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.

So anyways

I base coated some tanks gunmetal
then hit them with a burnt umber ink:

Result was a pretty nice, deep brownish gold, I really like it

Now I've been further experimenting, shaded gunmetal to steel, hit it with the ink, and its brown, not gold
Just steel, woah thats just really pretty brown

I'll further the experiment tonight, I'm thinking maybe a black to gunmetal shading will retain the gold hue after the ink
My mission here is to find something I can drybrush overtop of the gunmetal to increase depth before the burnt umber coat, but I'm bad at painting and dont understand colors apprently. maybe black to copper to gunmetal?

Little help would be appreciated

Example picture: I'm still experimenting, but needed something for a tourney, you can see some of the infantry are this really nice, and some are just brown XD
https://i.imgur.com/kxOLdCM.jpg

Or maybe there's a base color dark gold that I haven't seen, most I've seen are straight up yellow

You could just try some bronze and/or brass paints. Vajello makes some really nice ones (Game Color Bright Bronze and Brassy Brass). Hit them with Agrax Earthshade, then highlight the raised areas with a brighter gold (edge highlight or drybrush).

I tend to agree with John Prins. If you want gold, why don't you just use gold?

I've had good results with various gold tones that receive a brown wash followed by a black wash, which provides a nice base layer with good depth that can then be highlighted. Examples in spoiler below.

As for a silver base, I've done that in the past with some armies (notable among them a squad of Black Templars, whose weapons I consider some of my best result with washed silver). I go heavy on washes (all of them GW), and as above use both a brown and a black layer. I suspect that's what happened to yours. Too much coverage obscures the paint underneath.

Depending how well you wash or ink covers the metal, you should look into lighter highlight colors if you want to apply them before the wash. This is in addition to going easy on it so as not to get too much pigment on the model. You are, after all, trying to stain and that requires a degree of translucency.

I'll give that a shot, I was just trying to use what I know (zenithial highlight) with a new color

So I'm guessing I go black-> tinny tin -> bronze -> lighter bronze, then hit it all with a brown wash?

Go with gold, and then apply a brown wash. Done?

Retributor armor, agrax earthshade, gehennas gold/auric armor gold. Its not rocket science.

 p5freak wrote:
Retributor armor, agrax earthshade, gehennas gold/auric armor gold. Its not rocket science.

Its also not the color i'm looking for

How are we supposed to know what color you are looking for ?? How about mixing retributor armor with balthasar gold ?

He described what colour he's looking for and posted a photo.

I get what you're talking about, Grundz. To be honest, the stuff you had painted gunmetal and then shaded with the umber does look great, and I have no idea why the steel leads to it just being brown. Could you thin the ink down perhaps? But then maybe it wouldn't react so well to the gunmetal parts. Perhaps you don't even need to adjust the formula at all - if gunmetal and umber works, it works. Use that. You could then highlight after the shade. You said you wanted to drybrush, so I guess simplicity and speed are the keys. I would suggest trying a really, really light drybrush of Necron Compound. A silver highlight on gold can, if done right, just look like light reflecting off the gold. Try to just flick the brush on the very edges, and aim for the upper edges rather than every single one.

p5freak wrote:How are we supposed to know what color you are looking for ?? How about mixing retributor armor with balthasar gold ?

By reading the post for starters?

feltmonkey wrote:He described what colour he's looking for and posted a photo.

I get what you're talking about, Grundz. To be honest, the stuff you had painted gunmetal and then shaded with the umber does look great, and I have no idea why the steel leads to it just being brown. Could you thin the ink down perhaps? But then maybe it wouldn't react so well to the gunmetal parts. Perhaps you don't even need to adjust the formula at all - if gunmetal and umber works, it works. Use that. You could then highlight after the shade. You said you wanted to drybrush, so I guess simplicity and speed are the keys. I would suggest trying a really, really light drybrush of Necron Compound. A silver highlight on gold can, if done right, just look like light reflecting off the gold. Try to just flick the brush on the very edges, and aim for the upper edges rather than every single one.

Yeah I wanted some light shading on the gold itself, I may need to shade downwards from the gunmetal instead of up, I ordered some brass shades to play around with it a little, but you got it, my ideal state is to airbrush shade the base coat quickly, but I can deal with some dry brushing or whatever if I need to.

I did some more quick and dirty experimenting today with the paints I had

so I quickly sprayed a repressor in tinny tin, gunmetal, steel, and some light brassy color I had which wasn't the greatest because it was still wet at the time of the ink spraying

it reacted as expected, tin was okay, gunmetal was the brownish gold I was looking for, steel showed through too much so it required too much paint to cover, turning it brown, the brass was "alright

I did some quick and dirty shading on some overspray, and I think that tin -> gunmetal -> a brass or gold may work as my zenith colors, or just black to tin to gunmetal and shade after the ink application, has anyone tried a transparent/light grey or black to add shadows post zenith spray?

Once the paints I was asked to try come in, in the next few days i'll give it another shot and nail down a painting order I think

Overspray test

I'm not really sure if I'm interpreting this right, but I believe that if you're using the same basecoat for all of your miniatures in the first image you sent, then the only reason they would go brown would be too much ink.

I love the nice bronze colour that the ink gives, but if you're struggling to find a good steel basecoat to use as a highlight pre-glaze, you could try doing some zenithal airbrushing with a lighter brass colour afterwards? Not quite sure if that's what you're looking for however. Good luck!

Ferrous695 wrote:
I'm not really sure if I'm interpreting this right, but I believe that if you're using the same basecoat for all of your miniatures in the first image you sent, then the only reason they would go brown would be too much ink.

I love the nice bronze colour that the ink gives, but if you're struggling to find a good steel basecoat to use as a highlight pre-glaze, you could try doing some zenithal airbrushing with a lighter brass colour afterwards? Not quite sure if that's what you're looking for however. Good luck!

Thats exactly what I'm trying, however the first models were highlighted

I dont zen highlight my models perfectly evenly, the ones highlighted a bit brighter than the rest, ended up much browner, it appears that the brighter steel color shows through too much and by the time it isn't steel anymore, its brown, where the darker colors meld into it more. I think we're on the right track bumping up the highlights to eliminate the brightest color and using a darker bronze instead of steel, which will probably be the way to go

I have every vallejo air paint that remotely resembles gold or steel in the mail for testing XD

Note that if you mix most Vajello (non-air) metallics with Airbrush Thinner on a 1:1 ratio they work great through an airbrush - just do so in a separate bottle and shake the dickens out of it. See this thread https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/775107.page for results, all with Game Color golds - brighter than what you're after, but every Vajello metal paint I've done this with has worked great over a black undercoat.

Yeah, but its not consistent, gunmetal blue and gunmetal are way thicker than my other metallics!

 Grundz wrote:
Yeah, but its not consistent, gunmetal blue and gunmetal are way thicker than my other metallics!

Reaper also makes a Gunmetal Blue I've had no trouble airbrushing with a bit of thinning. And experimenting is fun!