Tips for painting black without edge highlighting?

[Wayniac]

Every time I try to paint something black (e.g. Black Legion) I run into a huge problem: Painting the black armor. I don't have a steady enough hand to do edge highlighting (I've tried, it goes on much more than the edges).

 

Any tips for this, or is black just out of my reach without being able to do edge highlights?  What I have been trying now is to prime black (of course), basecoat with Vallejo German Gray (a dark charcoal gray-black color), then drybrush with a lighter gray (whatever I have on hand, honestly, hues vary but it ranges from medium gray to light gray, but still gray and not white), but this makes it look like the Gray Legion, not the Black Legion.  I tried doing this highlighting to gray and then washing with Nuln Oil or equivalent (Lately I have been using thinned Vallejo Black Ink with a touch of Glaze Medium as I don't have a bottle of Future Floor Wax right now), but this then removes all the highlights I did and brings it back to just flat black, which isn't what I want either because it looks too lazy even for me.

 

Anyone have advice on painting black, specifically armor plates and the like (cloaks I can get to look good enough) to have it look natural but not "just paint it black and done" lazy?  I've some really good looking Black Legion models from our brothers here, but being a relatively basic level painter (I make extensive use of "all over" shading washes like Agrax Earthshade/AP Strong Tone Ink and drybrushing since I suck at doing details) something looking good seems well out of my reach.

[Major_Gilbear]

Instead of highlighting up, you can start with a lighter base colour and progressively glaze (a very thin wash that doesn't pool) down until you get some nice deep shadows.

 

I posted a good few suggestions for painting black here in case any of of help to you.

[Wayniac]

Instead of highlighting up, you can start with a lighter base colour and progressively glaze (a very thin wash that doesn't pool) down until you get some nice deep shadows.

 

I posted a good few suggestions for painting black here in case any of of help to you.

 

That looks quite helpful, I'll read it more thoroughly.  Thank you, Brother.

[Bryan Blaire]

There are a couple of things you can do:

 

When you edge highlight and the extra color gets on more than just the edges, go back and paint black over the areas you don't want highlighted to tighten up the edges.

 

Use a small bit of sponge to battle damage the edges of armor plates with silver metallic (gold, bronze and brass all just look funny).

 

Paint the model with a dark grey, then use glossy black shade to shade the recesses one time, wait for it to dry, and then go over the entire model with the same a second time. This should give you a much darker to black gradient into the recesses but also provide you a gloss black with highlighting effect. You could then enhance the gloss further by painting a gloss varnish on the armor plates, which will help give real light reflections to the surfaces, instead of you highlighting them yourself.

[Wayniac]

There are a couple of things you can do:

 

When you edge highlight and the extra color gets on more than just the edges, go back and paint black over the areas you don't want highlighted to tighten up the edges.

 

Use a small bit of sponge to battle damage the edges of armor plates with silver metallic (gold, bronze and brass all just look funny).

 

Paint the model with a dark grey, then use glossy black shade to shade the recesses one time, wait for it to dry, and then go over the entire model with the same a second time. This should give you a much darker to black gradient into the recesses but also provide you a gloss black with highlighting effect. You could then enhance the gloss further by painting a gloss varnish on the armor plates, which will help give real light reflections to the surfaces, instead of you highlighting them yourself.

 

I had tried the bottom approach (I think I just painted dark gray then used Nuln Oil Gloss all over, I didn't first paint it in the recesses) but to my eye it looked like there ended up not being any highlights anymore and while it was glossy black, it looked flat still.  It might have just been bad lighting, I might need to experiment with this technique again as that was my first thought as well:  Use gloss black to give natural reflective highlights instead of mimicking highlights with paint.

[Atia]

https://www.facebook.com/WarhammerTVteam/videos/242731326121853/

does that video work here?

may help you a bit just ignore the edge highlighting part, but try the shading, drybrush and chipping?

[Wayniac]

https://www.facebook.com/WarhammerTVteam/videos/242731326121853/

does that video work here?

may help you a bit just ignore the edge highlighting part, but try the shading, drybrush and chipping?

