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How do YOU paint things white. I just can never seem to paint white good, it always ends up thin in parts and you can see the brush strokes. How do you paint white good?

Search this forum and you will find many topics covering this

They all boil down to one thing though: Thin the paint a lot, and use many, many, many coats. If you don't have the patience for this, dont try painting large areas of white

My rule #1 is never use white except on small areas. Only, I broke the rule today. I did do a search, and got over 200 pages of results... so... ummmm... yeah on that But I just did layer two and it looks more white. Going to set that sit for a bit and then do a third to see if that does the trick.

words from a golden demon winner - always use a white undercoat.

before he told me that i always used black. always. i took a 2 day masterclass and i'll never use black again.

white is a chalky pigment that is very hard to make look smooth, if you use a white undercoat you can simply put a thin layer of white over the undercoat and your are done.

I use a white undercoat to start with.

If there's armour definition, then a wash (either black or blue), then astronomican grey will go over any excessive washing to cover it, followed by a couple of white (thin) coats.

White undercoat or like krylon gray primer, it's a really really light gray.

My Tau wear white armor, unfortunately to give a nice, even and clean look to them, I have to use a white undercoat and paint the darker colours over top being very careful not to make a mistake on it...

Now I know all to well that this happens (not being blessed with steady surgical hands), the way to correct these imperfections is annoying but relatively easy:

1] Immediately wipe the unwanted paint off the white section with a "damp" tissue (not dripping)
2] To repair the white look to these areas is to use very thin coats of white (as the pot colour is slightly brighter then the spray), almost "drybrushing" thin coats is good until the spot is gone or unnoticeable

I hope this helps...

I agree with most of what the other posters had to say. However, you CAN get a very good white effect on a black undercoat! I hate using white undercoat as most of the paint schemes I use have a lot of dark colors and I feel I get better results with black (just my opinion, I like a real dark and grim look to my models). To get it good on black you MUST thin the paint. I use Vallejo paint, Game Color Dead White, thinned to a milky consistency (usually 4-5 drops of paint to 2-3 drops of water. Then, layer upon layer upon layer until I get a consistency and purity of color that I like on the model. It's easier to do on large areas than small since the thinned down paint can run. My Tau army has a red, black, and white color scheme (aside from other detail colors). I'm no Golden Daemon level painter, but I think I do pretty good. Anyway, here are some pics of a Tau Devilfish/Hammerhead chassis I recently completed:









Oh, and by the way, make sure you put a matt varnish over the white if it is in an area that gets touched alot. Otherwise, the white can easily begin to take very noticeable discolorations...

Are we talking about broad, unshaded (or only marginally shaded) areas like on the Tau tank, or more textured areas like a white robe? The techniques are a bit different for each.

I build it up through different shades of grey first. Though the colours you build it up with will help determine the feel of the white (blue for example making it seem cold).

Astronomicon Gray. It covers well enough that, even directly over black, I don't need to work up through multiple shades of gray before moving to white, as I've seen many recommend. As always, thin and smooth layers is the key. Over straight black, it takes at least half a dozen coats, with roughly twice as many coats of white as Astro. Gray needed for a really bright finish.

Astronomic Grey, shadow grey, skull white. I use this for the wings on certain parts of DC and it works fine.

i use codex gray in thin layers until it's smooth, the fortress gray using the same principle, then do about two thin layers of skull white. it should look pretty good if you then give it a thinned down wash of badab black.

word for the day: THIN

Check out the pics of my Sanguinary Priests. Ive been told my white looks amazing. My best suggestion for white would be to basecoat whatever you want to paint white with a 1:1 mix of Beastial Brown and Codex Grey. This color will give a good foundation for white and you wont have to apply several coats. Next I start mixing codex grey and skull white together, and work my way up to fortress grey and skull white mixed. Finally, I ONLY highlight with pure skull white as it will give a nice crisp look to your model if you dont paint the entire piece pure skull white. Fortress grey and skullwhite mixed still appear to be white. Good luck!

my answer is simple: *I* don't.

If I have to paint white, then I account for it being tarnished, or off color. Space-wolf grey makes a nice base for an icy white, and I've used one of the bone-colors from GW to make a yellowed white, and then used greyscale to suggest a darkening white, but I have never ever painted anything white.

I just don't have the balls for it.

You've already got most of it, poda_t, a final highlight of Skull White will get you there.

The real trick to painting white is to not make it white. Use white as the final highlight, but work up from Astronmicon Grey with either Space Wolves Grey or Bleached Bone (depending on if you want a cold or warm white), and only use Skull White for the last highlight or two.

A VERY thin glaze of black helps bring the details out too. 20/1 water to ink at a minimum.

I start with either Bleached bone or khaki base, then I highlight up through various mixes of white & bb or Khaki until I get to white.. That's for "warm" whites.

for cold whites I go with a very pale blue or grey base followed by success shades again.

The trick as already mentioned here, with ANY bright colour is thin even coats, almost glazing your highlights on.

Tbh, thin glaze like coats usually result in the best finish (if not the fastest).

Lp

I hate white im right there with ya. My apothecary looks like i painted him with side walk chalk. Will try the grey and bone and see what works better, thanks.

Vulcan wrote:You've already got most of it, poda_t, a final highlight of Skull White will get you there.

The real trick to painting white is to not make it white. Use white as the final highlight, but work up from Astronmicon Grey with either Space Wolves Grey or Bleached Bone (depending on if you want a cold or warm white), and only use Skull White for the last highlight or two.

A VERY thin glaze of black helps bring the details out too. 20/1 water to ink at a minimum.

I think there was actually once that I did paint solid white. To hilight, i painted the glaze on carefully.... it did the job only if you looked at it from exactly no more than two angles.....