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I have tried to paint gloss white armour before and I have had a lot of difficulty with it as the base coat required a lot of work to apply evenly and the gloss always ended up looking streaky.

I was using Vallejo paints and army painter(I think) gloss.

Would GW paints work better? Namely ceramite white and 'ard coat?

I presume that I would need to highlight the base coat in some fashion to add depth, any suggests for this?

This would be primarily for infantry models (guardsmen) but also possibly some Sentinels and some PHR for Dropzone if I can get it working right.

Mix a touch of dark blue into your white for a base coat. It should look like white on it's own, but clearly off-white in comparison to actual white. Then add more white as you highlight up to create a subtle color gradient. Only the very top highlights should be pure bright white.

Both white and gloss varnish can be prone to streaking when applied with a brush. Did you start with a white primer and apply the gloss with a spray?

Another thing to try is actually mixing the two mediums together, so find a gloss like Ard coat or Vallejo and mix it into your white, if you prime your model white first this coat over it should give you a better coverage of gloss effect.

I used white spray primer and brushed on paint as I don't own an airbrush. Realistically would I need an airbrush to achieve an even gloss finish?

I am looking for speed and reproducibility as I will be painting around 200 guardsmen so I would to use ready mixed base colours that wouldn't require more than 1-2 coats.

There looks to be a fair colour difference between ceramite white and whatever the new skull white is called so presumably there would be enough of a difference to produce a reasonable colour gradient? I also presume that a coat of very thinned down blue wash would be a good idea as well?

I hadn't considered mixing the varnish with the paint, I presume that 'ardcoat will mix well with GW paints?

Pseudomonas wrote:
Realistically would I need an airbrush to achieve an even gloss finish?

No, just use a gloss spray varnish. I'm a fan of Testors Glosscote.

Incidentally, there are a few videos on YouTube of people painting actual stormtrooper miniatures from the Imperial Assault boardgame that you might find useful. In particular, check out Sorastro Painting's video on Heavy Stormtroopers - he seems to get some quite decent results from little more than a white basecoat, a carefully thinned wash and some well-placed highlights. IMO, I'd be happy with the results just after the wash (especially if I was going to paint 200 guardsmen...)

I've seen good results starting with Vallejo Model Color Silvergrey, then highlighting up to white. Silvergrey is pale enough that it looks white against any other colour, but you can still highlight it.

I don't know if I'd want to actually make it gloss, or just paint sharp spot highlights to give it a "shiny" effect.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

I don't know if I'd want to actually make it gloss, or just paint sharp spot highlights to give it a "shiny" effect.

I don't know either

I am planning on make some Rogue Trader Housetroops so I want them to look different from run of the mill guardsmen as well as being much better equipped. I will be using the Anvil industries regiments range for the models and the general colour scheme that I am thinking of is dark grey uniforms with red berets but I am having trouble coming up with something suitable for their armour. White should work quite well although I have never been able to paint 'white' miniatures to my satisfaction, I my just end up using blue though.

 Wasteland wrote:

No, just use a gloss spray varnish. I'm a fan of Testors Glosscote.

There would be a lot of non armour areas so that may well be more trouble than it would be worth.

Doing white armor just takes a lot of figuring the paint out till you got it right.

Same with brush on gloss varnish. I usually try and thin it and apply it in layers if needed. It usually fixes some of the streakyness.

Or... paint the armor, glosscoat varnish it and then do the rest of the painting.