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I had this severe problem with my VGC dead white where no matter how many times I layered, either the color underneath would still show or the layer would be so thick that it wouldnt look good anymore.
Not to mention it was crumby as hell.

So I decided to get a pot of citadel scar white.....turns out that the color is stronger but this time around its even more crmbier than before!

Anyone got any suggestions on what I could do?

Use celestial grey first or an applicable grey

helps a lot i find

also try to use airbrush whites

i think IIRC most white pigments are large and or clump a lot more. so im pretty sure airbrush ones will be milled much finer. not sure though just a hunch.

I love working with white as it lets the colour underneath always shine, so it's a very easy highlight tool if you thin it even a little. That being said, keep in mind you should thin it to reduce the strange textures that paint can get, and white is especially bad as it turns chalky the quickest. So keeping those two things in mind, as Desubot said you should always use a bright under colour that matches closest to the type of white you want to get.

In other words, treat white as a glaze that makes the colour it goes over closer to white.

Edit: Also, Desubot has one of my favourite avatars on this site D:

1. Make sure you're painting over a very light grey base.
2. Lots of very thin layers.
3. Patience.

Pretty much what others have said except that I'll add that I rarely use white as anything except the highest of highlights.

Greetings!

The trick with white is very simple: Use water!

I use a pallet and put some white on the pallet, next to a few drops of clean water. I then mix water in with the paint with my brush till I get the consistency correct. Then I use that thinned paint to add a layer at a time till the white is smooth and covers the base coat of light grey (Usually one to two coats for small areas, or multiple for large areas). I use a medium grey over the area first, then a light grey shade over that, then I start adding layers of white till the white covers correctly. If I start to run low on thinned paint, I add more from the pot and then add water to get it back to the right consistency. If it's not covering enough or seems overly thin, then add a little more paint. If it starts to get thick or chalky, then you need to add water. The main thing is getting the paint the proper consistency and then keeping it there as you paint. It's labor intensive but once you get the hang of it, you can produce wonderfully smooth and crisp whites.

Here's what the result looks like, while using this method:





The above was painted using an old (but still good!) pot of Skull White. I hope that helps. Best of luck and take it easy for now.

-Red__Thirst-

P.S. The shading was accomplished by using a very thinned down blue wash (3 parts water to 1 part Asurmen Blue wash) and a very small brush to let the thinned wash flow into the recesses, then coming back in with one to two more coats of white to clean up any baubles in the wash once it dried.

 Red__Thirst wrote:
Greetings!

The trick with white is very simple: Use water!

I use a pallet and put some white on the pallet, next to a few drops of clean water. I then mix water in with the paint with my brush till I get the consistency correct. Then I use that thinned paint to add a layer at a time till the white is smooth and covers the base coat of light grey (Usually one to two coats for small areas, or multiple for large areas). I use a medium grey over the area first, then a light grey shade over that, then I start adding layers of white till the white covers correctly. If I start to run low on thinned paint, I add more from the pot and then add water to get it back to the right consistency. If it's not covering enough or seems overly thin, then add a little more paint. If it starts to get thick or chalky, then you need to add water. The main thing is getting the paint the proper consistency and then keeping it there as you paint. It's labor intensive but once you get the hang of it, you can produce wonderfully smooth and crisp whites.

Here's what the result looks like, while using this method:





The above was painted using an old (but still good!) pot of Skull White. I hope that helps. Best of luck and take it easy for now.

-Red__Thirst-

P.S. The shading was accomplished by using a very thinned down blue wash (3 parts water to 1 part Asurmen Blue wash) and a very small brush to let the thinned wash flow into the recesses, then coming back in with one to two more coats of white to clean up any baubles in the wash once it dried.

Have an exalt.

 zbg97 wrote:


Have an exalt.

Thank you kindly for that!

I'll also add that White, and colors like it such as Red, Orange, and Yellow are very tricky to paint correctly, and I'll argue white is the most difficult just because of the propensity to dry out quickly and 'thicken' up. Water based/acrylic paints are notorious for this. Thinning your paint on a pallet helps keep things nice and smooth, and allows you to monitor the paint's consistency as you go, which is critical for white, and many other colors that are prone to doing the same thing.

It's a learning curve, but not a super sharp/steep one to learn thank goodness. A little experimentation goes a long way with painting. Try some new things, watch videos on youtube, and once you understand the concept, try it out!

