Topic: Painting Yellow?

[web ghost]

oops.  Sorry dude.  The method I used was pretty simple but it can be annoying.  First things first.  Yellow does not cover anything ANYTHING but pure white.  So first go over your white sprayed areas with white to make sure you have a nice even coverage.  then simply paint all the white areas with a nice thinnish even coat of Golden Yellow.  You will find that one coat over a nice white will do the trick.  Next go into the cracks and recesses with very thin, very controlled, very watered down flesh wash.  this will shade the yellow nicely and has a slight orangish tint but not overly orangish like orange ink or not too brown like brown ink.  You will find that despite you care, it will sometimes be too dark or will pool up and make lines around the shaded areas.  Your impulse will be to try to touch it up with golden yellow.  Don't, it wont work.  any areas that you want to touch up the yellow you will first need to cover with white again. 

A technique I never tried but which might work is to sort of reverse this process.  Do the flesh wash first, and then go back and either repaint white, leaving the wash in the recesses or dry brush white and then do the yellow.  I haven't tried this though so I wouldn't recommend it. 

Highlighting is up to you.  It depends how you like the yellow to look.  If you use white mixed with your golden yellow it will simply highlight the shade that you already have.  This is what i did for most of mine.  you can also highlight with a brighter shade of yellow like sunburst yellow.  This will alter the look of your yellow a bit.  twill make it look a bit more of a bright yellow.

I'm going to add to this post with a couple pics but I'll post it now as i see you are online.

later WG

-edit  check out this dude:



see how the flesh wash shading has left ugly lines around the shaded areas?  this is where you need to go back and touch it up first with white and then with yellow.  If you are very careful and use thinned down wash in the recesses you may not have to re touch it up.

here's a better one:


you can see that around the shield, the flesh wash could have been blended in better, but the legs look nice.  note the highlighting with a bit of white.  and heres a vet sarge for fun:



I need to get back to these guys.

[Amphetamine Parrot]

thats one of the phatest vet. sarges ive seen in a while WG, good work man. so far i'm painting them as follows: sprayed undercoat of white, then yellow ink over the yellow areas, then 50/50 mix of watered down golden yellow and bad moons yellow, then one thin coat of the lightest yellow i own, then i do some extreme highlights using bad moons and white (using a 60/40 mix with mostly white). ive only just inked my models so far and painted most of the black areas, but I am aiming for a bright, clean yellow. also, how did you get your vet sarge's eyes to look so amazing with green (I was planning on painting my marine's eyes green as well and i'm only really decent at painting them red  ) ?

[web ghost]

thanks on the vet sarge.  ...well I didn't try the yellow ink thing but it looks like it should work. Just remember that when you think you need to repaint something yellow, cover it with white first for a clean yellow. 

On the green:  I don't really have any bright citadel greens.  I used some acrylic paint that I have for arty stuff for them.  Emerald green I think.   a very thin coat that blends into the black.   another very thin coat to bring up the green, leaving the black green on the edges.  probably another straight up green.  I then started mixing in some white and probably a little yellow so it wasn't too much of a whitish green, like a mint.  Dot the corner.  I don't know what the equivalent citadel color would be? 

later WG

[Amphetamine Parrot]

I don't know what the equivalent citadel color would be?

possibly snot green or goblin green. ill try your method for the eyes, and i really hope I have the time this week to finish all three models, also, my converted squad leader has a kroot dying on his base, so I have to look around this forum to find out how to paint space chickens. i'll have these three marines up as soon as possible for all of you to inspect. thanks for all the advice gentlemen. cheers.

[Amphetamine Parrot]

heres how ive been painting them: undercoat with white, then i coat the yellow areas with yellow ink, then a coat or two of thin golden yellow, then golden yellow/ badmoons mix, then badmoons/ white mix. problem is, it doesnt look like these:
http://www.the-scythes.com/scythes.html

the yellow ink doesn't show very well on my minis. i'm thinking of using either flesh or chestnut ink, and ive tried them under the yellow, but they show through too much.

help please.

[darthplagis]

try mixing a touch of brown ink into the yellow ink, it still retains the yellow but obviously the brown darkens the yellow.

