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I picked up a black metal from vallejo paints and realized I really don't like their paints... the metals are way to sparkly and the rest of the colors are extremely flat and the luster of GW paints. I suppose it's all preference, but now I'm left wondering:

1. how do you paint black metal? GW only has steel/grey metal (leadbelcher)? Do you mix leadbelcher and abbadon black?

2. How do you highlight leadbelcher (greyish metal)?

You could easily mix black and one of the metals for a darker metallic color. Alternately, you can wash a color like Leadbelcher a couple times with black wash for a darker metal. As for highlighting, you do it the same way you do with anything else; just get a lighter shade of the same color. For that, Leadbelcher gets highlighted with Runefang Steel.

For a Dark Iron look i woudl mix a couple of drops (DROPS mind you) of Black into some Leadbelcher. Allow that to dry, then apply a black wash. once that is dry you can then highlight via a light drybrush with plain Leadbelcher.

If you have a light enough touch it will look like stained, darkened brushed aluminum.

Thanks for the tips.

I'm going to try a couple tecniques:

1. airbrush leadbelcher - heavy wash nuln oil, light dry brush of leadbelcher - outline ??? (as you guys suggested) I'll test out mixing black into leadbelcher, the big challenge is a consistent color while getting the right consistency for the airbrush

2. airbrush abbadon black - highlight and outline using drybrush leadbelcher - smaller outline of gold

I use Anitas metallic black and it works fine with MORE THAN ONE coat

You can also get a brushed black metal look by simply basing it with a matte black paint and then usinga very light drubrush of silver (leadbelcher for example). The tiny paint will catch on the tiny grains on the matte finish and the edges and you end up with a very dark metallic colour.

i did a similar thing with my nightscythe.