Painting black armor

[Verythrax Draconis]

Hey guys, I need some advice.

 

I know a lot of theoretical and second-hand experience in paiting miniatures, but it's the first time I'm paiting my minis myself.

 

I'm doing the Iron Hands scheme. I tried that Metallic Medium from Vallejo, but it doesnt work for me - black becomes "grafitti" - a nice color, but not Iron Hands nice.

 

I tried:

 

- black primer

- chaos black basecoat

- metallic medium drybrush (for highlight)

 

the highlight become a bit too much (started to turn the mini too "grey", cause I suck at drybrushing, I think), so I made a wash in badad black. The silver/grafitti look of the metallic medium on black looks very nice, defines the edges nicely and gives a bit of that chipped armor look, but I'm afraid that it could just look like a badly painted metal mini at the end :P

 

The effect is somewhat nice - the black looks metallic, but yet a bit too grey IMO.

 

So, what you guys suggest to make black looks nice in a mini?

 

- drybrush, lining or highlighting to define the details?

- which color use to drybrush, lining or highlighting (silver, grey, chainmail, what?)

- which color to paint the soft armor and armor cables?

 

Please keep in mind that I'm just starting, so a believe that drybrush could be easier, but I'm not sure ainymore.

 

Please give me some help, cause I about to give up on this and do Iron Fists instead: silver, gold, dip, done :mellow:

 

PS: could a white primer help to make the color look better even for black?

 

Thanks!

[Brother Nihm]

Searchy says:

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=193658

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=162119

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...=125518&hl=

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...=146232&hl=

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2009/02/pa...ack-legion.html

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=166574

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...p;#entry1681787

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...p;#entry1675052

 

:cuss

[Verythrax Draconis]

Thanks a lot Brother Nihm. Seems like a black armor that I could be satisfied with is beyond my skills right now. I'll give a go with the metallics and I'll come back to black when I have more exp. points under my belt :pinch:

[Brother_Kaelgrim]

I have a perfect solution for you Very :)

 

50/50 Chaos Black and Boltgun Metal mixture. Its dark, its reflective, throw a wash on there, maybe a very very light mithril silver drybrush on the brightest spots and you are good to go :)

 

Edit: Make sure to add a few drops of water when you mix it, and give it a good shake. (I eyeballed pouring from GW paint pots into their mixing pot, so it doesn't have to be precise)

[Brother Nihm]

Don't give up!

Try out Kaelgrim's advice (and maybe some of those from the threads above) on a test model. It doesn't even have to be clean of mold lines.

 

Alternatively, post a picture of the effect you are going for and the effect you have achieved so far and we will help. Getting decent blacks and metallics is easier than you think. :)

[Verythrax Draconis]

Thanks, guys!

 

I spent all night yesterday considering other options for black. Maybe I'll try a dark blue highlight, by drybrushing the edges. A friend of mine was painting with me, and seeing him painting the monotlith, doing this with green made it look great.

 

I'm not really sure if I'll insist in a metallic black, but I'll give Kaelgrim's suggestion a go as well. I have lots of marines in line to volunteer to "Smik" duty :P

 

In fact, that's really the effect I wanted http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...t&p=1446425 but I'm not really confident of my skills to pull that.

[Brother Nihm]

OMG is a good painter but I do believe that the black effect below isn't hard to accomplish, nevertheless I'd try PM'ing him for specifics. :D

 

What I do is mix Chaos Black and Codex Grey (1:1 ratio) and thin it with water. It ends up subtle like on the casing of this plasma cannon and soft-ribbed armour

 

Edit: found another example: these wheels

[Ookami_81]

If you are not a champion painter, do not use highlight of just a little on somme pretty clean sallients.

 

Your lines will be too thick, irregular, too pasty to make good effects.

 

I think you should concentrate on dry brushing. Train on things you don't plan to use, like black coated plastic discards. You've got plenty curves, sharp angles, round things to try your best drybrushing, and if you mess it, well, it goes, like the rest, to the trash.

 

Do a mix chaos black / boltgun metal 2/1, paint with it on blask basecoat (dilute !), and drybrush boltgun and voilà ! You've got good looking highlights.

 

The secret is to drybrush... really dry. Better to smash the brush on the part with near zero paint than lightly brushing it with a wet one.

 

And when you're like me and f***d up your drybrushin' being too wet, just paint in your mix black/bolt and do it again. :D

[Brother_Kaelgrim]

Here is an example of how I would do an Iron Hands marine. ( had a spare primed AOBR marine lying around)

All the black bitz are the above mentioned Chaos Boltgun mix, with Badab Black wash over nearly all the bitz. Silver is Mithril silver.

