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So after a long time out of the hobby I want to get back into it and straight into loyalist marines. with regards to colour scheme I'm looking predominantly for a light metallic green. Now back in my day I'd mix chainmail and a green paint but painting a whole army I'd have to mix up loads of the stuff to ensure they all come out looking the same. what I was thinking was a basecoat of silver and then successive coats of green wash/glaze (don't know the properties of either but they seem like inks that don't stain from what I gather) but I worry it'll pool in places and look uneven. Any and all tips gratefully appreciated but my technical skill ends at edge highlighting and dry brushing so please offer novice level suggestions. My humble thanks in advance.

Glazes will be your ticket here. Read this article about working with metallics and glazes. A bit of advice: you do not have to limit yourself to buying GW "glazes" because you can make your own out of any color you want. The article covers that a little bit, but I just wanted to reinforce that point.

This looks great! thanks

Here's an alternative method. If you put down your base color coat, you can just drybrush metallic colors on top of it. It gives a really subtle metallic sheen.

For golds, bronzes, or silvers, you can base coat with brown or grey or what have you, and drybrush over that. For odder colors (like the metallic green you want) then apply the green you like and drybrush an unpigmented silver on top of it. (Runefang Steel is the Citadel paint that is just the acrylic medium and metallic flake, so other than giving it a metallic glimmer, it shouldn't alter the coloration.)

This method is much easier and quicker than applying layer after layer of glaze. Since it's cheap and quick, you may want to try it out on a small piece of sprue or something to see how you like it.

http://www.blackhat.co.uk/online_shop/product_info.php?cPath=21_39&products_id=62&osCsid=2efde75a31f4ad9c773da59bc7a00b25

I believe this is a metallic green. From the people who made one of the Citadel ranges of yesteryear.

With the new citadel range, its either mixing, or using green glazes.
Silver base colour, with a green glaze, and then highlights and glaze again perhaps.

Or gold base colour with blue glaze (not too strong a blue) to get the yellow metallic and blue glaze to create a green. - this would be a different effect to green over silver.

Spraying the glaze might be a good plan. Making your own might be a better plan.
Liquitex Glazing Medium is the ticket (although this dries glossy and would need a matt coat over the top) (kind of like citadel lahmian medium, only a much larger bottle)

Spraying the silver might be a good start too, army painter do a silver spray, allthough I can't comment if its a nice finish or not, as I've never tried it. I would spray whatever silver I like through my airbrush personally.

Army painter spray silver is a particular favorite of mine, I use it on my Grey Knights to basecoat them and also to basecoat all of my weapons for all my armies. The silver is very light, a touch lighter than runebreaker, so needs washing/glazing to bring it back down.

For my Grey Knights I have a big tube of metallic blue paint I brought cheap from an artist store that I water down (its pretty thin anyway, would give rubbish coverage for "normal painting") using MIG's thinner for washes (you can make your own but I'm lazy) and cover straight over the silver basecoat, then wash with a black wash, job done.