Fifty shades of...black?

[Demus Ragnok]

I need two very different black schemes. 

 

One needs to appear as armor that is polished to a brilliant shine. Picture an army whose battle gear is better kept that the parade gear of most chapters. 

 

The other should be a muted black, simple practical plan ole black. 

 

I checked the GW site and they have blue black and sheer black recipes. Does anyone have experience with those recipes and would either of them fit what I'm looking for. 

 

I'm not an experienced painter and I am rather a bit color blind so any help, opinions, and suggestions would be much appreciated. 

[Durus]

I'm not sure what tutorial you are referring to (I thought they removed all hobby content from their page), but imo a black highlighted with blue and very sharp white highlights does have that shined and polished look. It's kind of reminiscent of that old-school comic book look. A black highlighted with browns, greys or even a cream color will look softer/duller if you will.

Though the key to both of those things is painting cleanly and not overdoing the highlights, because otherwise the black will just look blue, grey or whatever color you use to highlight.

 

Have you considered using gloss varnish on the armor parts that you want polished? Might sounds like overkill, but if you really just put it on the black armored parts it might look good. I've seen some Fantasy miniatures with their armor painted black and with gloss varnish like that. Looked very good. You need the contrast to matte parts though, otherwise the effect doesn't work that well. So all details, aquilas, tubes, soft armor and the like should probably stay matte.

[Captain Semper]

I think Durus has some valid points. A technique I use is to mix black with turqoise for the first highlight and then add a bit of grey for the final edge highlight. If does give the impression of blue black very convincingly. I first read about it in an old White Dwarf funnily enough... :D

 

I'm also a big fan of the technique employed by FW to paint the Gorgon Termies  - and Iron hands in general, i.e. adding a green or/and purple shade in it in a way as to suggest reflection. Come to think of it though most people I come accross don't really like it - for Iron Hands at least... ;)

[Phantomzero17]

In my experience (Reaper paints) black primer once it dries and has been on the model for a while is pretty dull compared to using something like Pure Black which looks... well black.
 

Main reason I picked up a bottle of pure black because I wanted black hair on a few models that didn't look lazy after two days.

[Firepower]

If you want to see true Master Class black, look at madmatt's old Templar blog.  A whooooole lot of work involved though, and you need a proper eye and understanding of the color wheel to make it work.  It's a pretty awesome combination of both 'dull' and 'shiny' black.

 

But for general purposes, you will get a 'plain' dull black simply by using grey scale highlights and a matte varnish.  My Templars are as such, linked in my sig.

[Chaeron]

 

But for general purposes, you will get a 'plain' dull black simply by using grey scale highlights and a matte varnish.  My Templars are as such, linked in my sig.

 

Does look good - I like it!

[sockwithaticket]

This may be worth a look, there's a recipe for the 'shiny' black of the boots and overcoat towards the bottom of the page and a recipe for the muted black featured on the uniform above that.
http://monkeyman7x.com/2014/04/

[lhg033]

the veteran sergeant in these guys was done with the sheer black for armour and muted black for the robes if you can see the difference.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/261000-5-man-angels-of-vengence-wip/?p=3192454

 

I think I also did more precise work on the armour and drybrushing on the cloth to give more texture difference to the different materials. in person it is easier to see the difference between the two though granted my highlighting is a bit thick.

 

previously I've also tried adding blues/greens to the black base colour of fabric parts on a model then shading and highlighting from this base and it works quite well to give a more natural looking material vs a 'man made' look

[Subtle Discord]

Ah Black, a subject I can relate to. Have you considered what might seem too obvious, Gloss and Matt or Satin varnish? Find a Black method you like, keep it clean with minimal weathering and top with Gloss varnish for the clean well-maintained armour; increase the weathering and top with Stain or Matt varnish to emphasize the worn quality of the armour.

 

Edit: The temperature of the Black can easily be altered with just the highlight method. I use a Blue-Black highlight scheme that could easily be shifted to any colour. I've always preferred to let the Black areas be Black and have the ambient light create natural variations. Other methods can produce wonderful results, but they always seem to be significantly more labour intensive. I prefer a more straight forward technique to save my sanity.

