Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Topic: Is Ceramite White that bad? I bought a pot a couple of weeks back and I just found out that a lot of Reddit threads find it to be terrible.

What are your experiences with it? Should I give sell this off? One user said it's "chalky." Maybe it's would be good for painting certain types of terrain because of this "chalky" characteristic?

I've only used it for my Deathwatch chapter shoulder pads, but I've found it dries way to quick and even if thinned down it doesn't seem all that good when applied. I've tried being quick with a thick coat and several thinned coats and not been happy with the end result. I think I'm going to try the new contrast white as a replacement.

I've had ok results with Ceramite white but prefer Reaper's white. I always forget the name but it's slightly better in my opinion.
90% of complaints about any white paint will be from people trying to get a crisp white over black primer.

Yes. Its awful! It is chalky. I use vallejo for my whites, but never pure white, normally offwhite.

I use it, its ok you must mix it very well before use, I have a glass bead in mine too.
I always give it a shake even if I dont need it just to keep it from going globby and separating

 Rybrook wrote:
I use it, its ok you must mix it very well before use, I have a glass bead in mine too.

Forgive me, I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to paints. Why a glass bead?

Ceramite White is the only paint I've ever had thats gone weird.

Others have separated but plenty of shaking and/or stirring has restored it enough to use, but the white seems to resist such attempts.

I've never had good results with it.

It's supposedly been dropped from the line as well, with the general realignment of stuff with the upcoming release of the Contrast line. Good riddance, it was awful. I didn't see any plans to replace it, so I suppose you'll have to use the White Scar layer if you want to stick with GW. People wanting to patch cracks in their house foundation will cry over the loss; few others will miss Ceramite White. Or Imperial Primer.

Ceramite White needs to have the crap shaken out of it. A paint agitator (such as the aforementioned glass bead) works wonders though if you have some.

It's quite a thick paint though, so using thinning medium can be quite useful. Water works fine too, but something like lahmian medium works better.


Now I seem to be a major outlier in regards to this paint, but I love it. I've never had a problem with it being chalky or gritty or anything else. It separates like mad, sure. But a good shake fixes that without a problem.
I'd say definitely give it a few uses before you discount it or get rid of it. It's very useful for laying down a solid white basecoat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 totalfailure wrote:
It's supposedly been dropped from the line as well,

Ach, that's terrible news.
I'll have to snag a couple of extra pots.

My white is:
4 parts VMC Ivory
1 part VMC Sky Grey
1 part medium of choice

This produces a smooth, thin, and opaque neutral white. VMC Ivory is magic.

PourSpelur wrote:
90% of complaints about any white paint will be from people trying to get a crisp white over black primer.

I totally manage to do just that thanks to the above formula.


It takes three layers of my formula directly on top of black. First layer has transparency and is rather ugly; using straight Sky Grey might be a safer base color upon reflection. Second layer is mostly opaque. I wait for it to completely cure, sand it with 2000 grit automotive sandpaper. Then I paint a final layer on top to clean up.

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:

 Rybrook wrote:
I use it, its ok you must mix it very well before use, I have a glass bead in mine too.

Forgive me, I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to paints. Why a glass bead?

Its a paint agitator, sort of like a rattle can when shaken.
Just a mixing aid so paint isn't wasted on a stirrer and being glass wont rust in the paint

 Rybrook wrote:

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:

 Rybrook wrote:
I use it, its ok you must mix it very well before use, I have a glass bead in mine too.

Forgive me, I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to paints. Why a glass bead?

Its a paint agitator, sort of like a rattle can when shaken.
Just a mixing aid so paint isn't wasted on a stirrer and being glass wont rust in the paint

Ah, useful. I'll have to get some glass beads then, as I have quite a few paints that need regular mixing.

Terrible stuff, it's chalky and inconsistent between pots and separates on the palette, something I very rarely see unless I leave for a while and come back later.

Well, I'm a fan of Ceramite White personally, though all I use it for is to drybrush Daemons over a black primer.

As above. The finish consistency is terrible. I only use it to "thicken" other paints. A small dot off small brush helps increase the pigment density (thus increasing coverage) without actually changing the color significantly.

So far I've only mixed it with a brush-on primer to repair painted metal minis. It was ok, but nothing to write home about.

Yes.

Holy. A handful of positive feedback here and there but the consensus is that it's awful. Thanks for the heads-up guys!

If allowed, I'll post a picture here once I paint my dire avengers. (Is it?)

Honestly, since you already have the paint, i'd say at least use it a few times and decide for yourself whether you like it or not. It's all very well and good for all of us to tell you what we think, one way or the other, but it really comes down to think of it at the end of the day.



