Toning down Iron Warrior Armour

[Grimdarkness]

I'm thinking of starting a small Iron Warrior army and was wondering how to dull the brightness of GW paint.

 

I'm thinking a ink wash might help or do i wash it with a watered down black wash then an ink wash.

 

Any ideas.

 

Thanks

 

Grim

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Here's what I did when I started on an IW army a few years back:

 

1) Base with Boltgun Metal over black. If you see any imperfections(mold lines, rough spots in the metal or plastic, etc), take care of them now, because they will be painfully obvious with successive washes. To ensure a smooth finish, because even as careful as I am with the metals I will still sometimes see faint brushstrokes, I thin the Boltgun down until it's almost a wash and do several fast, thin coats.

 

2) To really knock the shine off and not tint the metal with a different color, thin down some black paint, not ink or GW washes, and go over the Boltgun areas with a few coats of it. Personally, I use Golden Fluid Acrylics color Carbon Black for heavy washes like this as they thin really, really well and still hold their pigment strength, but Chaos Black will do fine. I have some experience with them, so my washes are pretty heavy, but if you fear going too dark, then thin the wash down and do a few more coats of it. Once you're satisfied with the darkened Boltgun, it's also a good time to hit the recesses with a slightly thicker wash to get those shadows in early.

 

3) At this stage, I like to come in and put a bit of color in the metal, and will thin down green, blue, or purple colors to a very thin wash and use them just to tint the metal in certain spots. It's easy to put it on too thick and make it look like green/blue/purple metal, so go easy. It adds some nice hints of color to the large monochromatic areas of the IW paint scheme. When I was doing my IWs originally, the GW washes weren't out, so I used inks or more Golden Fluid Acrylic colors, but the GW washes should do fine if you thin them enough, especially Asurmen Blue, Leviathan Purple, and Thraka Green.

 

4) Come back in with Boltgun to highlight, and then re-shade if necessary.

 

5) If you want to add a bit of weathering or rust, it can be difficult to do over silver and still have it look good. Similar to step 2, I make a very thin wash from a light brown color and start applying it higher than would want the weathering to be. For example, on the lower legs/greaves, I would start the wash just below the knees, even though the finished weathering might only come halfway up the shin, and the reason is that the silver paint behind it will make it very easy to see if you start too dark, and instead of looking like a nice faded weathering effect, it will look like a dark stripe of color. I use several thin coats on the lower areas, but sure to go back up to the top to keep that gradation smooth.

 

6) Once you start building up a noticeable amount of color, you can switch to a darker brown color and really pile on the years of dirt and grime. Sometimes I'll even come back in with a black wash near the lowers areas around the legs and feet to really darken it up.

[Seahawk]

I did a nice easy method with my chaos army, and though it was for fantasy the results were the same. The absolute easiest way to do it is by starting with a basecoat of boltgun metal, followed by a heavy wash of Badab Black. This already makes it a dark metal, but if you want it darker, additional washes of black or brown will make it as good as you want.

 

I do not suggest inks, as they'll make it shiny and do not shade the base color as well as the washes. There is no shine from the washes.

[Grimdarkness]

Cool thanks for the info.

[CainTheHunter]

Army Painter Dark tone Quickshade also tend to tone down all colors, including metallics.