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I have recently embarked down the path of Astra Militarum, more specifically the Valhallans. I chose white as the end goal, but I would like it to look like I didn't just spray paint them white and then put them on the table for play. More or less like they have seen some stuff, and you can visually see the dirt of the white coats.

All opinions and techniques are appreciated.
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I'd start with celestra grey as a base coat, then highlight up with ulthuan and the white scar, that way you will create some depth. Very thin glazes of whatever colour you are doing the bases with around the hems of the great coats will give the impression of dirt, and help break up the colour. Depending on the level of realism you want, a couple of glazes of seraphim sepia beneath the pits will help make them look like they have been wearing them a lot, and over a long period of time.

Hope that helps, and remember to post pictures

Well so far my buddy with an air gun based them all a Vellejo white already. Should I offer money to have them redone ? I was initially thinking of starting Grey and moving into whites. Would really like to attempt a more realistic dirty look. Looks like I need to buy some more paint...

Thanks!

For a dirty white you could use a light grey base coat and then a wetbrush of white followed by a coat of heavily diluted brown wash.

This works really well for uniforms but I 'm not sure how it would work with flat and solid surfaces like armour.

If you want a dirty white starting with a pure white undercoat isn't actually a bad way to go because you can weather it down. You actually tend to look "clean" if you start from a grey and highlight upwards, but starting from a pure white and dirtying it up can work well if that's the look you're going for.

There's various ways to weather that could be appropriate. A few ideas might be...

Acrylic washes.

Painting acrylic dark greys/browns in to crevices. Also stippling them.

Weathering powders.

Oil washes.

Unthinned oils (or only slightly thinned). You can paint them directly in to the crevices and then use a clean brush, clean tissue or cloth to blend them in to the rest of the area. The advantage of oils over acrylics for this is that you can really work them, add more, take some away, blend it in, stipple it, basically just keep working it and it won't dry out on you and leave you with an "oh crap" moment where you have to restart it because you did something that didn't work. I'd recommend using a gloss varnish before you start oiling though.

For example, this was done with oils over a pure white basecoat...



Instead of just using beige like that, you could use a mix of browns and dark greys to create a rougher, dirtier and more gritty effect.

Good to know! How many layers of whites, and greys should be applied? As for oils I currently have nulin oil and agrax earthshade to attempt on my chaps. Are either of those sufficient enough for proper oils? I mainly have GW paints...

Thanks.

I personally love sockwithaticket's white that he gets on his Blood Angel successor chapter: http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-51170-25983_Crimson%20Tears%202nd%20Company%20Wip.html

I'm pretty sure he said he uses Vallejo Model Colour White - which I also love. It's a great paint, as to the rest of his technique I'm not certain. But I think it's just regular washes and re-applying the white in thin layers.

AllSeeingSkinks example looks gorgeous, as per usual.

I've found when I'm painting white or yellow - prior to adding any washes I just Gloss the F out of it with aerosol, my airbrush or just brush-on if it's a small part like shoulder-pad etc. Then the wash falls right into the crevasses without disrupting your flat white areas much - and if it does you can wipe it off quickly with a clean moist brush. Then after apply a matte-varnish.

Anyway good luck and post pics of your progress!

So far a Vellejo white has been applied. I am going out to buy more whites today and tomorrow.

What do I puchase for the gloss or varnish needed to apply? I have never done this before... Even though I have been painting for 5 years now, I only have painted around 30 models. This is my first attempt at Guardsmen.

Thanks much!

Best way to paint white, if you really want it to be white white, use Palyd witch flesh, and wash it.

Another trick to do, is just that, a trick. This is applicable to black as well. When painting you can trick the eye to think something is another color, if you paint in palid witch flesh, paint darker colors next to it, this will make the white look whiter with out making it look like...BLAH.

The way i paint white, if i want to have it look dirty is base in Palyd witch flesh, wash lightly in nulin oil, then highlight in white scare.

