FAQ: Painting Black

[averykess]

I need a good tutorial for painting black armor. I'd like a subtle effect that still picks out all the detail. I do not like the black with highlights of codex gray as it looks like a negative cartoon.

 

NMM black would be awesome. :woot: I am hoping to use a technique similar to the NNM Marneus Calgar that I have seen around.

 

Thanks!

[Morte]

The old GW UK site had a really good set of tutorials for a few different ways to paint black armor. If edge highlighting isn't your thing, there were a few other techniques there that you might find helpful. Unfortunately I can't find that old article anymore since the website changed, but you should try googling for it anyway.

 

Alternatively you could try working up a blend from Shadow grey>Space wolf grey if you don't like the wireframe look. Because the grey is more bluish in color your armor ends up looking more like cold metal, especially after you apply gloss varnish.

[Snozz]

Lol at the BIG iron hands tutorial. It has some very good ways to paint black.

[Starks333]

if you are asking for a black tutorial i can guarantee you most likely couldnt do NMM or NMM chrome like brokenblades marneus...not only does it require some studying, it requires technique of blending

 

now, that being said, add a brighter colour to highlight black(anything, not just white, or beige, but anything) and dont use pure black, use black mixed with a colour, red, blue, brown, whatever

 

and this allows you to shade black, and highlight black, and have it still look black

 

DO NOT EDGE HIGHLIGHT BLACK EXCEPT IN HIGHLIGHTS(areas that would receive light), theres a reason edge highlighting every edge creates a garish effect or makes the black look grey

 

this is an example..naturally you wont be blending as smooth, but this is shadow grey+black(so a dark blue)...highlighted by adding deneb stone, there is no black on this cape...the colour was added for other reasons, you dont need to do that, but its more interesting

 

http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll18/Bi...nt=100_5361.jpg

http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll18/Bi...nt=P1012190.jpg

[metcalfedan]

I know it's a long shot, but have you tried painting a mix of codex grey and chaos black then UBER washing with badab black or black ink?

 

EDIT: slpleing = spelling

[FastEd]

My personal favorite painting black tutorial is the Brushthralls.com black tutorial. I go to their site for a bunch of painting tips. All of them are studio quality painters that frequently get commissioned for magazine work.

[c.gymer]

If you want a more interesting looking black for power armour (doesn't work with anything that isn't plate armour so no cloth etc) then try this.

 

Paint 2 or 3 very thin coats of GW Boltgun Metal (or equivalent, and that goes for any paints mentioned by the way) onto the armour that you want to be black. Next up use watered down (5:1 or there abouts) GW Chaos Black and paint a very thin layer of this across the plate. You don't want this to pool as this is not a wash, so make sure you unload some of the paint from your brush before you put brush to mini. Repeat this 5 or 6 times and you should start to notice that the metallic sheen is disappearing. Now make a glaze or two of a deep blue colour (GW Regal Blue is a good choice) with a water to paint ratio of around 8:1, then the same with a deep red colour. Then it's back to the black. Another 5 or 6 coats should do it. At this point I draw the brush from the edges of the plate to where the shadows would fall, as this helps create a natural highlight/shadow.

 

I find this makes a pretty cool looking black plate that looks way more natural, and has the benefit of looking old and beat up at the same time.

 

Infact, does anyone want to see pictures? I can whip up a couple of pics if people do?

[Black Wolf]

mate we always wana see pictures ^^

[ddsa86]

Try www.minivault.com. Also, the GW site has an article on painting templars.

 

JT

[ddsa86]

Also, there is a good blendng tutorial on youtube that shows how to blend black / codex grey (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjLMMJmNsYY).

 

For my table quality, I prime the minis in black. I add boltgun metal to all the soft armor and metal areas. I then highlight with watered down codex on all the edges followed by fortress grey (3 or 4 to 1 water / paint). Also, I prime the shoulder pads with a spray of white instead of black. This is easier to paint when you are doing an army of 1000 pts or better. Otherwise, you can use astronomican grey followed by very thin coats of watered down skull white (7 to 8 coats).

 

Again, www.minivalut.com has some examples along with some tutorials on how to apint templars.

