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The topic title pretty much sums up everything. I want to give my chaos marines jet black obsidian armour, and was wondering if I could get any tips. I would imagine chaos black and a gloss varnish would be enough. Maybe also add in some white streaks/highlights like you see in visors for example. Another thing that might work is shades of dark blue/grey near the edges of armour.

If anyone that has some experience or tips for painting obsidian I would greatly appreciate it.

Pics would be nice too if you don't mind posting them.

In all my experience with obsidian (I'd say I rank about 20 minutes of rock-holding above "dead average"), I have found it to be 4 things: hard, sharp, black, and shiny. Two of these are relevant. Can you guess which ones?

Really, though, obsidian is very dark and very high gloss. A test piece (make sure it has flats, curves, and sharp angles so you can see how different surfaces act - the wonky sections of sprue nearest the model pieces could fill the role nicely) with straight black and gloss varnish is a quick way to test if that method would suit your purposes.

Honestly, I don't know if gloss over black will work, but I sincerely hope it does. Otherwise, you're left with stark white (unless you're assuming your troops will always be under lights with a particular tint - there's no subtle hue to obsidian, it's as black as black comes) edge-lined highlights, which means there will be nothing but your fluff separating your armor from other basic black schemes.

I'd give high gloss on flat black a try. You'll have to counter that with every other surface on your marines being matte, otherwise it's just going to look like you used gloss varnish on your marines and didn't highlight anything.

I had a trick that use to work well for weapons. paint it black then use the darkest, thinest purple wash I could find or make, then go over that with a very thin, very dark blue wash.
I haven't used this technique in years so it might be blue wash then purple.
I don't know how well it'll work for armor, but it's what I have.

I'd try a codex grey highlight on all the corners etc and maybe a flash of grey on the shoulder, knee pad and boot to resemble a light shining on a curved surface.

The thing with pure black is that if you do no highlights any player would argue you just primed the damned things couldn't be bothered then sprayed gloss varnish. If you make some kind of effort you would be escaping such commets.

I'm thinking maybe some mixed variation of chaos black, mythril silver, and hawk turquoise or another blue. The blue will give the black some depth and the mythril will make it shiny? Best I could think of without having ever really painted. Just going off of what I've seen and colors in general.

When used straight from the pot with no dilution, the old GW inks gave a really deep black with a decent amount of shine. Just don't dullcoat the figure - or if you do, consider going back after and using gloss medium or another layer of ink over the obsidian parts.

You could probably achieve the same results with black "india" ink mixed with a healthy amount of Kleer/Future Floor Polish.

Deep purples for the hints of colour and then a tiny amount of a purple or bluish tone in the white highlights. Pure black/grey/white doesn't look like obsidian at all. Also I found doing some of your highlights as fine tiny lines at an angle to the edge works well to capture the look of the fracture planes.

However, I've also only ever tried it on flat, angled surfaces. I have no idea how you're going to pull it off on curved power armour.

the BW black ink is an excellent idea. Otherwise, yeah, just paint black and apply gloss fingernail polish. a very, very faint highlyght of grey at the edges might be useful if you've got nice, crisp edges, but otherwise just a really glossy black should do fine.

Also, to note, obsidian isn't actually completely smooth. As such, applying fingernail polish by hand will make it slightly bumpy, which will be good for your purposes.

Thanks for all the great replies! I also apologize for responding to all this advice so late. I posted this before going to bed and I'm currently typing this in the interim between classes, so I haven't had compy access for a long time.

Thankfully all these ideas don't require a great variety of materials so I think I'll test em alll on a sprue.

Thanks again for the tips guys!

Don't know if you're still checking your thread but i did some looking around for anything "obsidian" related. I always believe pure black shouldnt be used unless for shadows and obsidian questioned this belief.

I found this car which it looks like was based on the idea of obsidian black. Its extremely glossy and I feel is a great example or template to work off.

Notice its not pure black but has many highlights and shades of dark gray, even though it was painted pure, glossy black.

Google image search is your friend.

OoieGoie is correct in that painting a miniature black because the colour comes across as black to us is perhaps too simplistic. There are a few ways to simulate obsidian.



Firstly, sample images. This image is of an unsmoothened obsidian chunk, under diffuse lighting. Note the jump from black straight to a mid/light grey. This uses similar techniques to NMM, though with a different palette. It can also be approximated with a lightish grey extreme highlighting. Note however, that this is under diffuse lighting. For the true obsidian look, you need to get that glossy effect. Though a gloss varnish over the extreme highlighting could work, you could also take a hint from this picture.



As you can see, it has sharp highlights from the light. Treating the armour as though it was a gem and giving it placed white reflections of the light will effectively make it seem shiny even under diffuse lighting where the gloss varnish will fail to impress (such as on a cloudy day). Also, note that obsidian will reflect things, such as the white table it is placed on here. You can paint this in if desired.

To summarise: Prime black, extreme highlight/NMM mid/light grey, paint in white highlights.

If you want to get your hands on a piece of obsidian for reference purposes, try your local wicca/hippy shop, they often sell semi-precious stones for spiritual purposes, obsidian being one of them.

Personnally, I probably start with a bright purple or blue, and black wash the hell out of it. perhaps a light silver drybrush, (mithril?) after the first wash.

Obsidian isn't really black. Its a very very dark blue purple colour. Then probably hit it with a varnish to make it shine.

The method I use starts by basecoating the upper half of each surface with a very dark blue-black, then highlighting up by gradually mixing in white (well, offwhite), ending with a very fine highlight of pure white where light would catch the edges. Don't have any pics of a finished model painted this way (should by the end of the week), but it ends up looking something like these guys.

Actually I meant pictures of minis you have painted lolz. Not that I don't appreciate the help.

Anyway, the consensus seems to be do more than just black and varnish. I think black basecoat, then lots of dark blue and purple washes all over for colour depth. Then start shading with from the middle or so of the armour, constalty getting lighter until it naturally blends in with the white/grey highlights and the edges of the armour. Then top it off with a varnish.

Also the pics of those Immortal guys is pretty good, I think covering them with some gloss and some more white highlights would be pretty effective.

I'm gpoing to the hobby shop soon so hopefully I can get some materials and test this stuff.

Thanks again dudes!

I'd avoid just washing black models with ink, as it'll concentrate all the color in the recesses, the exact spots that color shouldn't be. Color should be along the upper parts of the stone, where light falls more readily (the polished stones above being an exception, as they're shiny enough to reflect the white backdrop they're sitting on, along with the light sources and dark studio).

I'd also avoid combining gloss varnish and blended highlights, as the two will tend to work against each other when viewed from many angles.

The point about the recesses is a good one, though adimttedly there aren't many recesses on the areas that are going to be painted like this.

"I'd also avoid combining gloss varnish and blended highlights, as the two will tend to work against each other when viewed from many angles"

I didn't know this, thanks for the input. It does actually make my highlighting easier if I stick to just white and no blending.

I'm also thinking a simple (very) dark blue with gloss and white highlights could do the trick. It doesnt have to look like the stone necessarily, I'm just going for a dark shiny armour. Necron abyss could be a good colour methinks.

Maybe, a couple of light dry-brushes of dark blue/ purple, so as to get the subtle base blueish/purplish color, and leave the recesses black, as the poster above me suggested. Followed by lining the edges with greys, working up to white.
Though, I have never tried to paint obsidian, it just sounds like what would achieve your goal.
Good luck.