FAQ: Painting Gold

[chaos lawn gnome]

Hi, I will soon be starting a black legion army and have a question on painting gold. I'm not sure if I should use metallics or NMM(never tried it before), What are your opinions on what type of gold to use for my army and what are some good ways of painting it? Any help is appreciated.

 

Thanks,

CLG

[rat of vengence]

In my opinion, NMM is a bit overdone. It looks fantastic on characters and display models (eg Boltman's stuff :) ) but for RAF I think it will be way too much work. I use metallics, starting black, some tin bitz, shining gold, washed lightly with chestnut ink, highlighted with mithril silver/shining gold. Works for me.

 

RoV

[Beornling 3.1415]

yeah, I don't use NNM either, in fact for my cold sundisk standard I used hobby store "gold" flake.

[Archangelus]

My recipe for gold is simple:

 

Chaos Black undercoat

Shining Gold

Drybrush with Burnished Gold

Wash with watered down Bestial Brown (I suppose that's the same as chestnut ink)

Light drybrush with Burnished Gold

[Brother Atheos]

To do my gold i do a base coat ofShining gold, washed with purple ink then basecoat again with shining gold leving the ink in the deepest gaps, then i do a broad highlight with burnished then i do a fine highlight with Burnished + mithril. I found that using purple ink was easier to cover than brown ink, and it adds a bit more colour to the overall effect.

[CRasterImage]

Chestnut Ink is the way to go.

 

Gold is a warm color that is also reflective. Whenever a reflective surface introduces a color tint (basicly anything that is not chrome) that tint becomes more powerful in the recessed areas of the metal. The reason is this: Recessed areas are reflecting light more than once. Light hits one surface, then another, then reaches your eye. If that reflective surface is tinted (gold introduces a warm amber-like hue) then the effect of the tint gets doubled, or more, depending on how many times the light had to bounce off the surface before reaching your eye.

 

Chestnut Ink does this. It is a dark, warm reddish-brown color and is great for adding shadows to the recessed areas of gold. (Via an ink wash)

 

The raised, protruding bits of a reflective surface are less saturated with color, than the recessed areas. Since they tint light from only one bounce. Which is why adding a bit of silver to shining gold, looks so good for doing highlights on protruding bits.

[HuronBH]

Tin Bitz

Bronze

Brown Ink Wash

Shining Gold

Burnished Gold

Burnished Gold+Mithril Silver Edge highlights.

DONE.

[Zgar]

A hint on the ink wash - you better make it very thinned down and apply more layers to get the colour tone you desire...

 

And edge highlight with mithril silver, as stated above.

[Dragoonman]

Psh.... inks are for people with patience. ;)

 

My RaF gold method looks good enough for me, and no inks. Just scorched brown + drybrush burnished gold. Nice dark, rich gold colour.

[feuer_faust]

For the rank-and-file black legion trooper, do a thick, smooth coat of SHining Gold.

 

If you have the time, maybe a little bit of chestnut ink along the lower half.

 

That's all really. Remember that no matter how fanyc your effects are, from far away (four feet or more), the gold will reflect on it's own and looks fine.

[CRasterImage]

Psh.... inks are for people with patience. :D

 

Well, actually layering, feathering and wetblending are techniques that take patience.

 

Ink washing is a fairly quick and sloppy technique.

 

Like dry-brushing, inking creates shading by taking advantage of the sculpt.

Which is quick compared to layering, feathering and wetblending, which require that you create shading by deliberate application of each shade.

[Brother Atheos]

Am i the only eskimo in the village that uses Purple ink?

[LupoLoopy]

Am i the only eskimo in the village that uses Purple ink?

 

No, I do too. Either very, very diluted or mixed in a 1:1 ratio with brown ink. The more purple you use, the greater the contrast achieved, hence more ping!

