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I've tried both Army Painter and Vallejo Game Metallics and I'm struggling with them, they don't do go on anything like regular paint (I use Vallejo Model Colour which are awesome). I find it really hard to see what's actually painted, so I miss parts, for example I painted a Reaver yesterday and didn't notice I'd spilled over on the sword, had that been a regular paint I would have seen it and fixed it long before it was varnished and "complete".



I've been thinning them like regular paints, is that correct or not? And just any tips on working with them would be good. For now I'm going to limit their usage as much as possible (the feth was I thinking with metal trim on his boots).

You shouldn't really have any specific problems with metallics themselves. Maybe just a little more practice to get your consistencies right.

If you're looking for recommendations of individual paints, for my money the best silver paints are GW's Leadbelcher, and Chrome from the Vallejo Model Air range. I use the chrome with a normal brush - you don't need to use an airbrush. It's astonishingly shiny, and very easy to use. It works great as a highlight on the Leadbelcher.

For things like swords and weapons that you want to look weathered, I sometimes just paint them black or dark grey, then use a very controlled drybrush over the top, usually of GW's Necron Compound. it's a quick and very easy way to create decent-looking metallics.

Edit - Yeah, thin them, but it is really difficult painting with metallics, sometimes. I share your pain. They either go on too thick, or too patchy. I guess thin them and build up in layers as usual. I don't think the boots look too bad, you could just tidy up around the metallic bit.

The Vallejo Metal Color ones are super thin (pretty sure even thinner than the Air ones) and still cover really well, I'd highly recommend them for steel and silver-ish colors. The Gold isn't great though.

Regarding being able to see them, what kind of light do you use? I've had problems with fluorescent lights not really reflecting off them very well, so you can't really see how much has gone on the model. More of problem with drybrushing in my experience, but could also helped with straight painting. I've been using LED lights for a while and I've not had to quite the same problem, but ymmv.

feltmonkey wrote:If you're looking for recommendations of individual paints, for my money the best silver paints are GW's Leadbelcher, and Chrome from the Vallejo Model Air range. I use the chrome with a normal brush - you don't need to use an airbrush. It's astonishingly shiny, and very easy to use. It works great as a highlight on the Leadbelcher.

For things like swords and weapons that you want to look weathered, I sometimes just paint them black or dark grey, then use a very controlled drybrush over the top, usually of GW's Necron Compound. it's a quick and very easy way to create decent-looking metallics.

Edit - Yeah, thin them, but it is really difficult painting with metallics, sometimes. I share your pain. They either go on too thick, or too patchy. I guess thin them and build up in layers as usual. I don't think the boots look too bad, you could just tidy up around the metallic bit.

I'm definitely going to look into GW's metallics range as they seem to go on great in the videos I've seen, whereas mine just do not. As for the boots, I found it so difficult to actually see the detail under my lamp, only in the photo can I see the areas I messed up, had that been a grey instead of silver I would have seen and corrected it no problem. For now I'm going to avoid using metallics as much as I can, pretty much only using them for weapons.

 Flinty wrote:
Regarding being able to see them, what kind of light do you use? I've had problems with fluorescent lights not really reflecting off them very well, so you can't really see how much has gone on the model. More of problem with drybrushing in my experience, but could also helped with straight painting. I've been using LED lights for a while and I've not had to quite the same problem, but ymmv.

Energizer LED Energy Saving Lightbulb, E14, Daylight

It's so odd, I can look directly at a model that's painted say, gunmetal and it'll look fine, turn it slightly and I can see basecoat under it. I'm just finding it very hard to work with as I can't see the paint properly on the mini. That's why I never noticed I painted some brass over the silver on his sword, even though I looked the model over.

Where the bronze overlapped onto the steel? Is that the issue?

It happens with the best of them, sometimes not until you set the mini down and stop looking at it. Just get the steel back out and fix it, it's no big deal.

 Vulcan wrote:
Where the bronze overlapped onto the steel? Is that the issue?

It happens with the best of them, sometimes not until you set the mini down and stop looking at it. Just get the steel back out and fix it, it's no big deal.

It's a symptom of the issue, the main issue is I just couldn't see it. For some reason I really struggle to see metallic paint on the mini, whereas normal paint shows up perfectly.

