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Painting Black
Topic Started: Aug 12 2010, 01:13 PM (324 Views)
paulitop
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Sergeant
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hey dave, not looking for a game but meant to ask you at last meeting how you do that black armour with gold trim effect, looks very good but find if I try to paint anything black it eventually goes grayish as I highlight. Is there a specific technique that you are using?
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Stomm
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And as if by magic, my powers of moderation has split this off into a thread all of its own...

Now to answer the question. If you're talking about the black armour with gold trim on my Reikland Captain (it's actually a Mordheim figure), then the black was really simple indeed. No highlighting whatsoever, the simple reason being that the gold trim is where all the highlighting might otherwise be, so the black is just a foil for the gold to work with. Incidentally I'm not 100% happy with that figure, the inlaid gold trim on the pistols really doesn't show up, I should have gone for an almost ebony-wood effect, and the gold is far from perfect.


If you're talking about the black barding on my KotBS, then as there was an edge that was not otherwise covered in gold trim, or edges to be precise. Then a series of thin edge highlights with washes in between. The shiny black lacquered effect is a product of using the old black ink, when I eventually varnish the models it will get dulled down, but I will likely go over the gold armour and the black barding with a gloss top-varnish.

Basically I've found that generally the best approach to black is 'less is more'. As soon as you start trying to add gradual highlights, unless you wash them so much as to be virtually imperceptible, then it always ends up looking washed out or grey, kind of like some of the older t-shirts that I wear. You can really tell the difference between one that I've had for almost ten years, and one that I have had, for well probably a year and a half, maybe two years now.


Now if you really, really want to go overboard with your black highlights then I can bring my Black Templars in for you to have a look at. They have been painted with IIRC a seven stage highliting process, some more extremely highlighted than others, as well I tend to paint about one every year or so...
David Simpson
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paulitop
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yes dave, I would like to see those templars if that is ok, just some examples, I will bring a pad & pen down so that I can write down the methodolgy. Im playing damian this week so if you remember bring them down I would apprecite it as I just cant paint black armour & I want to paint the unit of chaos chosen I collected black to contrast with the warriors of chaos rgiment I painted an off white, off white as I have the same problem painting pure white as pure black
cheers matey
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Stomm
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Damian also has a Black Templars army, but of course his consists of more than 2 1/2 painted models and the rest in grey plastic and black undercoat...

White, I haven't really painted in 25-30mm in a long time. I have a very effective and quick method for painting white for Warmaster (I've got a Reikland Warmaster army, simply because it was quicker than my tradtional Averland), but I have some theories on painting white based on my BT shoulder pad painting experiences.

Basically the same as painting black, less is more. Just decide on which shade of white to go with, a blue shade gives a 'whiter-white' I think, and then just basically paint this in the extreme recesses, but keep the rest pretty much pure white. This obviously varies depending on whether you're talking about armour or cloth, as really you need to use different techniques for cloth, armour or flesh, IMHO anyway...
David Simpson
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Damian
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I use shadow grey for the first edge highlight, then shadow grey and skull white (50:50) for the next. If the model is a character, an elite or just has lots of small details that I want to 'pop', I'll do a very thin highlight of about 75% white to 25% grey. On large areas such as vehicles I'll just do one shadow grey highlight, any lighter and I find that it looks a bit cartoony for my liking.

With white, always use very thin coats.
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Stomm
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I wonder what a white baseboat would look like if you gave it sucessive black washes? I might give that a go some time, might be interesting...
David Simpson
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