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Author Topic: Painting White Armor  (Read 2490 times)

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Offline starstrider

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Painting White Armor
« on: January 6, 2014, 08:03:00 PM »
Power armor, specifically. I'm trying to think up a scheme for some sisters of battle. I like white, but it's the most frightening color for me to paint.

I'd like to preface this by saying that I'm not particularly skilled or ambitious. I feel the best solution to painting white would be to blend a mix of paints that's just a touch darker than white and use that as the base coat (so I can highlight up to white), but the idea of using  a custom mixed color as my base coat is too off putting to me. I'm sure I'd never adequately reproduce it in a month when I sat down to paint my next squad, and I'd end up with a bunch of squads painted in slightly different whites. I aspire to, as much as humanly possible, avoid custom mixing and simply run with preexisting GW paints. That said.... Anyone have ideas for how to paint up good white armor? Ideally, it would be  awesome if you had any sort of photo showing how your technique turned out, because I've seen so many different "whites".

Just off the top of my head I was thinking maybe.... prime black (does the primer color really matter?), base coat some sort of grey. Wash in badab black (or would i want a browner wash instead?), then go back over all the non-recessed areas in a much lighter shade of grey/beige, and then highlight around the very edges in a real white. Any idea if this would work at all, or would this create an armor too beige?

My biggest fears are having too much contrast between the wash and the eventual white, and having the white be too flat and unhighlighted.

I know some people work up from like, blues instead of gray/beige? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that... but if you had a good example picture lying around of something done that way, I'd be interested.

Anyways, yeah. I'm also thinking of doing a dark red armor, or even the "typical" black SoB armor, just because those both seem much easier to paint up. But I'm interested in white if there's a good way for a pretty amateurish guy to do it that doesn't take a million steps or much mixing. Thanks for tips if you guys have any.

Offline Chrysalis

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Re: Painting White Armor
« Reply #1 on: January 7, 2014, 01:44:09 AM »
Playing Biel-Tan, I have to paint quite a lot of white armors. The problem is to know what kind of white you want to have: if you want a "greyish" white, then white base, gray wash and then highlights from light greys to white is ok. The problem is that (to me...) it always remains grey - light grey, but grey. If you want a "bright" white, then my advice would be to use a white base, then a light blue wash (space wolves grey for example, which is more blue than grey to my mind) and then white highlights. It works well for my eldar guardians who bear armors with a lot of plates, but I don't know how it would work for a space marine power armor. As you said, you could also use some light brown then highlight to white, but I think you'd get some "bone" color in the end.

I don't have pictures of my guardians right now, but I'll try to take some and post them this week.


Offline starstrider

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Re: Painting White Armor
« Reply #2 on: January 7, 2014, 02:53:45 AM »
Thanks. I think I can see what you're talking about, but some pictures would be great.

No rush or anything, my models aren't about to run off on their own (I hope).

To wash with space wolves grey do you just sort of mix the paint with water 1:2 or something? Whatever it takes to make it really liquid-y and runny?

Offline Katamari Damacy

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Re: Painting White Armor
« Reply #3 on: January 7, 2014, 03:41:50 AM »
In the September issue of the WD, there was a little advice for painting White Scars. It looked pretty simple and the result seems good enough for me. Basecoat is 'Ulthuan Grey', followed by 'Agrax Earthshade' wash, more 'Ulthuan Grey' on top of that and 'White Scar' for a finish.

I actually plan on redoing my Banshees that way  :)
« Last Edit: January 7, 2014, 03:43:34 AM by Katamari Damacy »
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Offline Hades Hound

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Re: Painting White Armor
« Reply #4 on: January 7, 2014, 05:13:46 AM »
I have 2 different methods for painting white, depending on what it is I'm going for. For my marines, I usually go for codex grey as a base, up to fortress, and then good old skull white (and damned if I know what the "new" names are). You could make your base a 1:1 fortress:white and highlight white, I think it will look ok, but it's not something I typically do. My Eldar recipe is much simpler. White basecoat, wash of space wolves grey, then thinner wash of shadow grey. I feel it's a more natural white, rather than the harsher industrial type white I get with the marine recipe. Anyways, just some of my thoughts on the matter.

Offline starstrider

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Re: Painting White Armor
« Reply #5 on: January 7, 2014, 06:16:00 AM »
Thanks for your ideas everyone, appreciate it.

One of the things I've been looking at is a white armor tutorial I found on youtube. It's a white scar instead of a sister, but close enough.

In one of the steps the guy is talking about using glaze medium (one part that, one part water, one part paint). Newb question: what exactly is that? And also, could I buy an empty paint pot and simply fill it up 1/3 with medium, 1/3 with water, and 1/3 with paint, or would that be really stupid for some reason that's probably obvious but I'm not aware of?

It looks pretty much like the guy has the white I want, and this is the only step that really intimidates me cause I have no idea what it is. I mean, the process used has a few more steps than I'd like, but I /get/ most of them. It's basically just priming white, base coating grey, using a nuln oil wash, recoating grey, and then slowly working up through various shades of grey to (eventually) white highlights. I think it would look good on a sister with either a dark blue or dark purple cloth. And probably gold/brass for the metal/detail fleur de lys and inquisatorial symbols.
« Last Edit: January 7, 2014, 06:24:13 AM by starstrider »

Offline Shas'Oink

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Re: Painting White Armor
« Reply #6 on: January 7, 2014, 12:43:06 PM »
Bah!

Undercoat white... then carefully feed a shading colour into the recesses... neating up a little bit with white and be done with it This will work for you because most of the model will be white - to be honest, even the faces can simply be washed with a sepia wash to get the right tone.

Take a look at these articles - will be very helpful for you painting white!

There are only 2 ways to paint white
and... This is how you should do it

Offline Killing Time

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Re: Painting White Armor
« Reply #7 on: January 7, 2014, 04:28:47 PM »
Here's a controversial method that worked pretty well on my Banshees:

Black base coat.
Yup, black.

A good even coat of codex grey leaving the merest trace of black in the deepest recesses and outlines.
Fortress grey
White.

The pigments in these paints are heavy enough that none of the black comes through to darken the overall colour (as it might with yellow), and the strong black outlining makes the white highlight really pop.

« Last Edit: January 7, 2014, 04:31:22 PM by Killing Time »

 


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