chronophague]

Just thought I'd chime in with a different recipe.

 

I use spacewolf grey basecoat. Then wash with thinned down shadowgrey. Reapply spacewolves grey. Then mix spacewolves grey with skull white. And finally some edging with skull white. Creates a very cold white.

 

Cheers

[LunchBox]

Just thought I'd chime in with a different recipe.

 

I use spacewolf grey basecoat. Then wash with thinned down shadowgrey. Reapply spacewolves grey. Then mix spacewolves grey with skull white. And finally some edging with skull white. Creates a very cold white.

 

Cheers

 

Bleh...what would you know about painting? :unsure:

[Grey_Death]

Yeah, it really depends on what sort of white you are going for. The colors you use to build up to it make all the difference in how it turns out.

[Grey_Death]

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o31/raynotisick/WhiteTutorial.jpg

[Appo]

GREETINGS!

 

I'm a newbie to the world of 40k and I'm throwing myself in at the deep end. I'm trying to paint my Marines white and I haven't got a clue where to start and I can't find anything to help me with this , I'm going for a Star Wars Clone Trooper Theme.

 

 

IF anyone can help with these that would be fantastic :devil:

 

Appo

[The Angelus Sanctus]

Depending how 'nit picky' you wish to be, one way to go about this would be to undercoat your minis white (instead of black) and take things from there. The downside about doing that (at least in my own mind) is that you'll be in a semi tight spot when it comes to trying to do some shading and what not to bring the armor out. If you do feel game, to tackle that, one would hope to have a steady hand and do alot of black lining into the recesses.

 

I would personally go with a black undercoat (vs white) and use alot of grey tones to bring the armor up to white (strongly recommended that you dont paint white straight over black). By using the grey mid-tones in between the black and and white you can get some nice black lining happening easily and effectively.

 

From there, everything else is easy pickings :)

 

And welcome to the B&C :D

[Brother Nihm]

Welcome to the BnC, :D

 

Searchy tells you to go:

here (picture at the top)

here

here

here

here

and here

[Julio]

Yeah seriously. The gw colors are horrible. They are way overpriced, they are horrendously gritty and dry in the bottle. I have found 118 ml bottles of acrylic paint at Dollarama. I went to my local gw store and compared the colors. THey are actually the same colors. Gw just gives them "cool" names. These paints are decent and for 1$, they are awesome. For the most visible colors though, like your base space marine color, use vajello.

 

peace out

[Starks333]

Yeah seriously. The gw colors are horrible. They are way overpriced, they are horrendously gritty and dry in the bottle. I have found 118 ml bottles of acrylic paint at Dollarama. I went to my local gw store and compared the colors. THey are actually the same colors. Gw just gives them "cool" names. These paints are decent and for 1$, they are awesome. For the most visible colors though, like your base space marine color, use vajello.

 

peace out

 

GW paints are top quality...they are not massively flawed..it is the painters who use them who are flawed...its like saying top quality brands of artists paints are overpriced...of course they are if you arent using them to their full extent!

 

vallejo white, P3 white, and many other whites are chalky when thinned, GWs white is the only one that is not

 

 

 

@BLARGAG!!!...historical painters have used oils for years on figures...its not about painting models fast, its about results...you can easily speed drying time of oils as well

 

@ unforgiven...prime white, solves any problems you have with painting on white...its easy to put dark on light, but light on dark takes time

 

 

 

Starks

[Roisin]

So I've decided to repaint my marines to white. The only problem is that their current color is black. :) Today I went to my local hobby store and bought the lightest color gray foundation paint ( Astronomicon Gray I believe), and a can of Skull White spray paint.

 

My question is will this work or should I attempt to strip the current paint off my minnies?

[hagg]

painting them light grey and then white will work, but i wont use the spray paint. i would paint them with thinned white and a few layers, because its the only way to get a clean paintjob.

 

-hagg

[Brother Nihm]

The Search-Fu is weak in this one my master..

 

> Painting White over a Chaos Black Coat

> highlighting white?

> How to do a solid layer of Skull White?, Help!

 

:)

[Alex.ö]

Right!

I´m playing around with the Black Templars colourscheme, and I´m pretty much stuck at this question... :)

I´ve primed the mini chaos black and I´ve used multiple coats of really thinned out skull white for the details, and now I´ve got to highlight them. I´ve concidered giving the white a light wash of some dark-ish colour to dull them down, and then use pure SW on top of that, but I don´t want to ruin the pure, untouched look of it (Not before I give it some weathering ;)).

 

How do YOU do when you highlight white? Do you even do it? Which colours do you use?

 

 

Yes, I did use Searchy(Does it even have that name, I mean, the Skull?) and I found nothing, but that could be becasue my search-fu is weak...

[ResidentAsylum]

I'm currently building/painting a BT army, and I went this route(mind you, this is my first serious painting attempt).

 

I start the highlights with a mix of codex grey/skull white at 2:1, then grey/white 1:1, the just skull white.

 

So far it looks good.

[Alex.ö]

Hmm... I see.

I´m sure to give it a try!

TY :)

[Dam13n]

Just to Check:

 

A - the rest of the model is painted

B - You've got pure white Shoulder Insets

 

If A and B are correct I would do the following:

- Mix Codex Grey 1:5 Water to make a wash, add a drop of 'Ardcoat to limit the surface tension

- Apply to the recesses and in any areas that would naturally fall into shade

- Apply a second wash into the recesses and areas of deepest shadow

- Take Fortress Grey 2:1 Water and use to smooth out the area where White becomes shadow

and to cover any mistakes

- Take Skull White 2:1 Water and finish smoothing out the graduation of shadow and cover any mistakes

- Protect with a thin coat of Matt Varnish, then add Transfers as necessary, finally cover any FULLY DRY

transfers with another thin coat of Matt Varnish

 

Another useful hint is make absolutely sure that you clean out your water after EACH and EVERY stage when

painting white, otherwise it'll look dirty, and use clean water when applying the transfers for the same reason.

 

Hope this is helpful, Laterz...