Glad to hear someone else is doing white uniformed guardsmen.
I do mine by starting with a cool grey, and then spraying white acrylic at a 45 degree angle to give a soft highlight and shade I can work over with a brush.
A variety of skin tones amongst your guys looks really good when they have bright uniforms.

 Greyguy13 wrote:
Good to know! How many layers of whites, and greys should be applied? As for oils I currently have nulin oil and agrax earthshade to attempt on my chaps. Are either of those sufficient enough for proper oils? I mainly have GW paints...

Thanks.

GW's washes are all acrylics rather than oils. When I talk about oil paints and oil washing, I mean the stuff you get from art shops that comes in tubes.

You can use acrylics as well, but I find oils to give a different sort of effect.

Have a look at these videos...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S2fpoCDtAI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPDOqj9Kk3s

So that's painting a horse, but the same sort of thing applies to painting a dirty white. If you see how he does the veins in the 2nd video, you can do that with a white acrylic base coat and apply a small amount of oil paint where you want an accumulation of grime, then swap to a clean brush and feather it out so you don't have an ugly stark contrast. You build it up in layers before it dries, add a bit of brown paint in to a crevice, feather it in, add a bit more, maybe feather it in, maybe don't, maybe add a bit of another brown or a grey and smoosh is in to the colour you already had.

That sort of stuff. With a bit of practice it's actually a reasonably fast way to paint a good looking dirt effect over white.

But it's just one way, not necessarily the best way, just a way I personally like. You can also use weathering powders or if you're good with a brush, you might be able to achieve a similar effect with regular acrylics.

 Greyguy13 wrote:
So far a Vellejo white has been applied. I am going out to buy more whites today and tomorrow.

What do I puchase for the gloss or varnish needed to apply? I have never done this before... Even though I have been painting for 5 years now, I only have painted around 30 models. This is my first attempt at Guardsmen.

Thanks much!

How much area of the model is white? ...if a lot I'd recommend glossing the entire thing with aerosol (Testors gloss coat and Testors dull-coat) or airbrush (Vallejo Model AIR gloss or matte varnish, or even Minitaire Varnish, Liquitex might work too) -- do you have an airbrush?

If a smaller area just brush-on. GW Ard coat, Vallejo Model Colour varnishes are water-based so you can thin (with water hah) and they go on nicely, shake them well though. My friend swears by Johnson's Floor Polish with Future Shine as a great brush-on gloss - it's thin so you could apply to entire model apparently.

Once it's glossed I also apply my decals/transfers as well as the washes (just standard GW washes). Then matte and finish painting.

The Vallejo Model Colour white is really nice though, you might find it easy enough to just skip the varnish and 'touch-up' areas where the wash dirtied.

The method of using OIL paints for wash is pretty solid, but I'm too lazy to deal with the proper thinners and cleaners and it takes a long time to dry and stinks up the house something fierce. On tanks I'd say it's maybe worth it though.

 Gunzhard wrote:
I personally love sockwithaticket's white that he gets on his Blood Angel successor chapter: http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-51170-25983_Crimson%20Tears%202nd%20Company%20Wip.html

I'm pretty sure he said he uses Vallejo Model Colour White - which I also love. It's a great paint, as to the rest of his technique I'm not certain. But I think it's just regular washes and re-applying the white in thin layers.

Thanks for pimping me out, man! Glad you like my stuff.

VMC White is my final step and certainly my absolute favourite white paint. Technique has evolved a buit over time it's now:

2-3 thin layers of Vallejo Game Colour Stonewall Grey, enough to mostly completely cover black primer.

3-5 thin layers of VGC Ghosty Grey, whatever gets you to a full coat.

Couple of thin layers of Reaper Master Series White

3 - 5 thin layers of VMC White, which is the most vivid white I've ever used.

