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I have been painting a unit of Eldar Wraithguard and I am having trouble with GW’s White Scar layer paint. I am mostly following the color scheme that was suggested in the instructions. I basecoated the helmets with Celestial Grey. I have been putting layers of White Scar over the Celestial Grey. The White Scar paint is terrible. I am thinning it with a drop of water and the coverage is bad. It is streaking and when I leave the model to dry the White Scar pools in a big drop on the bottom lip of the helmet.

After this unit I am going to buy a different brand of white. I would just like to know if I am doing anything wrong or if White Scar is just a bad paint. Thanks.

 nedpatrick wrote:
I have been painting a unit of Eldar Wraithguard and I am having trouble with GW’s White Scar layer paint. I am mostly following the color scheme that was suggested in the instructions. I basecoated the helmets with Celestial Grey. I have been putting layers of White Scar over the Celestial Grey. The White Scar paint is terrible. I am thinning it with a drop of water and the coverage is bad. It is streaking and when I leave the model to dry the White Scar pools in a big drop on the bottom lip of the helmet.

After this unit I am going to buy a different brand of white. I would just like to know if I am doing anything wrong or if White Scar is just a bad paint. Thanks.

White is EXTREMELY difficult to work with in all paint ranges. It sounds like you may be trying to apply too much paint at once if it's pooling, or maybe it's thinned too much. Try applying less per coat, or maybe slightly reducing how much water you're adding.

If your heart is set on changing, check out our Arctic White, It's gotten really high praise in the community, even those at the top of the game like Garfy Etherington from Tale of Painters

White is really hard to work with.

White Scar is not very good.

I would strongly recommend checking out Ulthuan Grey. It is one shade darker than actual white, but lighter than Celestra Grey.

Try Ulthuan Grey, it might be white enough for you. Or, go with a layer of that, and then a tiny bit of white on top.

Try Lahmien Medium instead of water. GW often says in their videos that the LM will actually thin the paint without killing off the coverage. Hopefully that'll help! Good luck!!

And yeah, their white paint is terrible; all styles of it are just bad.

Pure white is a highlight, never a base coat. You can't highlight pure white with anything. Use a very light grey like Ulthuan Grey. It's white enough, especially once you edge highlight with a pure white like White Scar.

White scar sucks. Get vallejo white. You need to layer it up from grey though. I'd suggest 5 layers minimum dragging the psint up to the lightest areas.

As has been said, white is a pain in the dick to use. GW's Lahmian Medium (or any brands acrylic medium) is probably better then water though for thinning the paint down. It certainly helped me with painting white.
Now unlike most people it seems, I really like GW's Ceramite White. I think it's a fantastic paint even though pretty much everyone else poo poos it as being chalky and lumpy. I find it's a great midway point between grey (of any shade) and pure white, as ceramite white is slightly off white. If you hold it against something painted pure white, you'll see it's actually quite grey in comparison.

My method of painting white is as follows.
-Black undercoat
-Two thinned down coats of mid-grey as a base coat. So the black is nice and covered. (I use Vallejo cold grey, but codex grey or equivalent is good)
-Many thin coats (4 or 5 is good) of ceramite white
-As many thin coats as needed of pure white (I use Vallejo dead white)

You could of course add an extra step with a lighter grey before you hit it ceramite white, but I've found that unnecessary.

Now, I disagree with John Prins here, I think white is fine for using as basecoat/layer/etc. I don't think white needs to be highlighted in most cases because the shading should really be doing the highlighting for you.
That being said though, John's example is a perfectly good way of painting white. Just a different look at the end.

Thanks for all of the advice. I was feeling crazy. It is much appreciated.

Seconding Vallejo Dead White, it's an amazing paint.

My method of painting white is as follows.
-Black undercoat

Not sure if serious.

Prime white or light grey, paint light grey (VMC blue grey, or light grey, or darker grey - whatever you want as shadow), mix with off white and continue to white.

I use Ceramite White over a black undercoat, too.

It's good paint.

The black undercoat empire stands undefeated.

Please don't give such advice...black undercoat for white painting just doesn't make sense. It's like painting white in hard mode.

The easiest way to paint white and to look smooth is to prime the model with light gray and then use off white or very light grey to basecoat.
Use pure white just for maximum highlights, this way you will trick the eye to see white instead of light grey.
You can go dark as much as you want in the shadows.

If you use pure white as a base you can't highlight it anymore. Also pure white for whole model just doesn't look right. You need to build up
contrast...

Also check out Vallejo Silver Grey. It's not a white but an extremely light grey that your eye perceives as white. This leaves you the contrast range to use legit white for extreme edges.

As said above, don't use black, use a grey primer/base instead for a.'colder' white. For a 'warmer' or dusty white, start with bone

this guy



is a black prime (to help with the greens mostly), base is VMC "Sky Grey", two thinned coats, followed by nuln oil, this then layered with a 50/50 of Sky Grey and Dead White, final drybrush of dead white

key being the sky grey and dead white both have decent coverage and the mix of the two thins nicely (pre-mixed as probably 45% white, 45% grey and 10% thinner)

Uthulan grey is a nice compromise if you prefer GW paints, over Celestra grey then a black wash, dry brush any white

Modock wrote:Please don't give such advice...black undercoat for white painting just doesn't make sense. It's like painting white in hard mode.

