Painting colored metals

[Tyriks]

Any good way of painting colored metals? I have seen some great outcomes but have found no good method of doing them. Any good tips or tutorials? My searches have found nothing that produces results like what I have seen.

[Bryan Blaire]

Tyriks, could you give a little more explanation? What exactly have you been looking at that you want to replicate?

[Tyriks]

Stuff like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=miniatures+colored+metal&client=tablet-android-samsung&biw=962&bih=601&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY8aari5DOAhXJ5yYKHZWKDa8Q_AUIxwEoAQ#tbm=isch&q=40k+metallic+color&imgrc=2CXM6cjoUW-MSM%3A

 

I want a sort of metallic sheen to a rich, dark blue. I saw someone post pics here of a purple they got looking nice and metallic but now I can't find it.

[Bryan Blaire]

You can paint the models a full base coat of your chosen metallic color (blues and purples are likely best over silver, while reds and oranges can look quite nice over gold - I've never done green over gold, but you could give it a shot) and then use one of several paints/techniques:

 

1) Use Tamiya Clear paint in your choice of color.

2) Use a FW Clear paint in your choice of color.

3) Use one of the new gemstone paints (red, blue or green, or try and mix for a purple) in thin layers until you get the saturation you want

 

You can also use one of the colored metallic paints that some acrylic companies make, or even make your own by mixing a metallic medium into the color you want to paint.

[Tyriks]

Thanks! Have you tried any of these?

[Grotsmasha]

Check out Viva Metallica

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/155396-viva-metallica/

[Bunta]

I would be inclined to paint it silver then glaze it blue a few times then a very light dry brush of silver again to finish off

[Major_Gilbear]

Thanks! Have you tried any of these?

 

I have tried out most of Bryan's suggestions with inks over the metals (when I was younger, I couldn't afford all the paints I wanted, and so had to get creative for coloured metallics). They are pretty good actually, but work best when you mix the inks with a little gloss varnish (I'd use gloss medium now) to give them better translucency and body.

 

I would also say that there are two main methods of making paint metallic: with mica flakes (the most common), and with metal powder (usually aluminium).

 

The mica paints retain a slightly better reflectiveness through the coloured clear-coat in my experience, especially for stronger colours, despite looking less convincing as regular metal paints. However, if you use a lighter colour, or start with a bright silver (like the Grey Knights scheme), the aluminium powder paint is superior and gives you a smoother more even-looking finish.

Just so you know, most hobby paints use mica, and only a few like Vallejo Model Air use metal powder.

 

If you are looking for the easiest way, Vallejo do a "metals" set of their Model Air for a very reasonable price. The gold is a bit light, but the silvers are fantastic. I mention it though because it also comes with a deep metallic blue. You could start with that as a base colour, adding a little sliver as you go for highlights in the usual way. And because the gold is quite light, you could also try adding that to the blue instead of the silver for a slightly different effect. Despite being paint aimed at the airbrush market, VMA is normal paint that you can apply with a brush and rinse off with water - you can even mix it with your regular paints if you want to.

[Lythronax]

I've tried two approaches - using vallejo metal medium and using washes over a silver base.

I used both on my knight. The black was just abaddon black with metal medium in a 1:1 ratio. The purple was a base of leadbelcher dry-brushed with ironbreaker and runefang steel, then several washes of druchii violet + glaze medium. I then used a thinned blue glaze to adjust the colour to get the purple I wanted.

For dark blue, I'd probably try the metal medium first, depending on the effect you want.

[betrayer41]

Vallejo has a great colored Metallic Range

[Bloody Legionnaire]

You can start with a metallic base then apply thin layers like glazes over the model. You can also make highlights easier by using lighter and darker metallics before apply glazes. 

[Evil Eye]

Ah yes, coloured metallics. I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen more pre mixed coloured metallic paints outside of the usual silvers, golds and coppers and the like. But anyway, that's not answering your question.

 

An airbrush is a necessity for the consistency of finish you'll want. You CAN do it by hand for smaller models (I'm painting a Warhammer vampire lord with metallic teal armour and it looks pretty good) but with fully armoured Space Marines, and especially with larger models like tanks or titans you'll want an airbrush.

 

First you'll need a silver basecoat. Depending on how shiny you want it you may want a layer of gloss black underneath. There's a wide range of silvers on the market, including:

GW Stormhost Silver: Not hugely reflective but quite bright and sparkly, and very easy to work with. Pretty good considering it's a water based acrylic. Personally I really like it.