Let me know if thats the sort of thing you were wantin

[Verythrax Draconis]

Thanks for going all this trouble for me, Brother_Kaelgrim -_-

 

It's not the effect I was looking for initially, but it's way, way better than the effect I got using chaos black + metallic medium! Your black looks more natural. Did you applied some drybush after the wash? The reflexes on the black look nice.

 

I think I'll try this way, with boltgun hightlights like Ookami said.

 

PS: looking at you picture, I see some brownish tones on the elbow and the right leg, but by your description it must be a camera's fault - but makes me wonder: could some kind of brown wash localized in some areas give an effect of initial rust?

[Brother_Kaelgrim]

I would imagine so. Actually, the brown bits were probably a bit of overzealous application of Devlan mud. The Purity seals and ammo pouch are commando khaki with a devlan mud wash. The black itself is that 50/50 chaos black and boltgun metal mix, with a badab black wash over it to dull it down, while still retaining a bit of highlight. Other than a flat brush on of the colors themselves and then a quick wash, I didn't do any drybrushing or highlighting at all. Painting with metallic colors really helps in terms of time while still retaining a nice highlight.

 

This model took me maybe 15 minutes to paint? Actually I'm rather happy with how that test model turned out, I may have to do some Iron Hands in the future -_-

 

 

OH! Almost forgot. I did apply some very very light mithril silver drybrushing to the soft bits in between the leg plates on the back and on the hands/forearm area. This was before the badab black.

[Ookami_81]

I would imagine so. Actually, the brown bits were probably a bit of overzealous application of Devlan mud. The Purity seals and ammo pouch are commando khaki with a devlan mud wash. The black itself is that 50/50 chaos black and boltgun metal mix, with a badab black wash over it to dull it down, while still retaining a bit of highlight. Other than a flat brush on of the colors themselves and then a quick wash, I didn't do any drybrushing or highlighting at all. Painting with metallic colors really helps in terms of time while still retaining a nice highlight.

 

This model took me maybe 15 minutes to paint? Actually I'm rather happy with how that test model turned out, I may have to do some Iron Hands in the future :P

 

 

OH! Almost forgot. I did apply some very very light mithril silver drybrushing to the soft bits in between the leg plates on the back and on the hands/forearm area. This was before the badab black.

 

15 minutes ? Wow, good job painting so fast ! I tend to spend around one hour and a half on such a model !

 

I'll try your 50/50, my 75/25 without badab black is a tad shinier, and I want to see with my own eyes the difference. On the pics you sent I like the "dullness" of the paint, it seems more military, if you see what I mean; even if the Emperor Finests are not really into camo things. :mellow:

 

With a little very-dry brushing, you gain the advantage of having a slightly more "worned out" armour, with "no-paint on metal" parts. Very good effect on hands and arms, not saying boltgun or other weapons. I don't know what the initial colour of ceramite is, but I like the idea it looks like steel. :P

[Brother_Kaelgrim]

Ceramite is the same color that Grey Knights are shown as, as the fluff says they do not paint their armor.

 

Ya I typically paint using the Viva Metallica style, so I've gotten quick at churning out metallic marines. I was very surprised at how one coat of Badab Black dulled the Chaos Boltgun mix without making it lose its metallic highlights.

[faol]

I know that there are 2 How to Paint Iron Hands tutorials in the Libarium

 

Iron Hands MK I

Iron Hands MK II

 

I hope that these two will help out as well good luck

[Lion in the Stars]

I tend towards an 'Anime' black (very dark, but only the lines are pure black - shadows are darker gray): Vallejo Model Color German Gray with a Badab Black wash, soft drybrush with German gray, and a top highlight of Reaper MSP Rainy Gray

 

Metallic medium is intended to be used as a mixer, not as a pure color by itself. If you want a metallic black that's intensely dark, I suggest Vallejo Model Air Black Metallic, then a P3 armor wash and a badab black wash with hours between them for drying. Drybrushing isn't needed at that point, but you can add a drybrush of Black Metallic or even Reaper Shadowed Steel.

[Verythrax Draconis]

Tried my hand at Brother_Kaelgrim's idea today. Looked great, and I'll go with that ^_^

 

My main problem now is how to highlight it adequatedly. In some parts, it's quite easy, like the collar, the bell-bottom of the legs and the "skirt" on the marine's behind. But the head and the knees are a problem. I can't do it without turn it all silvery (I'm using boltgun metal). I'm trying to highlight by drybrushing.

