Help with Bronze

[Project XXVIII]

Getting back into the painting aspect of the hobby, and it's like riding a bike,.. and then comes the metallics,..

 

I've always liked the look of a deep rich bronze, but I could never pull it off, it always ended up to "brassy" or gold for my taste.  Even GW's official painting app gives me a result that is to golden for my tastes.

 

Then GW switched up the paint line,.. and I figure why fumble my way through this, when I'm sure some talented blokes can at least point me in the right direction for which of the new paints I should be purchasing.

 

Been looking about the interwebs for tips, and the obvious stuff comes to up; Sycorax, Warplock, possibly even some Balthasar Gold,.. light edging with one of the lighter golds.

 

My question arises with;

 

Do you 'undercoat' the bronze with a brown to start?

 

Do you recommend highlighting or dry brushing?

 

Which washes would you recommend?

 

 

All of the 'Default Solid' colours I'm picking back up while I'm painting,.. but I'm needing help with metallics.

 

Thanks

[Kinstryfe]

My best results for metallics have all been experimenting with acrylic ink washes. I use a highlighted silver base, and then use multiple layers of wash made of thin medium, acrylic ink, and distilled water to get the tone that I want, along with GW's washes and shades. Once I figured out how much control it gives you, I've never gone back to using other metallic paints. It's a bit of an investment to get up and running, but the flexibility has been great, being able to just layer thin colorings on to get the exact shade you want.

[Major_Gilbear]

With metallics, there's a few things to keep in mind:

 

 - The metallic paint has reflective mica flakes in it (usually, although some use powdered aluminium instead). As these are reflective, anything that's matte or opaque which you put over the metallic paint afterwards will dull their reflectivity.

 

- Washes, whilst translucent, are usually matte. GW does make gloss washes as well though, so that's worth bearing in mind.

 

- Inks are usually glossy, and are normally very translucent. I suggest sticking to acrylic inks like Vallejo's or to good quality acrylic artist's inks. With the latter, be aware that some colours are not very translucent as they have an opacifier added to them to make them more vibrant when used on paper - just let these settle out and pour off the top for your use, throwing the sludge at the bottom away. You can use other inks, but you may have issues with them if they reactivate and bleed through later on when you put other paints or inks over them.

 

- If you spray-seal your models, and use a matte finish, you'll likely find all your metals suddenly looking flat. To avoid this, you may want to leave the late-stage and final highlights on your metal until after you've spray-sealed your minis.

 

- You can use the reflectivity of the metallic paint to create an interesting contrast between matte shadowed/darker areas, and reflective highlights. In other words, as well as dark-light, you can have matte-shiny.

 

Now, onto the bronze you want to paint.

 

Polished bronze is actually very gold-looking. Old bronze can still be quite light, or it can be a deeper more orange-brown, and even have some patination. Oiled bronze tends to be a deep mahogany colour. Finally, weathered bronze is often quite dark, not very reflective at all, and has a a wide variety of different turquoise-jade patinas of varying intensities.

 

I'm assuming that you probably want a darker bronze look, similar to oiled bronze.

 

If this is the case, you want to start with a dark metal paint - Vallejo Tinny Tin (which is like the old GW Tin Bitz), or similar.

 

Add small amounts of a pale gold to this, building up some soft broad highlights.

 

Then, add a bit of silver to the paint, and carefully edge highlight - this will provide quite a bit of contrast, and it's what we want.

 

Now, we want to use some inks to bring back a bit more of a red tone to it, and to darken the overall look. I would use a brown/chestnut ink, and add a tiny bit of black ink to it to darken it, and then thin this with some water and acrylic medium. Apply this ink mix in very thin glazes all over the metal areas - try and start at the edges, and finish towards the recesses, as this helps to emphasise the effect more. If you prefer, you can use washes rather than inks, although you won't need to add the acrylic medium if you do.

 

Finally, you can try adding a little pit of jade patina to the deepest recesses if you want a more weathered look, and something like GW's Nihilakh Oxide is pretty good for this.

 

I hope that helps, but feel free to ask more more questions if you have any. :)

[Stoic Raptor]

Do you 'undercoat' the bronze with a brown to start?

 

I would definitely recommend that - though which brown exactly will depend on what you want the final effect to look like.  The color of the undercoat definitely has an effect on the look of the metallic paint that you'll cover it with.  

 

For instance, I find that using Mournfang Brown underneath my gold paints gives it a really lush appearance (I prefer P3 Rhulic Gold or AV Glorious Gold, though Citadel's Retributor Armor is nice, too).

 

When it comes to bronze specifically, I wish I could offer more help, but I've never really done the kind of look you're describing.

[Xin Ceithan]

I usually undercoat my bronze with flat chaos black spray. Then give it a rub with a Tamyia Metal weathering.

Following this, I dry brush Tin Bits in several layers and already try to give it some lightsource orientation.

Then wash with highly dilluted DarkAngels Green and P3 Turquoise Ink and a drop of black ink (This gets pretty dark).

Dry brush with Tin bits. repeat washes. Highlight some edges with P3 Blighted Gold. Wash to smoothen the edges. Extreme highlighhts with boltgun metal.

Looks somewhat like this