 H wrote:
The Vallejo Metal Color ones are super thin (pretty sure even thinner than the Air ones) and still cover really well, I'd highly recommend them for steel and silver-ish colors. The Gold isn't great though.

This.

Vallejo Game , Model, and AIr color Silver tones are great.
The golds are NOT.

The new(ish) vallejo metal color is pretty good as well from what I have heard, I havn't tried them yet, I hear the silvers are fantastic, unsure of the gold.

Ive tried the Vallejo Liquid metals and they are good, though you have to use mineral spirits. This seems to be the truest color match to an actual metal I have found.

The best golds I have heard/seen a lot of Twitch streamers use is the Scale 75. Im in the states, and its hard to get over here, its expensive to ship across the pond, may bight the bullet eventually.

TLDR: Check out vince venturella on youtube, he has done product reviews of a lot of this stuff with testing and he shows the results.

Vallejo Air Color are some of the best I have worked with but I have also recently started working with Scale75s which are just as awesome and you can get some rarer metallic colors (Amethyst, Emerald) on top of all the usual ones.

The GW gold and silvers are great. I find silver over a black undercoat is great, and if you paint anything that is going to be gold a nice mid brown first it goes on really well and you can really see it sparkle. It might help you with instances like this as it highlights the gold a lot better than going right over a black undercoat.

I use GW paints for metallics both gold and silvers.

The vallejo silvers are ok, you need to thin them slightly though, and the vallejo golds are just crap.

But personally just blanket use GW paints for all metallics I think they are better than vallejo.

I am a massive fan of vallejo paints in general, I used them mostly over GW paints and much prefer dropper bottles over GW stupid things, but not all of them are the best, you cannot say vallejo paints are better than GW or visa versa (I cannot comment on other brands) but certain paints out of each's range are better than others.

Anyone tried GW Caliban Green? Absolutely terrible, and for a base paint also, you need about 3 coats to get a decent cover.

Another thing I will say in GW's favour is the washes are better, and because they are so thin the pots dont suffer the guming up problem you get with the normal paints.

Scale 75 metallics are some of the best I've used, particularly things like viking gold and black metal. Buy them in the packs though because it works out slightly cheaper than buying individual pots.

We've got some very nice metallics in our store that are getting some very high praise from people across the hobby spectrum.

For a really good look at them, check out MonkeysWithFire who's dedicating a whole month on Twitch to our paints, he uses our metallic paints on this episode (As well as our washes) INSTAR Metallics being used on RNE Studios Model

 Supershandy wrote:
We've got some very nice metallics in our store that are getting some very high praise from people across the hobby spectrum.

For a really good look at them, check out MonkeysWithFire who's dedicating a whole month on Twitch to our paints, he uses our metallic paints on this episode (As well as our washes) INSTAR Metallics being used on RNE Studios Model

I'll be honest I've never heard of you, but I'm new to the hobby so that may be why. I'll definitely check out the video later though, having a quick look on the store now and the prices seem fair so I can see myself trying your wares at some point. BTW, I don't suppose you have any coupons for first time customers laying around?

MrH86 wrote:

 Supershandy wrote:
We've got some very nice metallics in our store that are getting some very high praise from people across the hobby spectrum.

For a really good look at them, check out MonkeysWithFire who's dedicating a whole month on Twitch to our paints, he uses our metallic paints on this episode (As well as our washes) INSTAR Metallics being used on RNE Studios Model

I'll be honest I've never heard of you, but I'm new to the hobby so that may be why. I'll definitely check out the video later though, having a quick look on the store now and the prices seem fair so I can see myself trying your wares at some point. BTW, I don't suppose you have any coupons for first time customers laying around?

Haha, Don't ask don't get as they say

But actually yes in a way, MonkeysWithFire has a discount code (One time use only) from tonight so if you're around between 7-9PM, check out the channel and get hold of the code.

There's also a free sample of our Water+ from our secret Provectus line (Information on the website) with each order made with the discount code , MWF has already been trying it out on the channel

 Supershandy wrote:

MrH86 wrote:

 Supershandy wrote:
We've got some very nice metallics in our store that are getting some very high praise from people across the hobby spectrum.