Yes, posting pictures is allowed (and encouraged!!). You can either upload them to the Dakka Gallery or you can link them via an external host.

 PPPointyEars wrote:
Holy. A handful of positive feedback here and there but the consensus is that it's awful. Thanks for the heads-up guys!

If allowed, I'll post a picture here once I paint my dire avengers. (Is it?)

Save it for terrain or snowy bases. For white use Celestra Gray then Ulthuan, that’s the advice I was given and it works. After you shade the recesses you can use some use a 50/50 mix of Ceramite and medium to kinda glaze some white on the highest areas but pull it out on a palette first, my last three bottles have been a chalky, chunky, half dry mess. White Scar may as well be milk for all the coverage you get.

There’s a couple of new colors coming next week so you might check those out, the new off white base (Gray Seer?) sounds promising. White pigment is titanium oxide and it happens to be hard to mill it down into a very fine powder for mixing in an acrylic medium with any kind of coverage. Most whites are pretty bad so use an off white, shade the recesses, and the panels will appear to be white in contrast. Ulthuan may not look white enough as you paint it on but it will once you shade the surrounding area, I was surprised.

Took me a second to find pics of my AT Warlord panels, that’s Ulthuan and I haven’t even shaded it yet.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
Most whites are pretty bad so use an off white, shade the recesses, and the panels will appear to be white in contrast.

Also note that this is something you want to be doing anyway even if you miraculously had a perfect white paint. Pure white is almost never seen in the real world so putting it on a model (except as tiny highlights) inevitably looks unrealistic and cartoonish. You always want to use an off-white color for the majority of the white areas and save the pure white for the very brightest highlights. A white paint with perfect coverage would only be useful as a base coat to quickly get close to your off-white color when you don't want to use a white primer.

Yes, it really is, it's by far one of the worst paints out there. It's the only paint I will actively advise people not to buy, in front of GW employees, in their store and everyone has agreed.

First of the quality of the paint is horrible, nothing about it is redeeming, it's very chalky, seperstes super easy, and dries like crap.

Second from a painting stand point you never want to use pure white unless it's a super high edge highlight. I often suggest palyd witch flesh over it, as the off white is much better. It you really want white, use Misty grey fr reaper.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Yes, it really is, it's by far one of the worst paints out there.

Which is probably why it's been discontinued and replaced with a pot version of Corax White.

I've had really good results with it, but I always thin it with Lahmian Medium and not water.

My only complaint about it is that the pots dry out quickly. Alarmingly quick. I've had to resort to storing them in a Ziploc bag with a wet paper towel to keep them from drying out.

I actually need to keep all of my GW paints in an air tight container with a humidifying pack.

Bad news everyone.
The new corax white sucks too. It’s not the colour (it was never the colour with ceramite either) it’s the damn texture. Yuck.


Wraithbone is good though!

Applying light colours over a darker basecoat leaves a lot of paint chalky. Wraithbone suffers from this too and it's because of the white pigments in the paint. I assume that's what you mean by texture.

I tried Wraithbone base paint over a medium grey primer, took me 7 or 8 thinned layers to get a perfect coverage and even then the finish was slightly uneven because of the many layers :/

For painting white I prefer VMC Matt White, need a little bit of thinning and still takes a couple of coats, but it's the smoothest white I had so far. The Army Painter Warpaints Matt White and Formula P3 White aren't that bad either, I used them before I tried VMC Matt White.

So sorry for the very late reply but my wife just opened a small restaurant and RL priorities came flooding in.

Okay so no white on models except for bases. Shake it well if you must use it. Use white only for highlighting.

Noted guys. Thanks!

How about using it for highlighting on tiny parts like say, the edges of the pauldron of an Iyanden eldar?

 Dynas wrote:
Yes. Its awful! It is chalky. I use vallejo for my whites, but never pure white, normally offwhite.

Offwhite is king. Be it Warm or Cold. Using the rest of your color palette and human color perceptions the off white can "appear" bright white.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stahly wrote:
I tried Wraithbone base paint over a medium grey primer, took me 7 or 8 thinned layers to get a perfect coverage and even then the finish was slightly uneven because of the many layers :/

For painting white I prefer VMC Matt White, need a little bit of thinning and still takes a couple of coats, but it's the smoothest white I had so far. The Army Painter Warpaints Matt White and Formula P3 White aren't that bad either, I used them before I tried VMC Matt White.

What is wrong with your wraithbone?

Mine is thick and covers extremely well. So well that I can even use it thinned as primer since it has a LOT of binder agent. Wraithbone is in my go-to list.