I'll shade either by layering down from white to almost pure VGC Stonewall Grey or using Vallejo Pale Grey wash (the latter in cases where there are lots of raised points and crevices, eg. winged icons that space marines an guardsmen tend to have).


Greyguy13 - My white is pretty clean, though, if you want a more lived in white, you'll likely want to your brightest point to be an off white, at which point I would recommend VGC Ghosty grey if you're going for a cold palette. Start with grey and layer your way up.
If you've already put pure white down, the Vallejo Grey wash, particularly on guardsmen uniforms, could be your thing. Can't say I've ever put down a coat of gloss on anything I've painted, but it might be worth experimenting to see if you like the way that works. It should be added I speak with the experience of a purely hairy brush painter, no air for me

I can only give my examples on how I've done "dirty whites" for marines, but it should work fairly universally.

For the apothecaries in my example picture below:
Step 1:
I primed them with Vallejo grey primer, because I don't have any white on hand much anymore.

Step 2:
basecoated in pure white, in my case I used VMA white as I was doing this with an airbrush.

Step 3:
after letting them completely dry, I used very thinned down Seraphim Sepia and coated the entire model. It was built it up a bit more in the recesses.
Note: You can use water to think the wash, though I would personally suggest a thinning medium (lahmian medium or your choice of product)

Step 4:
Using very thinned down White, slowly build up your highlights to be as clean as you like with several almost glaze like coats.


My personal results.

I truly did not expect so much positive feedback with suggestions. As soon as paints arrive I will be trying out most of these techniques! I really want to better my painting, while getting more into the advanced aspect of it.

Pictures will be posted as models start being pushed out. Hopefully I can meet everyone's standards...

Thank you

 JamesY wrote:
I'd start with celestra grey as a base coat, then highlight up with ulthuan and the white scar, that way you will create some depth. Very thin glazes of whatever colour you are doing the bases with around the hems of the great coats will give the impression of dirt, and help break up the colour. Depending on the level of realism you want, a couple of glazes of seraphim sepia beneath the pits will help make them look like they have been wearing them a lot, and over a long period of time.

Hope that helps, and remember to post pictures

Thanks for the tip on the seraphim sepia. I never would have thought of that. I just did it on a skaven clanrat's clothes. He's the first model I've tried to use lots of white with.

 JamesY wrote:
I'd start with celestra grey as a base coat, then highlight up with ulthuan and the white scar, that way you will create some depth. Very thin glazes of whatever colour you are doing the bases with around the hems of the great coats will give the impression of dirt, and help break up the colour. Depending on the level of realism you want, a couple of glazes of seraphim sepia beneath the pits will help make them look like they have been wearing them a lot, and over a long period of time.

Hope that helps, and remember to post pictures

This but I use Vallejo whites as IMO they apply much better.

I've always found that working up from grey with thin coats of paint (about 3 to 4) gives the best result for a worn but not totally tarnished look. Airbrushes also work well for white, but you still still undercoat with something lighter. I use Vallejo Grey airbrush primer. I wish I had a pic from the other side but I did the head of my reaver with a white airbrush and it turned out well

It depends on how much effort you want to undergo, but if they're already primed/based white, you really don't need to undo that. I would use very gentle washes (thin GW washes with lahmian medium), and then accent the recesses with some slightly less thinned washes. Remember that you are better off with many thin coats of washes than a dark, thick wash. Do not slather it on, because where the wash pools excessively, it will not look good on white.

You can lighten them back up by drybrushing progressing up the scale of near-whites, as JamesY suggested. Reserve White Scar for the real highlights.

My suggestion for dirtying up white is to mostly separate the weathering from the unweathered model. That is, pick a color that represents the not fabric or metal not muddied, but correctly aged (for instance, a slight tint of bone or grey), paint the model clean, then add the mud and guck afterwards with techniques like drybrushing.

Here is my first, weak, attempt at my Valhallans using some techniques from you chaps!





Let me know what you all think. I am pretty happy with the outcome, though I know he can look so much better....