Might have to look at that, completely forgot to look at Warhammer TV!

[Major_Gilbear]

Paint the model with a dark grey, then use glossy black shade to shade the recesses one time, wait for it to dry, and then go over the entire model with the same a second time. This should give you a much darker to black gradient into the recesses but also provide you a gloss black with highlighting effect. You could then enhance the gloss further by painting a gloss varnish on the armor plates, which will help give real light reflections to the surfaces, instead of you highlighting them yourself.

 

I had tried the bottom approach (I think I just painted dark gray then used Nuln Oil Gloss all over, I didn't first paint it in the recesses) but to my eye it looked like there ended up not being any highlights anymore and while it was glossy black, it looked flat still.  It might have just been bad lighting, I might need to experiment with this technique again as that was my first thought as well:  Use gloss black to give natural reflective highlights instead of mimicking highlights with paint.

 

The downside to using gloss on areas that are not convex or upwards-facing is that you make the shadows glossy, and these then reflect more light than they should at that scale.

 

Essentially, gloss = highlights, and matte - shade/shadow. Therefore painting a fairly neutral gloss black over a neutral dark grey will not give you an especially highlighted look.

Unless the model is fairly plain, or the armour panels/surfaces are large/upturned/convex, you will not get a huge benefit from the gloss technique. That's why it looks good on assassins in skintight outfits, but not so good on a Space Marine.

 

Now, if you start with a fairly light bluey-grey, and glaze down with some successively darker greys, and then some blue-blacks, and finally glaze in with a blue-black ink mix, not only do you work in towards the recesses where the paint will naturally want to pool anyway, but you also avoid needing to be super-accurate or having to edge highlight (although a few spot highlights here and thre help the model look very bright and crisp). It also creates a more natural shading appearance than GW's "line highlight all around the edge of every plate" look, which whilst striking, does look odd and makes the models overbusy to my eye.

 

You will need a bit of patience to build up the glazes (it might take six or seven thin passes) but it is less effort overall than highlighting, and you actually have more control too.

[Bryan Blaire]

That's true, Major_Gilbear, an all over gloss will give a surface more high gloss wax on a vehicle look, where you see the ground reflected up close, etc. Personally, I would probably shade with a matte shade, and do the upper portion or non-recessed portions with a gloss. It will take a bit longer, but probably look better. You can even do the same with varnish as long as you are painting it on.

[Chaplain Raeven]

I tried Duncan's method from Warhammer TV. It works for me.

[Slips]

I'm not sure how relevant this might be but I did paint up an Iron Hand Marine trying to emulate FW's "Black beetle shell" Scheme using a Silver base, a bunch of colored washes followed by a heavy black washes and then a lazy silver dry brush to pick out details.

 

 

http://i1285.photobucket.com/albums/a598/stampeeder/2016-01-22%2000.33.04_zpsizpoenqf.jpg

 

 

 

So you could try doing the same with a Matte Paint(s) as previously mentioned, probably a Dark Gray.

[Teun135]

For Black Legion, I found the easiest way for me to give the armor some definition, is to drybrush the whole model with a grey color after priming the model black. then I go back and block-paint the widest panels, staying away from the edges. A coat of nuln oil and it's good to go!

 

Here is some Iron Hands I did up that can be an example of the method:

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1JIb6PuM-NU/V516NE8eDNI/AAAAAAAAAy8/9mAvaQqWInU7EVtek0fuaFh8AD9JdfmewCK4B/s1600/13892057_1250424284967774_9177879861097291444_n.jpg

[Abachrael]

Edge highlighting on black is extremely useful. More than with other colors I think.

 

You don't really need a steady hand: use the SIDE of a non flat brush, using very little paint, and thin said paint LESS than when basecoating.

 

You'll see the trick when you try that. If the edge is good enough (like in vehicles), you get PERFECT lined. In fact, you usually cannot ruin those lines even if you tried.

 

Don't try to freehand thin lines on edges. Use the side of the brush, with very little paint (not quite like when drybrushing, but almost).