Most of my 'best' stuff wound up being trying something new and having it turn out to be a happy accident.

Take it easy for now.

-Red__Thirst-

My usual tactic when a model has white on it is to prime the entire model white to begin with.

It's easier to basecoat the non-white areas over a white primer than it is to try and make the white areas look good over a dark primer.

If a model only has a very small amount of white and is otherwise very dark I might be tempted to undercoat with a dark colour in which case you just have to accept that you have to spend time slowly layering the white in thin coats to make it look smooth.

There's a user who goes by Finnan who does some amazing work with incredibly thin (read: watered down) layers upon layers upon layers... That includes some impressive whites, but it's certainly not limited to white.

I used to think it was junk, but it turns out I had a bum pot of Citadel Ceramite White. Now, I like it a lot *as a base paint*. It covers incredibly well, and doesn't go on too thick. Ulthuan Grey also covers quite well, and is good to get you close to white, if it's a large panel you need to cover.

Liquitex Flo-Aid is also your friend, if you want to paint big white pieces. It really helps get rid of those brush strokes (make sure you dilute it first!!).

For all of these Adeptus Mechanicus symbols (the split white/black cogs), the model was primed red and airbrushed Mephiston Red, then the whole symbol was painted BLACK, and half was made white with Ceramite White. It actually didn't take a crazy number of coats -- maybe 5? I then washed it with a grey glaze, and highlighted with white scar. As you can see, it came out pretty well:



I didn't do a big zoomup photo of it, but the icon was also base coated with ceramite white (over red).

These wings were airbrushed white. One of the tricks to making big chunks of white look convincing is to paint the colors OTHER than white on the surface. Most objects which are white aren't really all white; they're shades of grey and reflections of other colors and colors of lights. In this case, blue.

Hey man. You got some extensive tips above, I can add my 5 cents about VGC. Use a white or grey primer and a thin base coat of dead white (thin the paint down well). Give it time to dry and use good brushes. Then apply the final dead white layer.

Remrmber that dead white is really hard to apply shadows or highlights on. I usually go with off white and dead white for highlights.
Cheers
Kahnawake

Dullspork wrote:Pretty much what others have said except that I'll add that I rarely use white as anything except the highest of highlights.

Kahnawake wrote:
Remrmber that dead white is really hard to apply shadows or highlights on. I usually go with off white and dead white for highlights.
Cheers
Kahnawake

I agree.

Basecoat of VGC Sombre Grey, a couple of coats of VGC Wolf Grey leaving Sombre Grey in the recesses, and then edge highlight with a pure white. You can obviously mix white into the Wolf Grey and layer more transitions to give a more subtle blend to a pure white highlight, but that would be meant for HQs and showcase models. A shade, base, and highlight technique work perfectly fine for tabletop standard.

I agree with the priming it with white, started painting (well not me, the wife) on my sons of malice space marines and primed it black, took forever to get the white done properly, so ended up stripping them and priming them white and painting the black. All I can say the wife was not so cranky after that.

I put very small amounts of violet (mid) or blue (cold) in my white if it's going to be the main focus of a mini. Absolutely minuscule amounts, but it helps make the white less stark, and it doesn't show up on the final result.
It's something we were taught back in art college for painting canvas, and I'd completely forgotten about doing it until a very nice guy online mentioned the process.

The new Citadel white base paint is great at covering, however if that isn't working well enough and your models are primed black, you can always cover the black with an intermediate color such as a grey or yellow base paint first and then hit it with white.

Wow I did not expect all these useful tips. Thanks so much guys! so the way I understand it....I need to get some ceramite white or any other light grey....willl do!

Awesome work, Talys.

I use White Scar Layer paint watered down over just a base coat of black paint multiple times, takes me 5-7 coats and wait till each dries individually. Then I go over it with a light nun oil wash watered down. I'm not the best painter but that's how I do my whites. The wash on the carapace wasn't dry or touched up yet when I took the picture but the Shoulder pads are.

The only way to make pure white from any brand look alright is to paint in several thinned down layers. Even when airbrushing.

Pretty much hate painting anything white would rather have an awesome cover of celestra grey than a a gakk looking white. I may start to cover the grey with white seeing the comments above though.