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Hi guys,

NOTE FORM THE AUTHOR: This Tutorial is copied from my official site. Some information may be outdated by now, still this tut should proove to be a valuable help to many painters.
For more Tutorials like this just go to SCARHANDPAINTING.COM

TUTORIAL: PAINTING WHITE

Two weeks ago I was participating in a tournament of Infinity the Game. Somewhere between games I chated with fellow hobbyist and as the topic moved to miniatures he asked me about my Infinity Corregidor’s white. What made him curious was how solid and actually ‘white’ that colour was. I started explaining and before I finished – a group of players was standing around and listening to my recipe. I then realised that a lot of painters struggle with white as it is not an easy colour to achieve. A common mistake is to paint layer after layer of pure white as usually all the irregularities made with first layer will still be visible.

So here’s what I have observed about white paint: White has a lot of pigment which is the reason for building irregularities on the painted surface. These irregularities lead to a formation of strong white points in contrast with all the area where white is not so strong at first. It does not matter how many layers we provide as a difference between these two will be visible for long after the painted surface looses all the detail. So I figured that in order to build a nice and strong white colour there should be a small number of thin layers. But how to achieve a perfect whiteness with only few layers? The answer to that question is below…



I USED:

* Chaos Black Undercoat (GW),

* Pallid Wych Flesh (GW),

* White,

* Matt Varnish (AP),



1 I applied Pallid Wych Flesh (GW) onto the surface. This layer is usually dirty and full of smudges. Black undercoat is also visible undernath it but I don't care. The key factor is to keep this layer thin so I blurredany accumulated paint with my brush adding a tiny bit of water (I used a Citadel Basecoat brush to be precise).



2 Next in line was a 1/1 mix of Pallid Wych Flesh (GW) and White. Once again I tried to keep the paint thin without adding any water. Just used the tip of the brush to clear any irregularities of paint. This layer has a lot of white's pigment, further enchanced by Pallid Wych Flesh so it should be easy to obtain a solid colour at this point - still not 'white' tho.



3 Third layer follows the same rules as the first one. I kept a thin layer of pure white mixed with a tiny bit of water.



! You can repeat this layer to make sure the whiteness is 'perfect' before proceeding to the next one...

4 To further smoothe the surface I used Matt Varnish. It solidified the 'whiteness' of my layers but I had to be very careful due to Varnish's tendention of drawing small hair and dust fragments. After applying this layer I put the miniature into a small plastic box so that no dusty trash will land on it while it dries out.



That’s it – that’s the whole secret of pure and strong white.

I had a lot of difficulities taking proper pictures so please treat these pics as not entirely true – I have these pieces before me and there’s a lot of colour difference between balls 1st to 4th, and some difference in smoothness between 4th and 5th. Still you now know the recipe and it should work for you just as it works for me

Cool tutorial, but why wouldnt you use white primer?

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
Cool tutorial, but why wouldnt you use white primer?

Thanks,

White primer is just bad for most of the colours. They look totally different when on black. Also to use white primer on a miniature that is 95% grey/red is just a waste of time. An the most important: When using white primer it is very easy to get 'white' dirty when painting other colours.

That being said - I rarely use white primer

I know i hate white primer. Im just saying For bit like use used above im surprised you wouldnt prime those white and the rest black.

But I see what you are saying. You are giving a tutrial is a mini waste primed black, how to paint it white if its primed black.

I need to try army painter white. MY GW white is all chunky and doesnt work well anymore. I started using my Badger Minitaire but that is very thin.

Army Painter has a range of awesome paints. Actually Black/White, Metallics, and Washes are identical do old GW ones. I especially like Washes (INK's) as these are much better than the new ones GW released.

I will make a review of Army Painter's paints in few weeks - that's for sure.

Ah nice to know. I would have to respectfully disagree with you on the inks. I like GW's shades better. To me GW's shades get down into the recesses much more then Army Painters.

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
Ah nice to know. I would have to respectfully disagree with you on the inks. I like GW's shades better. To me GW's shades get down into the recesses much more then Army Painters.

I use Vallejo for the purpose you mentioned, while AP's are used to make colours more juicy and overall strenghten them