[Death Dealer 101]

Just interested what would be a good effective way to paint gold armour that isn't to fake and shiny but not bronze. Any suggestions

Thanks

[Yamez]

It bepends how you define bronze. This is they way I do it, but it can look quite dark.

[Dezzo]

i actually paint gold the reverse from the aforementioned link.

 

i prime flat black, paint polished gold and wash with semi-gloss black and drybrush with aluminum. if highlighting with drybrushed aluminum is too bright, you can drybrush with polished gold too.

[Death Dealer 101]

Thanks for the addvice

Yamez i like the colour it looks good but will proberbly highlight it a bit more to make it slightly lighter. As Ignatum Draco suggested did you ever do any experiments with the lighter highlight. I would imagine that this highlight would be just on the edges and only a really light coat to add some brightness.

 

Ignatum Draco "Dunno, it looks too dark... Use some mithril silver+burnished gold for a shinier highlight"

 

Any pictures Dezzo interested to what it would look like because sounds like it would be a good solid gold colour

 

Thanks

[Dezzo]

check out the jetpack chappy on the right. i used aluminum drybrush on his gold. the effect is very slight because i didn't want to overdo it.

I used polished gold highlights for the marshal.

both models are sealed with flat clear topcoat.

[Death Dealer 101]

That golds look really good Dezzo the jetpack chappy on the rights gold is what i was looking for i will try using the aluminum drybrush.

Thanks

[Dezzo]

wow. cool. thanks.

 

good luck with the paint job. not overdoing the aluminum drybrushing is haaaarrrrddd

 

and show us pics of your finished product!!!

 

cheers.

[Commander Bly]

Ive had a DIY chapter in mind for a while called the Knights of Terra and one of the color schemes I had in mind was gold armor with a black trim but I dont know how to paint gold armor.

 

So any help and maybe a pic or two would help me alot

 

 

PS: I did search the entire tutorial section.

[mario]

First a note: I mention highlighting and shading. And this works the same for any paint (metallic and not metallic) in this "tutorial". I don't highlight or shade my metallic different than my normal paints (I don't dry-brush the metal paint over black, I paint). So if you need any basic help for that then try this tutorial. If that's still not enough look through the B&C PCA FAQ for even more.

 

I generally use white primer so everything I write here could take a few more layers if you want to use a black primer; and it could be that you would not need the deepest shading if you leave the black primer for the deepest areas (sort of like passive black-lining).

 

As a base-coat for the gold I would take a gold that I like (in this case take one that you like as you are painting your miniatures) and mix it with water and this mix: One yellow yellow colour of your choice (should be one that plays nice with the gold) and some brown or purple. Try for yourself and see which one works best. It should take some saturation out of the yellow (read: look a bit brownish or beige). Now again for better readability:

 

1 part: gold

1 part: mix (yellow + brown|purple)

2 parts: water

 

Apply this until you get a nice even base-coat. It should not be as shiny as the gold alone and be a little bit darker. Now for highlights you can just add more gold to the mix and paint until you arrive at pure gold. At this point you could go on but I would move to shading and add the final clean-up and highlights after the shading is finished. This would make the metal look shinier so if you don't want that finish painting with the shading and not the highlights.

 

For the shading you can just take some brown or chestnut ink and mix it with a bit of purple ink (and thin it (at least 5:1 water:paint)) and then glaze/wash the areas that need shading carefully. Read the part about unloading your brush in the linked tutorial above. This should "show" you how much paint you should have on your brush when you are glazing/washing.

 

Now you are basically finished.

[Death Dealer 101]

I am also collecting my own DIY chapter the Emperor's Lions they also have gold coloured armour with dark red shoulder pads and white robes.

Mario if it is not to much trouble could you please show an example of your technique with some photo's. Or if you don't have pre taken examples maybe just say what colours you would recommend. Thankyou

[Brother Nihm]

Your Search-Fu is weak then Mr. Bly. :devil:

 

link

link

[Commander Bly]

Yes, yes it is :teehee: