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hi guys!
i'm thinking of painting a series of minis in black and white using alot of shading and mainly using black, different shades of grey and white. inspiration would be marvels' noir series and Batman black and white statues.

my real question is: anyone know the best way of doing this? any articles? and also does is sound like a good idea?

I think this would be a great exercise to improve painting, as it would really force you to study light and shadow and make it work on a mini, which is not necessarily how light actually falls. That said, I think it would look really cool if you could pull it off. Just won't be easy. I'd pick one of two distinct directions I can see you taking this: meticulous blending through the whole scale of grays (like you plan) or very stark black and white, perhaps a few mid-tones (but sparingly) to go for a more comic book feel. I think both would look awesome.

As for practical advice... I've got nothing. Cheers!

Oh, and if the dakka community hasn't drilled it into your head, yet, we'll need pics.

thanks, was also thinking about a sin city style piece, something like everything in blacks whites and greys and then blood could be a bright red, or even the the chapter sign in it's true color.

will take me some time to get this done and alot of practise but i will definatly put pics up from wip to finished product once i get started!!

but if anyone sees anything please, feel free to let me know!

I can only speak for ink and watercolour paintings in this concept, but it is much easier to get a rough idea of how the light will play before you start since you really don't have a forgiving colour scheme to fall back on. If you can't draw, take a photo of the model and figure out the rough masses of light and shadow using an image program.

Working off a grey primer with a quick, light black wash to help pick out the details will be easiest. Failing that, work off white primer, same wash. Working off black is good in theory, but unless you're cell shading it and know exactly where each highlight is going it can be tricky. I agree with picking out a few details all in the same colour afterwards; if you do a red shoulder pad, for instance, then consider adding some battle damage and wounds so you can echo it with some slightly less vivid red blood.


And toss all of this out if someone more knowledgeable about doing greyscale on miniatures comes along, as I said I'm only working off paper and ink where you work light to dark and can't remove the stuff afterwards.

thanks this is all helpful and am taking everyones ideas on board!

The easiest way to actually paint the model would be apply increasingly light layers of grey with a drybrush. You would need to make sure there is very little paint on the brush (even more than normal drybrushing) and make up for the lack of paint on the brush by multiple coats of brushing.

I am currently painting some SW in a grey scheme and for the base colour I used codex grey, washed badab black, then dry brushed lightly with astronomican grey I found I had a model which looked very black and white photo style.

I really like the idea of making one part of the model coloured and hope you post photos once your done.

It isn't too difficult to find tutorials online for doing this.

The technique is usually called grey-scaling. I know that there's a tutorial video by Jen Haley about it, but there are other places you can find tutorials.

One thing to keep in mind is that the composition has to be established through contrast, so make sure that the different light and dark areas are working together.

Adding in a little blood in dark red could give the minis a Sin City look. Just make sure it is glossy and looks like real blood.


Now have a blast.