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Whenever I paint with whites, it comes out almost chalky and clumpy. I can never get a smooth layer. Can you guys help me out? How do I paint with whites? (Example: White Scar and Ceramite White)

Use a wet palette, start with black primer, eshin grey, codex grey, astratinum grey, highlight white.

Get some airbrush thinner and squirt some in when it gets clumpy

Add retarder and thin. Expect to have to use lots (at least 3) coats to base. Start light grey and layer up to pure white.

Yes, start grey over black primer and work up to the white.

MindSculpter66 wrote:
Whenever I paint with whites, it comes out almost chalky and clumpy. I can never get a smooth layer. Can you guys help me out? How do I paint with whites? (Example: White Scar and Ceramite White)

It really depends how much work you want to do. White is probably the most difficult color to get to look good.

As others suggest, you need some layers of color, but you don't have to start out with black. Decide if you want a cool (blue-ish) or warm (red-ish) white, and throw down a coat of off white. blend that up a few times to highlights of pure white.

Could white scar, & ceramite white work

Over thinning can cause it to come out chalky too IIRc.

Personal preference however is to start with 50 50 mix of white and a grey. like dark sea greyish color.

Then add more white as you go.

I use white a lot. There are two ways.

Start black

Or

Start White.

If you start black thin your white 1st coat of paint and be VERY careful of "2 minute old cack" in the "gunnels" of your brush.. litterally rewash it every 3 or 4 mins.. to the bone... wash it like new.. make the white you use a mix of almost 50/50 with water. (Or use thinner, but practice with water and you won't need thinner) you need to sort of still see the colour slightly of the paint bristles (ever so slightly) shining through the 50/50 white water mix. Use as much water as you can get but not si much the paint goes to a "pool". Then apply it and USE THE SAME DIRECTION AND BE VERY CONSCIOUS OF BRUSH STROKES.. paint a "grain" of the white on the black and repeat for about 5 or 6 layers. Avoid recesses with the last 2 or 3 coats. You want the darker colour in the recesses. Lastly wash DELICATELY with nuln oil ONLY at the extreme shade edges that you wish to darken. Use a tiny amount and on the thinnest brush you have. Nuln oil is glossy (which is deadly if you let it get it's glossy sheen going it will ruin it.)

If you start with white just use nuln oil on it but PAINT the nuln oil on purpose only where you need it. And use more than the other way. And then paint a 50/50 white /water "wash" layer onto that again in a sort of grain. This is mostly to soften the nuln slightly. The 50/50 is chalky when it goes on and it kills gloss well.

You can also use earth shade agorax or the blue oil (forget it's name) instead of nuln if you are going for a alternate feel.

This is one white based white I did the other day.. the inage is zoomed in and looks good in person

Nothing wrong with that my friend.

Really the key to painting white is patience. If you rush it you're only asking for trouble.

A lot of people are saying start with black primer, but you may want to start with white.

I recently completed an army and I used VGC White Primer, and I brushed it on in about 3 layers. I was going for a pale green colour but to get what I wanted I had to start with a nice solid white, which was pretty painless considering.

To get the dark recesses I simply used a dark wash and applied it in the areas I wanted to be darker. This seems like an extra step but really it's not. When you are priming black typically you want to leave the recesses black, so you have that shading already, but the way I did it was much easier. By priming white I didn't have to worry about keeping the white paint out of the recesses and I was able to prime all my models quite quickly because of this.


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That Eldar dude looks pretty good. That's what my first sentence was in reference to, just in case there was any confusion.

While his helm isn't that stark white, it has a nice depth to it and I can't find anything wrong with it at all.

Do whatever you did to him to the rest of your army and you will be laughing!

I prefer to start with a white basecoat and work down to my shades rather than starting with a black basecoat and working up to white.

Airbrush or spray the white on and work my way down to the shades.

You can shade white with lots of different colours, blues, greys, browns all work pretty well.

Another tip to add is to make sure that if you dilute it with water, make sure it is clean, and not the water you are rinsing your brushes in. That will help prevent a chalky finish.

I'm with Skink here: wherever possible, I start with a white basecoat for models that have large portions of white. Or, I prime the pieces with lots of white separately.

The new Corax White spray is actually super nice (but super expensive!).

Where this isn't an option, or not a GOOD option (say, dark angels shoulder symbol on Dark Vengeance kit), my suggestion is to work your way to white. Start with Celestra Grey, paint it until it's solid, then layer Ulthuan grey until it's solid, and then layer with white scar, until it's solid.

Use a FLAT (or angled, or filbert) brush if possible. Not a round!. For each coat, thin thin thin! I highly recommend Liquitex Flo-Aid for this. I've made it work with water, but it's much harder. Either way, to get from solid black to solid white brushstroke free, it will take TONS of coats. Realistically... 15-20 coats of thin thin paint is not out of the question.

To give you an idea, the wings on this banner, and the numbers on the wing in these two are fairly large areas that were layered up to white from red primer. They were easily 20 coats of paint, thinned with flo-aid. But you can stick it up to your nose, and you won't see a brushstroke.



Edit: Two last tips --

- you can use a sanding block or sandpaper that is very very fine (like, 1000 grit), and **very** lightly, once the paint is 100% dry, sand it down just a tiny bit to get rid of brushstrokes, especially if it's one visible one that popped up at the end. I mentioned very lightly, and TOTALLY dry, right? (if it's wet, you'll make a mess of the model).

- because white irregularities catch the light and cast shadows, white brushstrokes are highly visible

I like to use Vallejo Model Colour Silvergrey. That's a very pale grey, so pale that against most other colours it looks white anyway, but I can use pure white as a highlight, so the colour isn't too flat.

You can do something similar with a very pale blue or beige (or green, purple, etc) if you want an off-white tone.