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Help with armor paint colors and technique


Galloway

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Hi All-

 

Long time lurker, 2nd-time poster.  I've been slowly accumulating bits and putting together a bit of background story in my head for painting up a chaos warband based around (former) thousand sons + dark mech + others.  In particular, the leader would be a former Thousand Son captain who left the legion with some followers, and has adopted his own distinct colors.  I'm still iterating what exact scheme would be, but one I really like is the turquoise+purple Black Legion variant from the Codex.

b6767938169047239ae1fcd93260e633.jpg

If I wanted to  try to replicate this, my guess is my starting point would do something like a combination of a metallic + hawk turqouise, and then go from there.  Any thoughts/suggestions on what the right squence would be?  I've painted up a relatively modest fantasy warband so I have a bit of experience painting but definitely wouldn't call myself anything close to expert.

 

The other idea I'm pondering (which may be beyond my skill level) is whether one could paint CSM armor to look like "glass armor" from Elder Scrolls series.  Something along the lines of

http://eso-fashion.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/03/20160326133622_11.jpg

I have no idea how one would go about getting this color/texture/reflectivity, or if it would even make sense of smooth armor without a bunch of greenstuff work.  My motivation here is that the regular CSM squad in my warband are former members of the Crystal Wyverns (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Crystal_Wyverns), one of the "Judged" chapters who fell to chaos in the Abyssal crusade that don't have any other lore associated with them that I can find.  In my story their name comes from their armor being transmuted to crystal by the warp during their corruption.  That may be a bit too on the nose though.  In any case, any thoughts would be welcome.

 

Hopefully I didn't violate any rules by linking those pictures.  If so, I sincerely apologize.

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In the first scheme, the gold is painted using non-metallic paints to look reflective. This is a tricky and advanced technique, and so I will suggest normal metallic paints instead. I would also suggest priming your models with grey primer (Halfords in the UK do a fantastic sandable grey primer that I highly recommend).

 

Turquoise & Gold Scheme

 

++ Turquoise ++

I would suggest beginning with two or three thinned coats of turquoise to get a nice even colour

 

Then glaze with a little thinned blue ink/wash into the lower/recessed areas. Don't glaze over the whole model, or you will have to repaint a big part of it turquoise again! When dry, review the model, and see if any areas might warrant a second pass - if so, this carefully apply it in a targeted manner.

 

To highlight, add a little white/ivory to the turquoise and carefully paint on some broad highlights.

 

Add a little more white/ivory to your previous mix, and highlight again, this time catching a smaller area.

 

Final highlights can me made with an almost pure white/ivory and just a touch of turquoise - these should only be applied to selected edges and corners where the reflection is brightest.

 

If you feel it gets too light, you can mix a little turquoise with some glaze medium and some matte medium (a 1:1:1 ratio, thinned with a brushful or two of water so that it's somewhat runny like thick milk) and carefully glaze over the model. When I say glaze, this is like a wash, except that you apply a thin even layer and don't let it pool anywhere - mop up any areas that pool with a clean/rinsed damp brush.

 

 

++ Gold ++

I would select a dark gold metallic paint, and mix it with a little dark brown. This will give you a sort of dark bronze-looking semi-metallic paint that covers well. Pick out all the trim with this mix, keeping the paint thin. You may need to repeat this pass in some areas to get an even coverage.

 

Then, using just the gold on it's own, repeat the same process again, but leaving a little bit of the dark colour showing around any rivets, and between the trim and the blue armour. This frames the gold better, and helps it stand out.

 

Mix a little bright silver into the gold, and pick out the edges of the trim, along with any rivets, and any high sports that would catch the light more. Add more bright silver to the previous mix, and catch just the rivets, highest edges and and orders/high spots on raised detail (these are your sparkle or glint highlights).

 

If it is looking a bit brown/silver, you can glaze a little bit of yellow and sepia ink mixed with some clean water and matte medium (3 parts yellow ink, 1 part sepia ink , 2 parts matte medium, and 6 parts water). This is quite a powerful glaze, so use it sparingly and don't let it pool - it will instantly brighten the trim quite a bit!

 

If you want some darker pools of shade here and there, add 1 part of black ink to the above ink glaze mix, and use this super-carefully around rivets and such.

 

 

Metallic Green Scheme

 

Mix some medium silver with bright gold - about a 50/50 mix. Carefully basecoat all the armour areas with this, applying a few thin coats to get a smooth even base. Is it really important for this scheme to get a smooth even coat of this base colour, so take your time!

 

Using a bright silver, carefully apply highlights to the edges of the armour, and also use this to carefully pick out any relief details.