Tamiya Chrome Silver: Best through an airbrush but has a very nice finish. Tamiya paints are acrylic but for some reason they require alcohol thinners. Better looking than GW but harder to work with.

Humbrol Enamel Chrome Silver: Takes a long time to dry and difficult to work with. However, it looks really nice, with a very glossy finish. Be careful if you've never worked with enamel before.

Gunze Sagyo Mr Metal Colour Chrome Silver: Needs a gloss black basecoat. Lacqer and thus needs airbrushing. Hard to work with and needs buffing once dry. However, has a very high shine. Only use if you absolutely know what you're doing.

Alclad II Chrome Silver: Needs a gloss black basecoat. Also lacquer, highly HIGHLY caustic/toxic, be careful. Needs to be airbrushed, and compressor must be set to 15psi, but does not require thinning. Extremely high shine, resembles real chrome. Only use if you're either very experienced or highly knowledgeable (preferably both). Gets great results but is for veteran modellers.

 

Picked your silver? Great! Now you need a clear colour over the top. Now you could theoretically use ink and medium but for the sake of sanity I'm listing premade clear paints.

GW Gemstone paints: Never used, but they aren't really meant for that kind of thing.

FW Clear range: My favourite. Good consistency, can be handbrushed, good colours and easy to mix/blend. Only really lacking a pink.

Tamiya Clear range: Quite thick, needs alcohol thinner. Best through an airbrush. Nice rich colours and good shine but likited colour range. Clear Smoke deserves special mention for being a really useful paint.

Badger ghost tints: No thinner required for airbrushing. Water based. Nice colours. Nothing really to say against them unless you just don't like the colours.

Gunze Sagyo Mr Clear Colour: Lacquer based, only use on top of other lacquer paints or you will regret it. Don't bother hand brushing. Great range of colours but a nightmare to work with. Better for experienced modellers. Also quite hard to obtain as it's Japanese and difficult to import.

Glass paint: Deserves mention here for what a monumentally bad idea it is to use this stuff. Gloopy, can only be thinned with white spirit. Runs on the model. Takes ages to dry. Turns to gunk if thinned with water. Just don't.

 

Method is pretty simple. Prime model. Apply gloss black basecoat if necessary (depending on silver paint). Apply silver paint coat. Apply clear paint coat. If you want, apply gloss varnish coat. Done.

[Tyriks]

I tried washing over silver, but it wasn't quite the look I wanted.  Since then, I have been doing some test painting with a mix of Abaddon Black and Ironbreaker.  I had mostly empty pots of each so I just poured them in together.  It looks good (a sort of graphite look), definitely looks black but sparkles a bit.  I think I will keep using it, but a question has come up: how do people highlight these metallics?  Just mix up some metallic highlight colors, or use the pure metallics?  Or non-metal highlights?

[Atia]

As Bryan already pointed out, you can use:

- FW Clear paints over a metallic base coat. For my red Brass Scorpion, I did a silver base coat, lighter zenithals, pre-shading with blue and green clear, and several thinned down coats of clear red over it. (All with an airbrush)

This is basically the method FW uses for all their stuff. You can switch the FW clears with Tamiya but from my experience the FW stuff is easier to work with.

My Word Bearers are done in a similiar way, but I used thinned down Blood for the Blood God instead, and a brush for that one:

[DistroyA]

Have you tried using the glaze paints GW make on top of silver? Might be worth trying out.

[Atia]

Have you tried using the glaze paints GW make on top of silver? Might be worth trying out.

Indeed, I have :P

http://www.fotos-hochladen.net/uploads/alphalegionfr3mjkeshcvt58.jpg

http://img5.fotos-hochladen.net/uploads/alphalegioncoj3bky9pi0h.jpg

http://img5.fotos-hochladen.net/uploads/alphalegionba275tydikfb.jpg

That's Guilliman Blue if i remember it right. Worked really good, especially if you have no airbrush

Also, inks do the job also pretty well, especially if you use airbrush inks

[DistroyA]

Excellent work. Had a feeling that'd work just fine.

 

Also, isn't Guilliman Blue such a beautiful colour? Once I've repainted my smurfs, I'm gonna test it through my airbrush, see if it goes through as well as I think it will. :)

[Ascanius]

I should experiment with Waywatcher Green.