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Well, I survived Vegas and the ensuing week of sleep depravation / booze hangover. I didn't get much painting done however, choosing instead a Guitar Hero III based rehab regimen (finally beat Lou on Hard!). Anyway, we've also started painting the house here in preparation to put it on the market, so I've been doing somewhat less detailed painting of late.

All that being said, I've still found some time for my Kovnik, so I thought I'd present a study on my effort to attain Wayfarer's white results using his techniques. All paint colours I mention are from the Reaper Masters Series line.

I start by basecoating in Leather White - it required two coats:


Next, a wash of Weathered Stone:


Followed by a wash of ~50/50 Weathered Stone & Stone Grey:


Finally, a thin coat of Leather White again in the raised areas, and ~50/50 Leather White & Pure White to highlight the edges:


The light source for these pics wasn't great, but you can still get the basic idea. I'm concerned my dark areas aren't dark enough, but I'm not sure how best to deal with it. A thicker wash in step two? More of the darker Stone Grey pigment? Any other handy white-painting techniques out there?

PS Kudos to the Dakka paint-matching chart. It, and others, were essential for figuring out the Vallejo-to-Reaper conversions.

Dude: They're the same picture.

Hahaha. If I can tell the difference on my ultra-crap IBM T30 laptop LCD, the difference is there.

If the transition is too subtle, try looking at the first, and then the last.

That being said, if you look at pic #4 and think "it's just painted flat white", I have an issue with executing this technique properly. I'd love some advice!

I think you could definitely use some more contrast in the transitions. Not so much that it feels 'stepped' with the color transitions, but some additional variation wouldn't hurt at all here.

Do you have a quick link to the models in question Wayfarer used this white on?

Here's Wayfarer's thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/210922.page#281279

I asked him specifically about the white he used for his paladin's shoulder pads.

As far as my Kovnik here goes, when he's done and photographed under better light we'll see how he looks. If it's rubbish, I have 5 Demo Corps (which look just like him) to try something different on.

Maybe it's my laptop then.

Actually now that I've got some comparison I can see how the effect is working and how it's not.

The spots that it's not working for you are around the rivets and in some of the deeper areas of the model. You might think to go in and add the darker color back in around these areas (the abdomen is a prime example of a spot that could use some more of this dark color in the recesses).

The thighs are spot on for what you're trying to achieve though, I'd look there and try to remember how you painted them to get an idea of how you should look to paint the rest of the model.

More Dark color in Deep spots.

The Kovnik is done! You can see the results here.


Thanks for the feedback GD. I tried some targetted application of shading after reading your post which made for some improvement. We'll see if I can't do a bit better on the Demo Corps.

Next up is Widowmakers!

Holy crap! Back from the dead with those long-promised Widowmakers! Hopefully this thread will get more active again over the coming months.

Iron Fangs! I finished the last of the brass rod pike replacements last week, and now they're primed. It's been a long time since I painted a unit of troop this size, so it should be an interesting change of pace. I don't expect I'll get much painting done until the second half of March, but I hope to have them finished before the month is out.