Black Airbrushed Armies Vs. Black Lined Armies

[Prot]

I have a easy question.... that may not have an easy answer.

Normally I do a lot of my base colours in an army with an Airbrush. While I'm comfortable airbrushing Black paint, what I'm not so sure about is airbrushing shading onto a Black Army, and just perhaps going straight to a few levels of edge highlighting.

A billion years ago I painted black like this on my Black Templars:

Then I started airbrushing more and used transitions more than highlights:

So something like above VS. something like this:

So do you think airbrushing Black 'tones' or greys onto black works? Or should I stick with just line highlights like this kind of old stuff I did?

[Kilofix]

I do both, zenith spray diluted (translucent) mech grey from top, but also do edge / line highlights.

[Prot]

I do both, zenith spray diluted (translucent) mech grey from top, but also do edge / line highlights.

Do you by chance have any examples in black?

[Ovidius Incertus]

Here is a black with zenithal highlights of gray I did a few years back.  Base is black (obviously) with a highlight of VMA German Gray and then, I think, a mix of German Gray and VMA Light Gray.  Although it doesn't show, there is a light drybrush of Boltgun Metal on it, but it doesn't really contrast enough in this lighting.

 

My control with the airbrush has grown since then and were I to do it again, I probably would add some lining to pick out armor panels instead of drybrushing, but this Mk III armor is also chock full of them, far more so than a Mk VII suit.

 

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f32/Oat_Action_Man/DC2a_zps8e98b9c0.jpg

[Bloody Legionnaire]

All of those examples of black looked line highlighted to me.. what in your example am I missing?

 

My method for black is starting with a black basecoat and then add then airbush highlights with Eshin Grey on the areas where light is going to hit. Then very minimal edge highlights with something like codex grey if there are areas on the armor I really want to "pop" or draw attention to.

[Major_Gilbear]

All of those examples of black looked line highlighted to me.. what in your example am I missing?

 The style of highlighting.

 

@ prot:

 

I would firstly not do pure black. I would add a little blue (say one part blue to two parts black), and then glaze with a 50/50 blue/black ink glaze at the end to deepen the shadows.

 

For the main areas, I would use the airbrush to put a few soft areas of gradient across the model, and then switch to a regular brush for some small extreme highlights. I would use a mid-grey for some level of line highlights, but a thinned pure white for doing corners and upper-most lines.

 

This gives you a nice interesting and rich-looking black that is very convincing and not too grey. It also means you don't have to line-highlight *everything* like you used to.

[Prot]

Yea I am leaning this way for the reasons you state. Re-highlighting is such a killer and in some cases not only is it a time sink but I find some of the figs can look almost too... cartoonish.

 

 

There's some examples, but not many. I guess I will do some grey gradients from light sources, and then just the most severe edge highlights to keep things moving... and interesting.

 

Second question... how much "Battle Damage" on black do you guys feel comfortable with? Do you use browns for this or some other chipping method?

[Major_Gilbear]

Some colours like black and white are not only tricky to paint, but can also quickly lose their impact if you start to introduce to much other visual "distraction" like weathering. This is because they are at extreme ends of strictly neutral colours (i.e., grey), and you therefore should be careful of what else you add to the model in order to not overwhelm it.

 

However, if you don't add any colour to them at all, they can similarly look rather uninteresting and sterile.

 

Highlighting "all-round-every-edge" in the approved paint by number GW style is relatively quick and easy by most methods of line highlighting, but it does add a lot of confusion to a model as well - your eye sees the details and is quickly confuses which way around they all are due the highlights... It's an effect not unlike real-world camouflage that seeks to break up the overall size and shape of an object or volume by breaking it up into lots of unrelated parts.

 

Likewise, adding lots of damage/dust/dirt/stuff to a model quickly buries a model in detail (as if the GW models were not detailed enough already!), and you quickly lose the focus of the model. These effects look best when you keep them very subtle, even if you are going for a "heavily weathered" look.

 

For other comments on painting black (including chipping), I wrote a lengthy post with some thoughts and suggestions here which you may find useful. :)