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Dear fellow Dakkanauts,
I am resurrecting my Imperial Navy Boarding Team concept based on the system troopers.


My concept is to have Gloss black armour over a charcoal/ Dark Grey body suit. I am asking what is the best way to achieve a high gloss finish for maximum contrast and impact. Any advice on any of the following methods?

1. Paint Armour Black and then give several thinned coats of Gloss varnish (any advice on a super Gloss varnish).
2. Buy a high gloss black paint (any advice on which one).
3. Or go for a clever highlighting as per this diagram.



4. Or can you do this with an Airbrush with a Zenithal Lighting technique?

So I am really looking for a Black Glass Armour or Obsidian Armour look, any ideas?

I just mix Chaos Black and Gloss Varnish...
That does the trick for Slaanesh...

What ratio 1:1?

mwnciboo wrote:What ratio 1:1?

Basically yeah... Actually I do it how I ''feel'', but 1:1 works fine.

5)All of the above?Youi will get a mirror finish,but try on a practise model first.

That is pretty much what I will do with my warmachine Cryx.

Paint them black and then spray gloss varnish? or hand paint gloss varnish on?

Here is the important question, how much time are you wanting to REALISTICALLY spend painting each model?

If you are looking for quick results, then #2, Vallejo Glossy Black is a nice one.

If your willing to spend a little more time than normal, than a mix of #3 and #2

If you want to try and make every pe3ice a show piece and thus driving yourself insane, then number #3

I dont think Zenithil highlighting is an option with this style, as glossy black does not transition in color, it simply highlights.

Ashton

Right, what I want essentially is a show piece force, about 1500pts. Bearing in mind the cost of the Iron Pig miniatures, and the intended Drop ships Vendetta's and Valkyries.

I really want to do these models justice, so I think a mix of #3 #2. I don't really want to option #3 in total because the armour is segmented (not continuous). So it will be a slow paint job.

I want to paint the visors gold (Vallejo Old gold) like an astronaut cover, but I am stuck with the weapons. I should paint a counter point colour to offset the Black and dark grey but I want them to look realistic type modern SF look. Any thoughts? I was thinking the weapons to be a deep olive colour....

Before you start painting, i'd like to make a point.

If you are going to use gloss varnish in place of regular highlighting, either use it very sparingly, or use it on the whole model. If you try to apply it 50/50 (or even close to that quotient) it will look awful.

Highlights applied by the human eye and highlights applied by natural effects (a coat of gloss varnish for example) are vastly different. The natural highlights will work from any angle, whereas the human applied ones wont. The overall effect will look very strange.

Try just putting some very stark white highlights on the black parts and highlighting everything else normally, then give the whole mini a coat of varnish. I've seen this used to great effect on 'Alien' themed tyranids, but YMMV on more 'realistic' models.

J.Black wrote:Before you start painting, i'd like to make a point.

If you are going to use gloss varnish in place of regular highlighting, either use it very sparingly, or use it on the whole model. If you try to apply it 50/50 (or even close to that quotient) it will look awful.

Highlights applied by the human eye and highlights applied by natural effects (a coat of gloss varnish for example) are vastly different. The natural highlights will work from any angle, whereas the human applied ones wont. The overall effect will look very strange.

Try just putting some very stark white highlights on the black parts and highlighting everything else normally, then give the whole mini a coat of varnish. I've seen this used to great effect on 'Alien' themed tyranids, but YMMV on more 'realistic' models.

1:1 works fine actually. It makes the coat a bit... Well... I don't know the word in english, but if you look at the Eldar vd Slaanesh marine pic from my gallery you'll see it.

J.Black that sounds like a good idea, but the only snag I see is that the undergarment (the fabric bodysuit) would end up shiny if I coat the whole figure with glossy varnish.

I really want the armour plates to be Shiny Black gloss but the Body suit to be a kind of Charcoal Grey or Sea Green.

So as per this Samurai suit, the armour will be shiny (more shiny than this one) with a Matt under garment. Or a bit like this:-






EDIT - I like the Eldar, not quite shiny enough though, SLuggaSlugga That TAU TANK in Urban Digital Camo is awesome...

You need very sharp highlights for the gloss black - a blend-back technique works well for this;

Paint black, highlight up to Codex grey through a dark grey - you need the highlight to be consistent (not splotchy) rather than tight at this stage. Then with thin black glaze it repeatedly to tighten the highlight up. It's a lot easier to work with the main colour and gently tighten the highlight, rather than attempt to work it tight. You do want a little gradient here (it's not a line highlight), to reinforce the shape.