 

JT

[averykess]

I am tempted to just paint the armor plates black, edge highlight the top edges and then gloss varnish the plates and let the actual sheen of the mini convey the metallic feel. :unsure:

[Bigger-than-Jesus]

If you want a more interesting looking black for power armour (doesn't work with anything that isn't plate armour so no cloth etc) then try this.

 

Paint 2 or 3 very thin coats of GW Boltgun Metal (or equivalent, and that goes for any paints mentioned by the way) onto the armour that you want to be black. Next up use watered down (5:1 or there abouts) GW Chaos Black and paint a very thin layer of this across the plate. You don't want this to pool as this is not a wash, so make sure you unload some of the paint from your brush before you put brush to mini. Repeat this 5 or 6 times and you should start to notice that the metallic sheen is disappearing. Now make a glaze or two of a deep blue colour (GW Regal Blue is a good choice) with a water to paint ratio of around 8:1, then the same with a deep red colour. Then it's back to the black. Another 5 or 6 coats should do it. At this point I draw the brush from the edges of the plate to where the shadows would fall, as this helps create a natural highlight/shadow.

 

I find this makes a pretty cool looking black plate that looks way more natural, and has the benefit of looking old and beat up at the same time.

 

Infact, does anyone want to see pictures? I can whip up a couple of pics if people do?

 

Please post pics? Sounds quite good and I do have some renegade militia to paint up all nice and stuffs(they're forgeworld, so yeah, I want a good finish on them)

[schuurthing]

I have tried basing the entire model black, then codex grey highlight, but I just have so much trouble painting black. I don't know how to make it look dynamic. Any ideas?

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc121/schuurthing/Blood%20Angels/DSC_0231.jpg

 

I know the highlighting is shotty, but I wasn't convinced I'd like the result so I wasn't exactly stressing it.

[Combat_Vet]

In my opinion black is the hardest color to use. What I do is mix shadow grey and black together. You want your first highlight to be almost black. Use this to go around all the edges. Then use codex grey as a very thin line on small portions of the edges. Your's isn't bad, I think you just make the highlight lines too long. Hope that makes sense.

 

Better days,

[schuurthing]

In my opinion black is the hardest color to use. What I do is mix shadow grey and black together. You want your first highlight to be almost black. Use this to go around all the edges. Then use codex grey as a very thin line on small portions of the edges. Your's isn't bad, I think you just make the highlight lines too long. Hope that makes sense.

 

Better days,

I just messed with them, drybrushed codex, 3 washes of black. We'll see how it turns out! Otherwise, I'll try yours. Thanks!

[Brother Mathias]

I like to use a really light dry brushing of boltgun along the edges. should provide a bit of pop. then little bits of a brighter silver at the odd corner (usually mithril) were I want to show a little damage/paint chipping

[Ryno]

The best way to get the black to really pop, I think, is to detail the rest of the model well, making the black almost a 'background' to the details. Things like the eyes, harness, Imperial symbols, laurels, inscriptions, etc will all add nice detail that will help keep the black areas from looking too flat.

[Arch«•»Angel]

first thing is to not have ur entire miniature black. add some other colours to the eyes, bolt pistol, chainsword, backpack strap, etc. secondly, if ur doing highlights, gradually build up to your brightest color. dont go straight to codex gray. slowly build it up. lastly, clean up ur highlights. make them sharper and cleaner.

 

or u dont have to really build up highlights. it just looks nicer. if ur gonna do straight gray, do it cleanly like in this picture. http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_Custom...ain_873x627.jpg

[IndyMal]

I've started re-doing my death company recently and i've found that by giving the lack armor a dry brush of 2 parts ultra marines blue 1 part chaos black is a good way to highlight and soften the black. i got the idea of using a darker blue for highlighting from a lot of old batman comics, and thought i'd try it out, the result were actually pleasantly surprising since the blue is fairly subtle.

[Andse]

Black is a difficult colour to highlight I think..

The best way, in my experience to highlight black is..

Keep it simple..

2 layers max for me..

 

Black

Highlighted with a mix of Codex Grey and Chaos Black

And then some Codex Grey

[Aerixis]

Black is an awesome colour if you can get it right!

 

My technique is:

 

Charadon Granite & Chaos Black 70/30 basecoat.

 

Chaos Black layered leaving the lighter mix in the recesses (yes IN the recesses! sounds rediculous!? read on...)

