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So I'm considering starting a Ravenwing army which would involve painting a lot of black.
Now, I am terrible at highlighting. On both my existing armies, I just haven't done it. I just basecoat, then wash. I can never seem to get the highlights right. They usually come out too "big". Like, not fine enough lines.
And I understand that black armour in particular needs highlights, otherwise it just looks like a shapeless blob of black.
How would I go about highlighting black armour, bearing in mind I'm awful at highlighting.
A thick line of 1:1 Chaos Black: Codex Grey followed by a fine highlight of codex does it for me.
d-usa wrote:Orks are the GW version of R2D2. No matter how advanced the defenses may be, there is always an open serial port somewhere that can be pluged into and a firewall that was never configured.
Check out my telion conversion in my sons of orar thread. Chaos black spray, a se ind coat of chaos black by the brush. Edge highlight / dry brush with fortress grey, wash with Nuln oil. Then varnish the lot to give it an obsidian sheen and your done.
Vanishing is a good way to make black pop that bit more imo
I used a 2:1 mix of Skull BLack and Chaos Black for highlighting the Chaos Black of my Mawloc and.it looked ok. I have already painted up so I have.no photo but it is a very dark grey so is easy to highlight up to a brighter grey if needs.
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the way Les does it is just one way to do it... ive personally really like this way:
#prime your model black with black primer
#paint your model with black paint (believe me there is a difference)
#give your model a wash with asurmen blue
#drybrush your model with necron abyss
#edgehighlight with a 50/50 mix of necron abyss and space #wolfs grey
#extreme egdge highlight with pure spacewolfs grey
if you like you can give your model an other blue wash
One I have recenly been using is the use of W&N Galleria Paynes Grey as the base coat.
It looks a bit blue on the pallete (because it is a very dark blue ) but goes on well and dries to an almost black that is very matte.
You can then build it up with whatever washes (thinned badab black for me) them highlight up to Charadon Granite.
Its quick and works well even if you miss the washes out. Sorry I still use the old paints but the new stuff should still work the same and Paynes Grey is available from allot of differant paint ranges.
How do you promote your Hobby? - Legoburner "I run some crappy wargaming website "
Hi there,
I use a fine detail brush and use the model angles to apply. On my Black Legion army I used codex grey and then highlight again with a light grey to show key points.
if it's too think you can always use black to thin the lines.
I use chaos black, highligh adeptus battle grey, followed by codex grey, and then a final touch of fortress grey. Swap colors accordingly for the new GW paint line.
I need to get better at this, my BL army looks good in person but people tell me i need to highlight all the time. Check out the link in my sig.
Every Dakkanaught gets a 4+ Pinch of Salt save.
When you suffer a Falling Sky hit, roll a D6 - on a 4+ the hit is ignored as per the Pinch of Salt save. On a 1-3 panic insues - you automatically fail common sense tests for the next 2 weeks and get +7 to your negativity stat. -Praxiss
I've expirimented a bit highlighting black in several ways. Mixing up to codex grey is a decent idea, you could get crazy and add more white as you go to give it a crisp reflective look if you desired.
What I reccomend you do is to use a very dark grey (Chardon Granite I belive was the name of the old Foundation Paint that was pefect for this). You can wash this with whatever you like (I've used both black inks/washes and actual paint, I like the pinpoint control of paint myself). You can then highlight this with grey or a color like Shadow grey to get a shadow like effect.
The difference between commitment and involvement is like eggs and ham; the ckicken was "involved", the pig was "comitted".
Don't kill yourself trying to get a superfine edge highlight over black on the first pass when you can clean up your work and turn it into that.
You do not need to do it with a toothpick or 00000000000000 size brush.
There are two things that help black models look good.
1. Attention to details. Paint all of the other elements on the model as nice as you can.
2. Sharp highlights.
Getting sharp highlights over straight black armour is a piece of cake.
Sure, you should do your best to get a nice highlight, but you can clean it up super easy if you know how to.
See I don't like the way that black legion looks, with all the grey lines everywhere.
Every Dakkanaught gets a 4+ Pinch of Salt save.
When you suffer a Falling Sky hit, roll a D6 - on a 4+ the hit is ignored as per the Pinch of Salt save. On a 1-3 panic insues - you automatically fail common sense tests for the next 2 weeks and get +7 to your negativity stat. -Praxiss
Here, if you just want a really quick and dirty method to get a little bit of highlight with absolutely zero skill involved, try this method. Prime your models black. Mix up a dark charcoal gray and give the whole model a drybrush of it, not too heavy. After that, go back and give the whole thing a black wash (or black ink if you want a really glossy black). 2 step highlight with zero skill and you're done.
For my Ravenguard models I just drybrushed with fortress grey till they were almost entirely grey, then washed back down with black ink. I'll link the pics in a moment.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/07/14 02:23:24
Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
At this point I think i will leave mine the way they are ,I don't see an improvement if any over what i have done. I noticed Tin bitz is really dark, with a wash of black i wonder if it would work as a good highlight?
Can someone post a really good pic of top quality black highlighting?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/07/14 02:42:43
Every Dakkanaught gets a 4+ Pinch of Salt save.
When you suffer a Falling Sky hit, roll a D6 - on a 4+ the hit is ignored as per the Pinch of Salt save. On a 1-3 panic insues - you automatically fail common sense tests for the next 2 weeks and get +7 to your negativity stat. -Praxiss
Black is suprisingly very straightforward to highlight. I usually just use the edge of a very fine brush and layer up from black. For example i'd use black, dark grey, grey, light grey, and maybe even a little white. You can even drybrush some metal colors lightly to add more dimension.
I use codex grey with very small accents of fortress grey. A very light drybrush of boltgun metal also helps to make it a bit less stark and comic-book looking.
There's actually a lot of ways of doing black that give different looks. I found if you want something that looks like "pure" black, a good way to do it is highlight with a mix of shadow grey and black, then a fine edge highlight with pure shadow grey.
Or you can do a more greyish black, that looks kinda like a slightly faded black, using something like 50/50 codex grey/black and then an edge highlight of pure codex grey.
You can also highlight with feathering, which will give the armour a slightly softer look instead of the sharp polished look you get using edge highlights.
One important thing to remember with black is there's no shading (unless you decide to go with more of a grey-black rather than pure black), so it's worth putting more effort into the highlights. Don't just do a simple highlight, do at least 2 or 3 layered highlights to get a nice soft transition.
When painting black you focus on the highlights and when painting white you focus on the shading.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/07/16 03:38:31
Karyorhexxus' Sons of the Locust: 1000pts 
) but goes on well and dries to an almost black that is very matte.
The difference between commitment and involvement is like eggs and ham; the ckicken was "involved", the pig was "comitted". 
IMPOSSIBLE IS RELATIVE 
