Your favorite metallics

[Commissar Ibram Gaunt]

Just about to embark on painting up some knights and looking to try new things.

 

So what are your favorite metallics for:

Sliver

Copper

Brass

Gold

[Ovidius Incertus]

For an airbrush or a brush?

 

I prefer Vallejo's Metal Color line for acrylics through an airbrush.  Consistently excellent flow and very small flake size, so no jams through an airbrush.  The line's colors are very biased toward the "silver" end of the spectrum, though, because it's directed at scale modelers.  I love the Burnt Iron color and Gunmetal Grey is a good substitute for your Boltgun metal type color.  Copper is nice, but exactly what it sounds like: bog standard copper.  The colors are quite thin, so be aware of that if you brush it on, which I still do regularly.  The Gunmetal Gray goes on darker if you brush it than if you spray it, FYI.

 

If you want airbrush only and are ready to deal with extra precautions, Alclad2's line of lacquer-based metallics is the best I've ever used.  Still not many red/yellow metallics in the line, though.  Dealing with lacquers may not be worth it to you, but their Chrome is perfect for Knight/Titan pistons!  Lots of prep work involved, but worth it.

 

I've only tried one of Mig's metallics.  There's a pretty wide range of colors there and some interesting non-standard metallic colors.  They're maybe a bit better than Vallejo's Model Air Metallic range through an airbrush, but I use the latter as my go-to for brush painting, along with regular old Citadel colors, which have a good breadth for fantasy/sci-fi color schems.

 

I have heard a lot of good things about Vallejo's Liquid Gold line, and it fairly well covers your yellow/red metallics.  It's alcohol based, so it needs to be treated a bit differently than a regular acrylic.  Never tried them myself, though.

[sockwithaticket]

Silver - Army Painter Gun Metal & Plate Mail Metal

Gold - Reaper Master Series Old Bronze (it's actually a gold colour despite the name) & P3 Blighted Gold

Don't really paint copper or brass, so not recommendation there. Favourite bronze is Vallejo Game Colour Tinny Tin (which is actually a brown bronze).

[Mango Polo]

For an airbrush or a brush?

 

I prefer Vallejo's Metal Color line for acrylics through an airbrush.  Consistently excellent flow and very small flake size, so no jams through an airbrush.  The line's colors are very biased toward the "silver" end of the spectrum, though, because it's directed at scale modelers.

Spoke with some Vallejo folks, they told me with a big wink wink that more MC colors are on the way.

 

Otherwise, for an alternative to the silly toxic Alclad, the AK Xtreme Metals are very nice. Easier to deal with, somewhat less murderous, results are almost the same.

[Commissar Ibram Gaunt]

Sorry. I only use normal brushes currently but may be looking at an airbrush soon.

[Marshal Loss]

Vallejo Metal Colour can be used with a brush too, and they're excellent for it. You'll find it hard to get better coverage elsewhere. Expensive but well worth picking up.

 

For all of my golds and brass paints, I use Scale75. Best metallics I've ever used.

[Commissar Ibram Gaunt]

I will look into the scale 75 but seem hard to find in Australia.

[BadgersinHills]

I use Vallejo Air Gun and Stormhost Silver for my silvers, and for gold I use the new GW paints. 

[plastic_slug]

GW's metallics starting since Age of Sigmar came out in 2015 have been much better than the old ones in the range. I can particularly recommend Retributor Armor for gold, and Stormhost Silver is decent, too. P3's metallics are pretty good, too. Blighted Gold is a favorite; used it on the Shattered Aquila terrain piece and it came out fantastic when most other golds suck at covering such a large area well. 

[Marshal Loss]

I will look into the scale 75 but seem hard to find in Australia.

 

Try Irresistible Force - they restock every couple of months, but that's where I get mine from. Drop them an email and they'll sort you out. They're pricey (although not compared to GW metallics) but are almost certainly the best on the market.

[Commissar Ibram Gaunt]

 

 

I will look into the scale 75 but seem hard to find in Australia.

Try Irresistible Force - they restock every couple of months, but that's where I get mine from. Drop them an email and they'll sort you out. They're pricey (although not compared to GW metallics) but are almost certainly the best on the market.

Thanks will send them an email.

[Isengrin]

If you can get a hand on Scale75 Metallics you should definitely give them a try. I've recently bought their alchemy set and I'm thoroughly pleased with the colors, their smooth finish is incredible. One piece of advice though, the pigments/paints separate very quickly and you'll have to shake them a lot before painting, you can also put stainless agitator balls in them, which I'd recommend. There are a couple nice tutorials on Massive Voodoo, like this one, where they write at length about those paints.

[Evil Eye]

I'm very fond of GW's own metallics, especially the newer ones. They do tend to separate and need a good shake, but the actual finish you can get with them is pretty good. Warplock Bronze is one of my favourites, their golds are pretty good and Stormhost Silver is superb, especially for water-based acrylics. They'll all go through an airbrush with a bit of water (or your favourite thinner if you prefer) but there are better options for airbrushing. For hand work though, they're hard to beat and readily available.

 

As for other brands...

 

Tamiya: I hear this stuff works wonders in an airbrush, but I've found their chrome silver is pretty nice brushed on too. Also it's acrylic (albeit alcohol based) so it's easy-ish to work with.

Humbrol: I swear by Humbrol's enamel chrome silver. It takes several coats but once it's done it looks so shiny, like it's been clearcoated- I suspect the medium it's mixed with is gloss. I don't know how it goes through an airbrush though, I've been told on this board that it works very well though.

Mr. Hobby/Gunze Sagyou: I have their chrome silver. The upside is that it is beautiful through an airbrush, and can get a really shiny finish. The bad news is that it's lacquer based, and thus tricky to work with (it's also ridiculously caustic so BE CAREFUL), it needs buffing/polishing to really shine, and it needs a gloss black undercoat. It's also completely worthless for hand brushing.

Alclad: I've never used this stuff, but I hear it's the best silver on the market. It doesn't need thinning and looks identical to factory chrome. The downside is that like the Mr. Hobby stuff it's lacquer based, very tricky to use (needs to be sprayed at 15 PSI) and absurdly toxic. I heard it works for hand brushing but given my experience with lacquer that's probably not the case.

[Major_Gilbear]

Vallejo Model Air Metallics are really nice (I use them with a regular brush BTW), but be warned that their golds are translucent and hard work.

 

Failing that, I have had good results from the Vallejo Game Colour and P3 metallic paints, but these tend to be as annoying as most metal paints to work with (dry fast, go clumpy on the palette, can be gloopy to apply, thin badly, the metallic "chips" (actually mica chips) are not as fine as I'd like, and wear brushes out really fast.... sigh).

 

The big thing with all metals (in my experience) is that you need to be patient, apply several layers, and be prepared to use inks/washes to help bring out their best.

 

However, given my comments above, it will come as little surprise that the best results are when I use them sparingly. If I need to do big areas with them though... *looks at automotive rattlecan metallic sprays*. Yeah.