 

I don't have any brown with me. Do you guys think that dilluting some tin bitz I can make a satisfatory brownish wash?

 

I'll continue tomorrow, cause work on black without natural light is a pain.

[Brother_Kaelgrim]

I found a nice lamp for like 20 bucks that had a very powerful white light bulb that gives me clarity of color. I also have a softer yellow lamp I use when I want to contrast or see how it looks in other methods.

 

With highlighting and metallics, I typically skip that step. Metallics tend to self highlight, catching the light as you move the model. However, if you want to do edge highlights, a very very very light silver or boltgun metal should suffice. I'm working on a series of AOBR marines done Viva Metallica style and I'll try some different methods to see if I can achieve what you are looking for. I'll try and post some pictures up for you ^_^

[Brother Valerius]

Brother Kaelgrim, where do you get your shoulder pads (the one with the tactical arrow)? I have been freehanding my squad/chapter markings, but it comes out a bit irregular, so I'm thinking of buying sculpted shoulder pads in the future.

[Brother_Kaelgrim]

AOBR Set. Its one of the marines from that that I have just primed and laying around for when I want to experiment.

 

One think you could try is to make an arrow out of say green stuff, put it on the shoulder pad, paint the pad white basecoat and then paint the black or w/e around the arrow. The sculpted pads are nice though, which is why my Grey Hunter counts as are sticking with the sculpted pads from the Black Templar upgrade sprue.

[Verythrax Draconis]

Tried the "painterly style" shown in the second tutorial, but it didn't worked - the metallics were REALLY nice, even considering that I went directly from Tin Bitz to chainmail (I don't have dwarf bronze here). But I couldn't make the highlights to work. The good thing is that I believe I know what I have done wrong, so I'll try again soon.

 

In the meantime, I'm painting some Iron Fists, until I have a whole squad of them to use in the Macragge set :P they turned out quite well. I bought a 0.1 nankin pen and golden ink to try to freehand the chapter logo... wish me luck!

[Skoby]

My method for black armour is extremely similar to the guide for death company in the latest white dwarf. I do selective edge highlighting with 50:50 codex grey and chaos black, then neat codex grey and finally a few touches with a "dirty" astrominican grey (basically I usually just add a touch of codex grey to darken it up slightly, 50:50 codex grey and skull white would probably do the trick) I don't bother with all edges, just the ones that would catch the light, and any parts where I feel I need the contrast. To do the actual highlighting I cheat slightly by using the edge of the brush and running it gently over the edge, this will give you a thin line, for the subtler edges I paint a freehand line on the edge and usually touch it up at the end with chaos black. If you fancy some pics to go with the description check page 25 of the latest WD, I was quite suprised to find almost exactly my own method in WD (they use fortress grey for the last step).

 

You won't win painting competitions with this method, but it really doesn't take long once you get the hang of it and know where the highlights go and it will give you decent results even if you're not a very skilled painter (I know I'm not :lol:)

[Brother Nihm]

Good luck!

 

And we demand pictures.

[CainTheHunter]

I'm going to test these techniques promptly on my GD Wolf Priest model ;).

[Ookami_81]

Question for everybody: I stick with light dry brushing for highlights, because I'm totally unable to do proper highlighting with the tip of a fine brush. How do you paint constant-width-regular lines for your highlights ? How much paint on the brush, how thick the paint is, etc etc. Recently I tried and failed to highlight blood red with blazing orange: either it's dirty, irregular, too thick, or it's simply invisible. ;)

 

Can you give me advices ?

[winterdyne]

The short answer is you don't. You either work with a thin, pretty transparent colour and build it up gradually to where you want it, or you can highlight thick, then retouch with your base colour or an intermediate to neaten it up.

 

Here's an example - pretty old, will try and remember get an updated example next time I'm working on line highlights:

 

Big thick highlight - snot green over DA green, not too worried about neatness:

http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/images/da_marine_step3.jpg

 

Thin DA green / snot green mix over the top of that and over the base colour to neaten it and blend it in:

http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/images/da_marine_step4.jpg

 

Don't overload your brush - I wipe off excess on the back of my thumb before touching the brush to the miniature - you don't want runny, blobby paint on there, just a smooth application.

 

Another trick that I do is to shade down where possible - it's easier to aim for a large, soft area (shadows are soft, highlights are generally 'hard'). I do this on shoulder pauldron trims by applying thin glazes of wash in the middle of the area. This is what I did on the gloves and shoulder trims on this sicarius:

http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/images/commissions/ultramarines1/sicarius/banner_front.jpg

 

Hope this helps. :)