Metallic Night Lord scheme?

[Brother Heinrich]

Anyone got a good recipe? Looking to try out a metallic scheme...for reasons...

[Loquille]

While not that great, mine is.

 

Boltgun metal.

Followed by chainmail onto raised areas.

Two thin coats of Night Lords blue.

Then a final edge highlight of Chainmail. 

 

Not the best but it can work. 

 

Depending on how dark I want the unit I'll drop the chainmail before the blue. 

 

[Kastor Krieg]

Any preshaded (airbrush, wash, edge highlights, whatever works) silver + Tamiya X-23, whammo.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Kastor Krieg

[Tyrannicide]

I know your an airbrush kinda guy, but I would check out Tamiya’s TS-53 deep metallic blue spray. Could be a nice base to work off of. Kizzdougs used the metallic black spray to great effect on his Alpha Legion elite.

[1ncarnadine]

If you're looking to glaze a blue over a metallic pre-shade, I highly recommend the Vallejo Metal Color range. It's a newer range in these specific bottles:

 

 

I think they were made mostly for model aircraft painting, but they're fantastic for metallic Heresy schemes. Go through an airbrush like champs and are just beautiful metallics in their own right. Burnt Iron, Exhaust Manifold and Gunmetal Grey all make great shade colors, and then there's a huge range to use as the pre-shade highlight after that depending on how much contrast you want. If you want a darker Night Lords blue it might be best to keep that darker as well.

 

After that you'll just want to apply a bunch of thin coats of a clear glaze. Tamiya Clear Blue or FW's Calth Blue are your friends, although I think just about any blue thinned enough might work. May need something like FW's Clear Medium as well, but I'm not sure as I haven't messed around with that. Forge World's old scheme actually mixed a Clear Red in with the blue to make it kind of a clear purple (trending towards blue-purple). I haven't tried it, but I imagine it's a 1:10 ratio of red to blue, as clear blue tends to be pretty weak.

 

That old scheme also used Rub N Buff for its metallic pre-shade and... don't. Don't do it. It'll ruin a brush and is otherwise just kind of a pain to work with and keep consistent. It wouldn't be the worst way to go if you don't have an airbrush, but it's a complete waste of time if you do have one.

[Corswain]

I did one with all GW paints.

 

Chaos Black undercoat

Leadbelcher basecoat

2 spray coats of Ironbreaker

Spray coat Drakenhof Nightshade wash

2 spray coats Guilliman Blue glaze

Ardcoat

 

The ardcoat goes all over and brings some depth to the blue. I also edge highlight with Ironbreaker to really emphasize the metallic.

 

Unfortunately, I won’t be near my models for about four days, but I will try to post some pics when I get home.

[betrayer41]

I exclusively use the metals that LEtsyoudown mentioned. They are megnificent, they go on like silk.

 

I was messing around with my alphas a while back a purpleish blue and it came out as a great NL color. It was clear pruple over metallics followed by tamiya clear blue over metallics

[Brother Heinrich]

Awesome thanks for the advice y'all. gonna try out some of that Vallejo Metallic Color/Tamiya airbrush combo.

[Gunnersberry]

If you can get hold of them, the citadel artificer tints (the blue and purple ones) work well when mixed directly with leadbelcher. I don't have an airbrush so it's my go-to method for them.

 

https://i.imgur.com/vkmlbQB.jpg

[Brother Heinrich]

Another question, what would y’all recommend for a clear coat to preserve the metallic sheen but also protect the model?

[1ncarnadine]

As a final step? It depends on the finish you want. Metallics tend to benefit from gloss, or if you want to dull it down you can add a little matt varnish to the mix, maybe up to ~2:1 gloss to matt if you really want to knock the sheen back.

 

Any acrylic varnish will work. I use Vallejo because they're in convenient dropper bottles, but Liquitex works just fine. 

[N1SB]

Other brothers mentioned Tamiya metallic paints, so I'll show my example here.  I didn't do it for Night Lords, but Crimson Fists.

 

This is just for reference purposes, so you have a reference point.  This is TS-54 Light Metallic Blue, shaded with Tamiya Smoke X-19:

 

http://oi63.tinypic.com/303bnrc.jpg

 

Thus, I think Tyrannicide's suggestion above with TS-53 Deep Metallic Blue, with perhaps some Tamiya Smoke, would be ideal for Night Lords.

Edited October 23, 2017 by Not 1 Step Backwards

[Ghorgul]

My recipe, I don't have airbrush:

 

1. Corax White undercoat (spray can)

2. 3:1 Vallejo Dark prussian blue (70.899):Vallejo Metal Medium (70.521), thinned with water.

3. Guilliman Blue glaze on armor surfaces (makes the blue a little brighter).

4. Other details painted at this point.

5. Nuln Oil Gloss shade all over the model. May need 2 layers, depending how much you put on the first go. Stick mostly to the parts that are supposed to be reflective.

6. Drakenhof Nightshade to all the parts that arent supposed to be shiny or catch and reflect light. I put this also to the leadbelcher colored metal parts as the Nuln Oil gloss makes these pieces look ugly in my eyes.

7. Possible fine highlights with Caledor Sky, these highlights can be also done before the Nuln Oil but in that case you need to paint wider or the Nuln oil will fade it away.

 

I don't have good pictures of the end result as I don't have good camera/set-up to take pictures. The end result is NOT kind of super shiny bright metallic (as in FW Night Raptors sample pics), it's more like kind half shiny half matte metallic. Very dark blue, almost midway between dark blue and petrol blue yet somewhat bright and vibrant at the same time. I had very specific 'vision' of the color and luster I liked and this recipe is as close to the vision I have gotten.

 

Also I might add that I have experimented with Kantor Blue, Black and no basecoats and to me they make all the later added colors look dull, hard to get sort of dark and bright combination at the same time.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Ghorgul

[Corswain]

Finally got mine photographed. Here they are:

I know you have your colours picked out but I thought it might interest others. Night Lords just look awesome in metallic. :)

[Dantay VI]

Does metal medium make a colour metallic?

[Ghorgul]

Does metal medium make a colour metallic?

According to manufacturer it makes colour 'metallic', but it actually becomes like pearly or 'glitter' like. It doesnt look like flat shiny metal surface. The metal medium can be mixed with anything really.

 

The metal medium itself is very light colored, so any color you mix it with will become much lighter. That explains why I used dark prussian blue which is brightest dark blue I found. You will need very bright colors when using the metal medium, that's also the reason I add the glaze on top of my metal medium mixture.

[1ncarnadine]

^Yup. The Vallejo Metallic Medium is literally just an aqueous mica suspension. So, mica flakes in water and maybe some other stuff that helps it stay suspended and apply well. It will water down whatever you mix it with. Less is more with this stuff, too. If you mix in too much it can look like your model has been rolling around in glitter. 

 

It's probably not what you want to use for the kinds of metallic schemes that have been popular for 30k. I'm pretty sure it was made to market to scale automobile modelers who want to replicate pearlescent show car schemes, and it can tend to make your toy soldiers look like...  well, gaudy show cars. Weathering can go a long way towards mitigating that impression. But it's also awesome for decorative pearlescent inlay (Emperor's Children, Ultramarines, Thousand Sons, Custodes, etc) or for an overall pearlescent scheme (White Scars, maybe white Custodes, maybe even black pearlescents could be cool on Iron Hands?). 

[Dantay VI]

I was wondering if t would bring the metallic back on decals after they have been varnished in matte.

 

On topic, I think the Crimson Fist Imperial Space Marine, would be a solid way to go for a metallic scheme