 

Chaos Black and Regal Blue 50/50 on the edge highlights.

 

Chaos Black, Codex Grey, Hawk Turquoiuse 4/2/3parts for higher edge highlights

 

Codex Grey Space Wolves Grey for final final Highlights (seriously, rediculously small highlights).

 

I'll get some of my pics up to show ya!

 

Hope this helps!

[Aerixis]

((Mods, I have just uploaded this thread in the wrong location, it's intended location was here! My sincere apologies!))

 

Hey guys, welcome to another one of my Painting Corners!

 

I'm going to show you how I paint and highlight black.

 

This is not neccessarily the way of painting black, this is just my method, it's worked pretty good so far!

 

Now, when we highlight a colour, say, blue, green, or...hell...even pink, we simply use either a lighter colour, or we add white.

 

Black, however, is not technically a colour. If we add white to it for highlights, it (obviously) goes grey, which looks cold, lifeless and devoid of depth.

 

So, how would you go about highlighting something which is totally devoid of colour itself?

 

This can be done through adding what I call a 'background' colour. Instead of painting and highlighting with a pallette built up from black, we will go for a cool, almost ethereal tone by throwing some blue and turquoise in the mix!

 

 

 

I am using the best model available to practice black on. You'll notice that the left shoulder pad is not being highlighted, this is because it is going to have some Imperial Fist colours on it. This isn'y my miniature, but I have been 'asked' to paint it....go figure ;-)

 

Lets get it on!

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/1.jpg

Start with a black undercoat. Some may first do a bascoat of Chaos Black and Hawk Turquoise 80/20, but you;d never notice a difference on mine.

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/2.jpg

The first highlight is almost invisible, but it is Chaos black and Hawk Turquoise 70/30 mix, literally just enough to put a tinge into the black.

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/3.jpg

You might see it a bit better here...

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/4.jpg

Now we build it up with Chaos Black and Hawk Turquoise 50/50, getting a bit lighter, but still not really noticeable.

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/5.jpg

Can you see how we are not lining every edge, but literally just 70% of the length of the edge. If we lined every edge with every highlight, it'd look to stark and the contrast would look horrible. Dont get me wrong, I've tried it and it looks cool, but it's not really good for highlighting what we want to be a black area.

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/6.jpg

Our almost final highlight is Hawk Turquoise and Chaos Black 70/30, with a bit of Astronomicon Grey mixed in. This is used to highlight the uppermost parts of the areas we have already highlighted.

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/7.jpg

It's looking good, but it's a little too blue for my liking, can you see how it starts to look predominantly turquoise-y at the edges?

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/8.jpg

Throw a heavy wash of Badab Black over the whole miniature. This helps blend in the lower highlights and tones down the highest. It also gives the black (which is only the Chaos Black primer remember) a nice matte sheen to it.

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/9.jpg

Looks a little more natural now.

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/10.jpg

Finally, we'll add an 'absoloute' highlight. This time just pure Astronomican Grey watered down and brushed over the highest points. JUST the highest points. Not too much for gods sake other wise you'll have to go over it with Chaos Black again.

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/11.jpg

See? a little goes a long way!

 

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h167/aerixis/painting%20black/12.jpg

And the highlights on the arm and shoulder pad show up nicely when the final layer is finished.

 

Hope you guys could follow this, if you have any questions about anything I havn't mentioned just drop a comment and I'll reply!

 

I'd love to hear peoples ideas about how they highlight black, remember this is only my way, not the way.

 

Lemme know what you think!

[Hellios]

Good Job :jaw: I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work :tu:

[Glaeken Templaris]

Very effective technique Aerixis. Might have to steal this when i finally pull my finger and finish painting my Black Templars

[WingsOfTheFalcon]

I've just found a quite nice way of highlighting black:

 

1: Undercoat mini black

2: Very carefully drybrush the areas/edges to highlight with grey

3: Go over those areas with another drybrush of white

4: The clever part, wash the whole model with asurmen blue, plates and all

5: I usually repeat the process here to give a richer tone to the plates and more of a blue sheen to the edge highlights.

6. Done!

 

It's quick and quite effective but also subtle so not sure it looks as good as yours from a distance.

 

:)