 

Using a dark silver (or a medium silver mixed with a touch of black paint) carefully line in any shallow detail areas that need to be darker in order to stand out. Deeper recesses may benefit for a quick pass of this colour too.

 

Next up, each of the two coloured areas will now get tinted as follows:

 

++ Green ++

Use some black-green ink (I use Vallejo Game Colour Black Green ink) and some yellow (mixed in a 4:1 ratio) to glaze over the green areas. Let this dry (might be twenty minutes or so), and then repeat. After about three or four layers of the green, you should have a good metallic green.

 

If you feel the metal needs brightening a bit more, use the original silver-gold mix, and add a little of the green-yellow ink mix to it, and run this around the areas you feel need attention. Then re-glaze with the green-yellow ink mix one more time to blend it in.

 

If you feel the green needs to be darker, add one drop of blue ink to the green-yellow ink mix, and carefully apply a targeted glaze to the specific areas.

 

++ Black ++

Use some black ink, some blue ink, some brown ink, and some yellow (mixed in a 1:1:1:1 ratio, thinned with about 4 parts water) to make a nice greasy-looking colour. Glaze over the black areas. Let this dry (might twenty minutes or so), and then repeat. After about three or four layers of the mix, you should have a nice colour that contrasts with the green areas.

 

If you feel the areas need to be a little more green, use some VGC Black Green ink on it own, thinned about 1:1 with some water, and glaze the area. This will bring up the tone to a more green hue, but be mindful to keep this effect subtle.

 

If you feel the green needs to be darker, add one drop of blue ink to the original ink mix, and carefully apply a targeted glaze to the specific areas.

 

 

 

 

Both of these schemes are quite involved! However, what I've outlined above will give you some nice effective results.

 

With the second green scheme, a few more comments:

 

The real trick is to build up the clear ink layers over a really crisp metal finish to give you that glass/candy-coat look.

 

It is slow, although it is also suited to doing a fair number of models at once - this means that by the time the last model is inked, the first one will only be a few minutes away from being dry enough to re-coat. The more layers of ink you apply, the more intense the colour and the more glassy the effect will be.

 

You can also play with the hue of this scheme, either by making the metallic coat more golden, or by adding more yellow or blue to the ink stages in order to shift the colour a bit more.

 

If you want to make the armour more shiny, but don't want to add more ink because the colour is right, you can gloss varnish the areas to enhance the effect.

 

Finally, you can go back with a touch of metallic paint here and there in between the ink layers if you feel that you want brighter and more contrasting edges, and the subsequent layers of ink each time will help blend them back in for you.

 

Hope that gets you off to a good start! :)

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A method to achieve the one in the pic might be to simulate 'anodizing' by painting silver then surfacing with a transparent paint.  The new GW technicals are pretty much used this way, except when applied, the application should be smooth and even.  An airbrush is great for this.

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  • 7 months later...

Sorry for the thread necro, just wanted to post a thanks again to Major_Gilbear and others for suggestions. I finally got around to painting up a chaos space marine using the crystal armor technique Major_Gilbear suggested.  I found to get the gloss I was looking for, I needed a coat of gloss varnish at the end. But once I did that, I was pretty happy with the results.

 

I'm planning to flesh out the rest of a CSM squad using this crystal scheme next. I also painted up some thousand sons rubric using something along the lines of the turquoise paint. Those are in my WIP thread (link in signature).

 

In any case, thanks again all. 

 

First step- paint up trim and "soft" armor, fill in crystal areas with silvery gold.

wyverns test gold

 

Follow up with 3-4 coats of 3 parts Biel-Tan Green + 1 part Cassandra Yellow, then coat of gloss varnish only on the shaded areas.

wyvern test left

wyvern test front

wyvern test right

wyvern test back

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  • 2 weeks later...

Look good :tu:

if you wanted a more complex look for HQ - http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1205-complex-gems

 

Also, there's an old Citadel paint, Glistening Green, that might give you that effect in one coat - Coat D'Arms still make it as Enchanted Green by the look of it?

https://www.blackhat.co.uk/product/128-enchanted-green/

 

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/yoritomo/IMGP0496.jpg

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Look good thumbsup.gif

if you wanted a more complex look for HQ - http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1205-complex-gems

Also, there's an old Citadel paint, Glistening Green, that might give you that effect in one coat - Coat D'Arms still make it as Enchanted Green by the look of it?

https://www.blackhat.co.uk/product/128-enchanted-green/

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/yoritomo/IMGP0496.jpg

Warcolours Metallic Dark Green is very similar, cheaper and probably easier to get hold of these days :tu:

http://www.warcolours.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=77

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