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Haven't posted in a while, getting back to painting again. This was done as a quick proof of concept for a friend of mine. The idea is to get a super quick white painted squad.

Took the pictures at work on a notepad, so the background is not the best.






I have access to a airbrush, and the process for this mini was;
1. Prime with gray primer
2. Wash with sepia
3. Second layer of gray primer
4. Spray base coat of white
5. Spot wash with nuln oil
6. Add details (super minor)
7. Brush on white to cover nuln oil that got on flat surfaces.

Thought about maybe adding a coat of gloss or matte varnish, not sure what effect it would have on the white color though as I really never painted white before.

Any tips/suggestions on making this process faster or get better results, with the idea that I'd like to give him a squad of marines ready to play that he can finalize if he wants to.

Adding a few examples of what my normal painting looks like so you can see my skill level.

I think your white process is a little drawn out - I don't really read much of your sepia work in the finished look - I'm sure it's there, but it's so subtle as to really not be visible (and certainly not in the photo shown). That sort of subtlety is best left for competition type work - tabletop stuff that you want to bang out, you want high visibility-to-effort. :-)

You can probably speed things up by doing a grey (warm or cool - brownish or blueish) wash / glaze (make it - Vallejo Field Blue thinned with some flow improver works very well) over a zenithal primer job (mix black and grey Vallejo primers to get a dark grey, spray all models with that, dump some, add some more grey, continue to almost pure grey for the zenith).

Then just hit your extremes with off white and dot with pure white on corners.

I agree on the process being long, it was my first real try at white and to be honest I did feel like the sepia wash didn't do anything for the mini so was thinning of skipping it.

I have a few extra models lying around and ill give your suggestion a shot and compare.

That's using the vallejo PU primers - the light grey primer really is very light - it's not white, but it's a good base for it, if you follow.

I'd maybe suggest a charcoal grey, instead of nuln oil. There's a fair bit of "spill over" onto the flat area, from washing the recesses. A dark grey will still provide solid contrast, but be easier to touch-up afterwards.

I've found that to get a decent white, all I need is a singular bone colour base. The ivory tone is oddly enough to get good coverage in one pass, and its near-white nature makes it much quicker for white coverage.

U can get whites in different hues. Sepia washes, grey washes and blue grey tones. The best results I’ve had with whites is to start with a blue grey base and layer up to a final pure white highlight. I used various techniques on my customs cloaks recently and found the wet pallet gave the smoother results. Quickest was probably layering with a drying retardant in the paint to help blending. If you start with a sepia layer first of you would get a bone white, the blue grey one I consider more of a “pure” white. It looks clean and crisp.

GW do good gradiated greys and ulthuan grey is a great off white colour that I can use then have fine pure white highlights. I always struggled with white through an airbrush, pos high pigment levels but also I have a pretty cheap airbrush.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just reread your post and saw you wanted super quick. All the layering I did wasn’t quick at all. Slow as hell. For quick white on marines and would use corax white from the can. A recess wash of a darkish blue grey. Touch up with ulthuan grey where needed (matches corax spray). Then edge highlight pure white. No idea on airbrushing them but the above way you could get a squad done in an evening easily.

If you're using panel liner instead of ink. You will get better results. Secondly. Use a sharp modeling knife to clean up via shaving paint. It works much better than you would expect. You can remove ink while still maintaining the paint.