Extreme highlights are edge highlights, with thin paint - you want a gradient along the edge stroke toward the high spot; this takes a bit of practice as the paint needs to be thin to provide a smooth gradient, so your brush control needs to be up to it to avoid flooding. Use fortress grey to highlight up edges, with a gradient going toward high spots. Final high spot highlights (ie just dots!) on high corners.

This sounds complex, but it's actually pretty quick, it's all about the blend back stage for smoothness, and good brush control for the edge highlights.

Gloss after you've done the flat coat for everything. Vallejo's dropper bottle of gloss varnish is great.

So if I paint black, put a thin line of a Grey then a a very thin line of white/ very light grey. Then black glaze it?

What composition in the Black Glaze? I have a bottle made up it is 5ml Chaos Black, 1ml Glaze medium, 4ml water, 1ml flow enhancer, I use it as a very thin wash/glaze, i think it should work?

Top tips Winterdyne, many thanks.

I just use VMC black with a bit of water.

Are you going to varnish your models in the end? If so, I'd paint as appropriate, edge highlight/etc as chosen, then hit the sucker with a gloss varnish.

Once that's dry, hand-paint the matt areas with a (you guessed it!) Matt varnish.

For the weapons, I'd go for a charcoal/dark grey. If you look at modern western forces the weapons are often painted to match the overall colour/camo scheme. Maybe gunmetal or even gunmetal blue (Vallejo) for things like the barrels.

Yeah, I think you are right about the Matt Varnish, I usually use dullcote but for once I am going to do without. Or maybe DULLCOTE it then Gloss Varnish the bits I want to be really shiny.

I like your thoughts on the weapons, a kind of burnished Blue would be good. I thought of Green because of Weapons like this..





Space Age stuff here.

got to Love the israeli's Style this is world class, I might buy the FW Elysian Drop troop weapons and make a few of these.

You also might want to experiment with painting matt black, then drybrushing with gloss varnish - it gives a subtly different effect compared to all-over gloss.

Black is always a horrible colour to shade and highlight - I often instead paint a very dark grey, so that I can then shade with black and get a visible difference.

I'd matt then gloss. It's easier.

Go for a semi-dark blue, apply two to three strong black washes, get some clean and extreme highlights on the edges, then apply a clean coat of gloss varnish (the GW stuff works just fine, don't hazzle yourself with fishing for manufacturers).

Done.

I would go for solution 1 as you need to varnish anyway, and you will have much more control over the finish. Paint the models black and grey. Gloss varnish to protect them, matt varnish over the top, and then pick out the armour with another layer of Gloss. I'm not really sure why the varnish layers would need to be very thin. Varnish doesn't really obscure details like paint does, so you can put it on pretty damn thick without really loosing anything, and you get all that extra protection

The glossiest varnish that I have found is clear nail polish. It is a good bit glossier and harder than ard coat, and ard coat is glossier than paint mixed with gloss medium. Clear nail polish is quite viscous though... It might even be too glossy for your needs, i usually only use it for glass and water effects.

Solution 3 is going to be the most difficult. I've been painting up a squad of BA death company using that technique and it is extremely tedious. If you do want to go down that route... I've found using oil paints is the best since the slow drying time allows you to really blend the highlights and get them razor sharp. Of course using oils carries with it a whole bunch of new dilemmas.

If you do go with solution 3, then you should really just varnish matte. Putting gloss over an advanced highlighting technique will likely just obscure rather than enhance.

Smacks superb advice, I like the detail you've put up now it's time for me to commit to some of these maybe doing 3 Mini's in different styles and then I will post these up on this Thread for everyone to give some feed back.

Yeah, with modern weapons you can really do anything you like as far as paint goes - in the last few years we've broken through the barrier of how guns "should" be painted/finished. As 40k is sci-fi, even the fact that it's "low-tech" sci-fantasy, there's enough scope to paint things however you feel will look best and fit in with your concept. Note that the second two of these weapons are essentially variations on the M16, which is not exactly a new weapon. (even the HK416 is still an M4/16 variant at it's core)

I wish i could paint that Digital Camo...I have seen it on M113's on a Flames of war 15mm Scale.



I would have to try but I don't think my paint hand is steady enough to carry this out, fantastic idea though and if anyone knows a simple technique to carry this out it would be well received.

EDIT Back OT..

I found this and have ordered it, no more Varnish nonsense for me. I will paint this stuff over the Black Armour. Pictures to follow.

http://www.artifolk.co.uk/catalog/products/individual_acrylic_paints/daler_rowney_shimmering_colours_(interference_mediums)_75ml_tube.htm