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Hello everyone. In an effort to save money I'm trying to highlight with just 1 color, using black and white to darken and lighten it. How would I go about doing it. Is there a good ratio for mixing with them? Will it still look good highlighting this way? Thank you very much for helping me. Sorry but I had difficulty finding any info on specifically this subject.

I'm not so sure you would get the right shades you need just by mixing your color with black and white. That said, if you are willing to pitch in for another two or three pots there are guides out there to mix all GW shades from five colors. I've tried this and it works rather well. Link as follows:

http://nesbetminiatures.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-getting-citadel-colours.html

Hope this helps!

Please be aware that lightening a color with simply white or darkening it with black won´t always give the right results. Red + White will become Pink, for example. A better highlight color for red would be a red-orange, however. So Lightening up red is best done with orange or a lighter red.

On related news: That´s an awesome link.

As others have said, adding black/white will darken/lighten colors, but there are side-affects. White tends to turn colors pastel (red becomes pink, forest green looks like pale lichen instead of bright grass) while black muddies them (reds become brown, yellows... also become brown).

There are ways to avoid having to buy the entire range, and that mixing guide (fantastic post, Romulus - hadn't seen that, before) is a great resource. You can wing it, though, with nothing but a mental color wheel. Want to highlight red? Add in a bit of yellow, not white. Want to darken it? You're better off adding a touch of blue or brown than you are using black.

There is a single paint that will let you darken a lot of different colors (not all, but many) without completely killing them - Payne's Gray. There's an article on Dakka about using Payne's Gray that's definitely worth a read.

You are buying into a hobby that costs hundreds of dollars, and you can't be bothered to pay $2.50 to have your highlights not look bad?

Not sure where you're buying your Citadel paints ph34r, but my not-so FLGS sells them at $4.25 a pop, just now noting that they're $3.70 at the GW website.

Mixing shades to achieve lighter and darker results is definitely possible and when used appropriately provides wonderful results. I highlight my Crimson Fist's armor using Ultramarines Blue, then mix UM Blue with Space Wolf Gray 50/50, then finally use the SW Gray by itself. On my character models the progression is a little more gradiated.

At the end of the day your not saving anything though, infact, your losing money.

Your still using paint on that model, doesent matter which colour, your using it and it will run out either way.

Also, you will have extra paint left over after mixing unless of course you plan on throwing it in a spare pot.



So, easy answer is to buy the colour you want as its quicker, easier and cheaper.

If that's the case, Jackal, then the issue lies with your methods.

Mixing your own colors does save you money, in many cases, especially for those necessary but infrequently used colors. If you're painting up a SM army, you'll need a flesh tone for those bald and screaming heads, but that's not a lot of surface area. Most SM models don't even have visible skin. If you can mix that tone with frequently used colors, you don't have to pay for a pot that will spend 95% of it's time sitting around, drying out.

Mixing colors also doesn't necessarily mean adding two big globs of colors X and Y together to get a really big glob of color Z. Unless you're so anal about color matching that nuances most people won't be able to notice (let alone care about) will bug you, you can mix by sight and only as much as required for the task at hand. Mixing up a big batch saves time and guarantees consistency, but you open yourself up to waste.

Mixing your own colors is definitely not the quick (well, this mostly depends on proficiency) and easy method, but it is cheaper.

If you take care of paints they last for a long time.
Ive still got the old round pots from GW and they are in perfect condition.

Which is why i talked about en empty pot.
Doesent matter if your one of the most precise painters in the world, you can never 100% guess how much paint will be required for the task.
Also, this leaves an issue of any mistakes needing coverage (rare, but does happen)




Your missing the point by miles here.
It saves nothing.

Blue paint - £2
Black paint - £2

Dark blue paint - £2

This is an example, so its only rough.
But your still using paint.
Just because your mixing up 2 colours does not mean your not using anything.
You have to supply the paint for the mix no matter what.

Its alot easier to buy the shade you want.
To which ill repeat, it saves time and money.




As a side point, i do mix alot of colours, but i prefer to mix 2 pots worth at a time.
That way i know i have a decent stock of said colour (layering skin for example)
Infact, ive got 20 or so different shades ive mixed for skin variations.
Also leaves none as waste either, which would be the case if your using a basic pallet.

I don't highlight with the GW suggested colors, because I just can't rationalize buying 4 shades of blue just to paint a couple squads of units. Or 4 shades of green for a goblin fantasy army (where I may use 1/2 a pot).

You can easily buy a 'light' and 'dark' shade of a few colors (red, green, blue, yellow) plus white & black and get a lot of use out of them.

Just realize that unless you're using Vallejo or some other dropper-packaged paint, you're going to get uneven results.

Some quick notes:
Highlight from
Red -> Orange
Green -> Yellow-green
Blue -> White