[augustmanifesto]

it will be very difficult to get a 7/10 coolmini rating on yellows starting with primed white. it can be done, but strangely enough that would be harder that starting with black. IF you're concerned with the result, and you say you are, this is how I get my IP:

1. spray black.
2. Darksun Foundation (either leave black exposed in cracks in armor, or go back and line in - either way expect a bit of touch ups)
3. apply a layer of mixed Darksun and sunburst yellow, I'm not sure of the exact ratio but its something like 50/50 or 25/75 (75 being sunburst, obviously).
4. Apply multiple thin layers of sunburst. This part is annoying and over time you'll get a feel for it/develop your own shortcuts. You'll know you're done with you have solid, solid yellows.
5. Apply touch ups. If you left the black exposed, chances are you'll have to go back and touch up a few cracks in the armor, if you black lined-in then you'll likely have to touch up the yellows around the lines.
5. highlights. I do one layer of badmoon followed by skullwhite. don't be afraid to be bold here, so while it's still best (as always) to watch the thickness of the lines and make sure they're properly thin, don't worry about the thickness of the paint. Actually, i use a thickened up badmoon to make sure it really gets on there and don't water the white down at all as one typically would.
6. at this point, you'll be saying "wow, that's really bright." it is. too bright. apply a sepia wash. this is a bit trickier than it souns: the point here is to A) simulate a bit of light weathering, but more importantly to b) darken that yellow down, giving it even a TINT of brownish that adds depth. Here, I usually do 2 thinish to mediumish washes until i'm happy with it. but, again, you'll have to figure out what works for you, so I'd recommend start with multiple VERY thin applications. be careful not to overdo! this also blends in the highlights perfectly.

if you want to know how to do the weathering, its pretty simple and I could give a short how-to. hope that helps!

[Meep357]

So I've decided to do a Marine army.  I couldn't decide between the Dark Angles or Imperial Fists paint scheme.  I like both.  I like the whole Dark Angles fluff and appearance ... but damn a bright yellow army looks fine on the table.

I've been trying to paint a miniature golden yellow ... and I've been rather unsuccessful so far.  I just can't seem to get a solid coat of golden yellow BEFORE I obscure most of the details on the models.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips they could share about how to paint imperial fists or get a good solid yellow base coat to work from?

My other question is ... as a relative beginner (painting wise) should I just give up on the yellow and paint dark angles???  - Dark green just seems to be an "easier" colour to paint.

[Ollieb]

I use Vallejo pale yellow and then go over it with a yellow ink.  Works great for me.  I've also seen guys paint them white then use a yellow ink.  Seems to look pretty good as well.  Just prime them gray or white instead of black.

[Benis]

I think you should never bail from an enterprise just because you might find the painting to be too daunting, if you can't manage to paint yellow without ruining your details than you are clearly using the wrong methods.

Some ways to get a better cover whilst not painting to many layers are:
Foundation paints - Iyanden Darksun works well to give a deep cover and makes the further layers of Golden yellow to stand out easily. Thin out both the foundation paint and the regular one, just don't do it too much.
White undercoat - Also a good way to make sure that your colours will cover the areas better although this might be more difficult than Iyanden Darksun.
If you don't want to buy fundation paints or skull white spray you can start with a light brown (Snakebite Leather/Graveyard Earth has good coverage) undercoat for the armour and slowly build this up to yellow. Some people even use orange paints for this but I never manage to get the yellow to look the way I like when I use an orange base.

[Changeyname]

heres a link from the stickies about painting yellow

admittedly its before the foundations and washes came out but i found it useful when doing some yellow painting on a project a few months ago

[Kharloth]

Here is a great tutorial that i found a few months ago

It looks alot better than the normal neon fists that i see

http://www.chaosbunnystudios.co.uk/#/tutorialimperial/4525393843

[Skeeve]

Send PM to Valar, for  a modest fee he will tell you everything there is to know about painting yellow  . He is painting Iyanden craftworld whose colors are blue/yellow. He just recently had a tutorial on the wraithlord around here with detailed description of how to paint yellow.