Dry Brushing Black Armor?

[xxoblivionxx33]

Is there anyway to dry brush black armour? and it still look black and not grey? 

[Bryan Blaire]

Try a couple of things... Get even more paint off your brush, but it is likely to still look grey (and gritty). Then use a layer or two of Nuln Oil over the armor to knock the grey back some and give your model more depth.

[xxoblivionxx33]

wouldn't using multiple layers of nuln oil cause it to grey? (as in the wash in the recesses)

[Lucien Eilam]

Dry brushing doesn't really work on smooth surfaces.

 

For gaming standard, I paint black armour by painting it dark grey and washing it with Nuln Oil multiple times, with maybe a few key edge highlights. Washes obviously accumulate in recesses, but they still leave a thin coat across the entire surface which will gradually tone the grey down to black.

 

You could try a glazing medium with black ink or something but that will be very glossy, and Nuln Oil works fine in my experience.

[Marshal Rohr]

Try beiges instead of grey's for your highlights. Its much softer.

The lighting is terrible because I didn't have a light box at the time, but you can see the difference between this and the picture below

Where this one looks like he had a lot of powdered donuts that day.

[Bryan Blaire]

wouldn't using multiple layers of nuln oil cause it to grey? (as in the wash in the recesses)

Sorry, I assumed you had already dry brushed the mini and were just trying to get it as dark as possible. Dry brushing will likely leave it a bit off regardless of what color you choose to do this with, but the Nuln Oil shouldn't necessarily make the color any more grey. You could always simply thin Abaddon Black with some flow improver or other matte acrylic medium until it is the consistency of a glaze, then go over the model, but black would be the darkest you can go.

 

I'm with Lucien, I start anything I want black with a dark grey (1:1 mix of Abaddon Black:Eshin Grey) and shade down into the recesses with black shade. That gives it a gradient already, and if I still want to highlight, I usually only do spot highlighting or one thin-as-possible line highlight.

[appiah4]

I find drybrushing black armor is a poor way of going about it; I'd suggest taking the extra time to do line highlighting. Start from an off black if you can (a very very dark black or a very very dark blue). Here's an amazint tutorial for painting black starting from an off-blue: http://z3r-river-eng.blogspot.com.tr/2012/09/dark-angel-chaplain-with-jump-pack-step.html

I do the same but with grays:

[Vettanker]

What I've taken to doing for black armor is using Vallejo's Dunkelgrau. It's technically a grey, and light enough to still be able to shade it, but still dark enough on its own that you'd call it black. I'm stuck at work ATM but will see about getting some pics up when I get home.