For a really good look at them, check out MonkeysWithFire who's dedicating a whole month on Twitch to our paints, he uses our metallic paints on this episode (As well as our washes) INSTAR Metallics being used on RNE Studios Model

I'll be honest I've never heard of you, but I'm new to the hobby so that may be why. I'll definitely check out the video later though, having a quick look on the store now and the prices seem fair so I can see myself trying your wares at some point. BTW, I don't suppose you have any coupons for first time customers laying around?

Haha, Don't ask don't get as they say

But actually yes in a way, MonkeysWithFire has a discount code (One time use only) from tonight so if you're around between 7-9PM, check out the channel and get hold of the code.

There's also a free sample of our Water+ from our secret Provectus line (Information on the website) with each order made with the discount code , MWF has already been trying it out on the channel

I just ordered a bunch of metallics, I'm interested to see how they stack up against my current ones.

Scale75 Black Metal and 'Eavy Metal are amazing silvers (Black Metal is a slightly darker Leadbelcher, and 'Eavy Metal is a slightly darker Mithril silver).

I love using those and spot highlighting with Vallejo Air Chrome.

I exclusively use VMC metallics, and I paint AdMech so I use a LOT of the stuff. Here are some pointers from my experience:

1) Prime black. Seriously, this is going to help a lot with your coverage and depth. Painting any metallic over white or any other bright base coat is going to require a lot more paint to get a visible sheen.

2) Don't thin VMC metallics. There is actually very little in the way of actual paint in these things. Imagine the paint to be a wash or glaze with little metallic particles in them.

3) Layer brighter metallics like Silver or Gold over a "darker" metallic color, such as Natural Steel or Brass, respectively. And mix a tiny bit of darker "color" into it. I like a one parts dark to four parts bright ratio. This helps prevents patchiness.

There are crazy amounts of metal paints out there and reviews for them but I read nothing but praises (I use them myself) for Vallejo Metal Color line.
Quite some reviewers are claiming these are the best (hard to say) acrylic metals on the market. Silvers are nuts really.

Extra fine pigments, amazing flow and coverage, which means the finish will be perfectly smooth. For some aplications will be too smooth, like
painting orc metals and so on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxODxALYV8o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hauVrnhIah0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKtJ2sx3VJY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7gK65qi57g


These work with a hairy brush perfectly fine no prob.

I used Tamiya metallics for a very long time and they're very easy to use. Just use the tamiya thinner instead of water and you'll get excellent flow off the brush while remaining controllable. Chrome silver, copper leaf, gun metal & gold leaf are beautiful.

Silly question, but have you had your vision checked for colour blindness? I have a slight red-green deficiency; it doesn’t affect me most of the time, but with certain shades under certain lighting (particularly artificial light) I get all sorts of weird optical effects, including colours just straight up disappearing/becoming indistinguishable.

 Jadenim wrote:
Silly question, but have you had your vision checked for colour blindness? I have a slight red-green deficiency; it doesn’t affect me most of the time, but with certain shades under certain lighting (particularly artificial light) I get all sorts of weird optical effects, including colours just straight up disappearing/becoming indistinguishable.

I can't remember ever having my eyes checked and I'm 33 now. I did get a second lamp and daylight bulb today though and I can see the model a million times better, haven't checked specially for metallics as I haven't done any painting today but in general I was having a much easier time.

 Jadenim wrote:
Silly question, but have you had your vision checked for colour blindness? I have a slight red-green deficiency; it doesn’t affect me most of the time, but with certain shades under certain lighting (particularly artificial light) I get all sorts of weird optical effects, including colours just straight up disappearing/becoming indistinguishable.

I also have a red-green deficiency. My wife sanity checks me. Lol.

Decided to book myself in for an eye test on Tuesday, so I guess we'll find out soon enough. On the plus side Games Workshop is a 5 minute walk from Specsavers, so I may pop in there and treat myself to something afterwards.

MrH86 wrote:
Decided to book myself in for an eye test on Tuesday, so I guess we'll find out soon enough. On the plus side Games Workshop is a 5 minute walk from Specsavers, so I may pop in there and treat myself to something afterwards.

That’s a proper hobbyist attitude; any excuse to spend money on models!