[Jacinda]

 

I'm not an experienced painter and I am rather a bit color blind so any help, opinions, and suggestions would be much appreciated. 

I understand.  Being a passable painter with muted red receptors (aka colorblind) myself I know what you are going through.

 

My Sisters of Battle are painted in the Order of Our Martyred Lady scheme.  I use the original with black armor and red robes.  The corset portion is also black but I needed to make it different from the hard armor pieces.

 

What I did was use Abaddon Black for the armor and "almost black" for the corset.  You can mix codex grey and black or use Vellajo German Grey.  After painting, I sprayed them with Purity Seal and then went back over the hard armor pieces with 'Ard Coat which is a gloss finish.  It is two types of black on the same model and looks very nice in my humble opinion.

[Demus Ragnok]

Many thanks all. I shall consider all  the information and do some shopping. Some test models are in order. 

[Subtle Discord]

Many thanks all. I shall consider all  the information and do some shopping. Some test models are in order. 

 

Excellent! Well said. When in doubt, test before you commit. Always a good rule of thumb.

[appiah4]

Adding a slight bit of metallic silver to your black will help you get the shiny black look, especially if you later wash it down with artist ink or give it a gloss varnish finish.

 

As for muted, go with a badab black wash over the black to dull the finish, and make sure to use sparse highlights and a matte varnish.

[AJB2K3]

I don't know if its been mentioned but a tip I give is to use dark Blue as a highlight for black.
I discovered this from looking looking at cars!
In some conditions the black paint jobs gave off a blue tint!

[carpediem]

I have seen glossy black paint on sale in model shops, but only the sort that sell model planes and cars; it might not work on whatever plastic GW is using. The internets suggest a price of about US$3.50 for a 23ml jar. 

[Bryan Blaire]

Demus Ragnok, not sure if you've already made your mind up, but I was doing some testing on highlighting black a year or so ago, and posted up my experiments in this post here with different highlight colors on black.

 

One thing to think about with shiny black: it's going to give a dim but somewhat clear reflection of the light in the area, so if you have a bright blue sky, you are going to get bluish highlights, a more grey, shadowed sky, and you are going to get a more muted grey reflection. Fighting on foreign worlds with different sky colors might give equally strange reflections in the glossy black. So, it's up to you, if you have a story in mind with a world with a red, yellow, green or otherwise sky, you might consider dulled, but sharp, color edge highlights. If not, I would do a bright grey or sharp darker blue edge with stark white point highlights and cover it all in the gloss varnish, as others have suggested.

 

For the matte black, I would use the colors Skavenblight Dinge and Stormvermin Fur to give a muted grey with a hint of brown and keep the gloss far away from it, or go back over any areas where there is slippage with a matte varnish.

[Demus Ragnok]

Bryan very helpful seeing the examples. 

 

I have two test models on my table. I discovered I have both GW Abaddon Black and Vellajo Chaos black. The Chaos Black seems to have a much more glossy finish. I haven't been brave enough to try highlights yet. 

 

Again many thanks for all the help. 

[Forté]

Vallejo Model Colour has a few different blacks on offer. Problem is, nothing really is pure black. It varies depanding on the material and finish.

 

For example, a high gloss piece of armour may be more of a blue/ black so you could start with an almost black blue, shade with black wash and highlight up to almost white.

 

Another example would be a cloth cloak. More of a brown/black. And wouldn't reflect light as much so you stop highlighting much earlier.

 

Well worth a read:

http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.de/2014/05/tutorial-painting-colour-black.html?m=1

[Subtle Discord]

Shake the ever living crap out of the Vallejo (might even need to open and stir settled pigment with a tool) to get rid of the semi-gloss finish it's getting. Vallejo should dry to a nice flat finish, but the semi-gloss finish is common in paint that has been sitting for a while and settled. GW paint by contrast (from what I've seen) will dry with a more satin finish that is a bit flat. Personally I prefer Vallejo for the price-to-product ratio (more for less), the dropper bottle, broad selection (Game, Model, and Air lines), and the performance of the paint.