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I'm getting ready to paint a miniature that is wearing golden armor, and I'm not sure how to go about doing it.

Actually it's not a warhammer guy, it's a Reaper miniature for D&D.
But the folks here at DakkaDakka have helped me out with a lot of other things, no better place to go for miniature advice.
I'll be using Citadel paints and tools, already have a lot from painting warhammer guys.

It's a paladin who is wearing a golden plate armor
http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/03292/latest/03292#detail/03292_almaran_front_jb



Citadel guides describe using metallic paints for this, and I've painted plenty of golden details on space marines using them.
But is that appropriate here? Can I still get those bright highlights using metallic paints?

If metallic paints are not best here, then what should be used?
What colors specifically?
I really want it to look just like the picture in that link above.
No, that's not exactly original, but it looks amazing and I want mine to look the same.

The paladin in the picture is painted without metallic paints. This is a non-metalic metal paintstyle. This requires a good knowledge of blending and how metal shinyness work. (This is also way above my painting skills)

But what you should look for if you want to do something similar is tutorials on non-metallic metal (often shortened to "NMM")
For example one from dakka's tutorial section: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/473705.page#4737222

I'm certainly no painting expert, but the only way I've ever been able to get gold to look right is to paint a light brown undercoat with gold on top (this is over black primer). The brown kind of evens out the gold so you don't have to paint so many coats. Again, not an expert but this works for me.

 btldoomhammer wrote:
This is a non-metalic metal paintstyle. This requires a good knowledge of blending and how metal shinyness work. (This is also way above my painting skills)

Well, it's a bit beyond my skill too

I've tried to get non-metallic metal to work before and I just can't do it.
But then that was a while ago and I've gotten much better at painting since then.
Perhaps I'll do a test model and see if I can pull it off.

EDIT: Oh, and that video is great
So many videos like this are in poor quality, don't show the miniature close enough or in good detail.
I'll try these techniques on some extra warhammer pieces.



Any other advice?

One way of doing gold that I've found to be good is a black undercoat, Runelord Brass base coat, Agrax Earthshade wash, Sycorax Bronze to finish it off. It gives a nice dark gold that in my, obviously biased opinion, looks pretty good.
Sorry in advance for this big picture, but I think a visual aid may help

You could either try out the new Gold base paint from GW, use the vallejo alcohol paint, or my personal favourite, if you have access to tin bitz, dwarf bronze, shining gold, burnished gold, mithril silver and any sepia wash make a 1:1:1:1 mix of the four first, then layer a thin coat of dwarf bronze on top, then thin layer of shining gold over that and then very thin burnished gold over that then edge highlight of mithril silver then sepia wash

Egregious wrote:
I'm certainly no painting expert, but the only way I've ever been able to get gold to look right is to paint a light brown undercoat with gold on top (this is over black primer). The brown kind of evens out the gold so you don't have to paint so many coats. Again, not an expert but this works for me.

This. I use a very thin layer of brown. It doesn't even have to totally cover the black primer.

If you want a really bright and shiny gold then I do the same thing but use a yellow instead.

Well, here's a test run with a space marine arm.

It's . . . . terrible, I know.
This might not really be my thing.

What I'd like to know is where did you get gold armor and why do you want paint it?

I'd say it's a good start.
The problem is just the transition from one color into the next. You probably need to mix the colors so that you get more shade to work with. And if you thin it down and do more layers the thinner paint allows the underlaying one to shine through.
This will be very time consuming but if you want to archive something similar to the paladin there is no other way. Or just stick with the metal paints and do what the others here have suggested.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/105449-painting-magmatrax-tutorial/

About halfway down the page (post #11) he talks about NMM and how he did it. However, the whole thing is a great read. Very inspiring stuff.

 virx67 wrote:
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/105449-painting-magmatrax-tutorial/

About halfway down the page (post #11) he talks about NMM and how he did it. However, the whole thing is a great read. Very inspiring stuff.

oh lord, that is amazing looking gold metal

I don't know if I can pull that off.
Well, I still have plenty more space marine arms to mess with.
Gonna make a few more practice runs.

Like many here, I'm not a master painter. But, my bright shiny golds are one of the things I've found that I do really like about my painting style. It works best when the primary color of the armor is much darker, because of the contrast. Here's one of my most recent models with it, my Chaos Knight champion.






I use Vallejo Game Color instead of Citadel, because it's so close to the old Citadel line (or really, they have just about everything exactly the same) and I know the old one better. Yes, the chart is out there, but it does a poor job. Anyway, I start with my model primed black. Then my undercoat is Brassy Brass (I believe this was called Brazen Brass with the old Citadel line), then I go back over that with Polished Gold (Shining Gold). Completely go over the undercoat, it's really just there to make the gold coat more smooth and full. Next I mix the Polished Gold with Silver (Mithril Silver) one-to-one and highlight most everything: edges, raised bits, spikes, etc. Lastly, I do a much lighter highlight with straight Silver in all the places from the first highlight, leaving most of the original highlight showing.

Hmmm, maybe I would be better off to stick with metallic paints. That armor doesn't look too bad.

Not to toot my own horn, but I've produced some pretty damned good stuff - so long as I stick with what I'm good doing. Wet blending and non-metallic metal have just been impossible for me.