The easiest way to paint white and to look smooth is to prime the model with light gray and then use off white or very light grey to basecoat.
Use pure white just for maximum highlights, this way you will trick the eye to see white instead of light grey.
You can go dark as much as you want in the shadows.

If you use pure white as a base you can't highlight it anymore. Also pure white for whole model just doesn't look right. You need to build up
contrast...

Jimmy Zimms wrote:Also check out Vallejo Silver Grey. It's not a white but an extremely light grey that your eye perceives as white. This leaves you the contrast range to use legit white for extreme edges.

As said above, don't use black, use a grey primer/base instead for a.'colder' white. For a 'warmer' or dusty white, start with bone

Agreed. My cold off-white of choice is Army Painter Gorgon Hide, but that's more down to getting a bottle and liking it before trying other off-whites, so I'm not claiming it's necessarily the best choice. Start from a light grey base, then paint off-white. A light base to begin with minimises the problems you'll have getting good coverage.

Shadenuat wrote:Not sure if serious.

Completely serious.

Modock wrote:Please don't give such advice...black undercoat for white painting just doesn't make sense. It's like painting white in hard mode.

I never said it was the best/easiest/whatever. It's just the way I do it. Is it maybe a little unconventional? Sure. Does it work though? You bet.

For example.

This guy (and his squad) all painted over a black undercoat.





This bloke here, painted with a white undercoat.

I paint everything over a grey primer. Occasionally if the model is majority black. I will then basecoat the whole thing black, but my whites are always worked up from grey, with shadows then taken down to black. I would never work over a model undercoated white. It just makes everything too bright and more difficult to shade.

 Modock wrote:
Please don't give such advice...black undercoat for white painting just doesn't make sense. It's like painting white in hard mode.

The tonal impact of your undercoat is massive, and because of that there are plenty of situations where you might want a black undercoat on a model that has white.

To say it doesn't make sense is a bit disingenuous, yes it can be harder to do, but it's a perfectly valid choice.

Every single one of those Daemons is painted over a black undercoat.

there's a couple of different examples in the Horus Heresy painting guides in the April White Dwarf, and Mark Bedford also discusses it towards the end of the 29th of April episode of Voxcast; he works from a black primer too, and uses different washes (probably thinned with Lahmian Medium, although I don't have the article to hand) to do different tones of white - Seraphim Sepia for Death Guard, Drakenhof Nightshade for World Eaters and Nuln Oil for White Scars.

 nedpatrick wrote:
I have been painting a unit of Eldar Wraithguard and I am having trouble with GW’s White Scar layer paint. I am mostly following the color scheme that was suggested in the instructions. I basecoated the helmets with Celestial Grey. I have been putting layers of White Scar over the Celestial Grey. The White Scar paint is terrible. I am thinning it with a drop of water and the coverage is bad. It is streaking and when I leave the model to dry the White Scar pools in a big drop on the bottom lip of the helmet.

After this unit I am going to buy a different brand of white. I would just like to know if I am doing anything wrong or if White Scar is just a bad paint. Thanks.

I have a crap ton of experience with hard to paint paint. White yellow ect.

My advice to use is firstly a wet palette. Corex white over a grey under coating with a nuln oil wash. Wash the entire model.

Step 1 clean prep model
Step 2. Sand models with toothbrush.
Spray a light grey under coating. Step 4

Step 5 wash with nuln oil(trust me) Darkest in the resces. (Paint will stick to the wash) you're going to use panal liner later on( a different product then ink)

Step 6 base coat corex white ultra thin coats should look and feel like milk.

Step 7 scour the model with a toothbrush. Apply second coat. Go over it with a very sharp model knife. Shave off any impurities. (It helps the smoother it looks the more the white looks cleaner.

Step 8 apply highlights. Skull white bone white ect.. you can play around with color tone but generally you're going to want to mix whatever you have choosen with a warmer color like paid witch flesh. (Why you ask? Simple red shoulder pad trim is a warm color brings it all together)

Step 8 shade with you 50/50 mix of pure white and bone color like palid Wich flesh

Step 9 Highlight with your screaming skull or bone white pure white whatever you choose but make sure your paint is X2 thicker than your watered down layers so water down less.

Highlight a few times with the detail brush. Step 10

Go over the model again with a model knife and scour again. Fix anything that came off with the scouring don't be afraid to repaint a bit. Use the model knife again to clean up your paint. Step 11


Step 12. Fix anything else you missed.

Step 13 Application of panel liner.

Step 14 dry and Matt coat. I personally don't use heavy varnish.

This should give you outstanding eye popping white paint. White get's grainy. It's mitigated by the wet pallet. And scouring and model knife shaving.

Panel liner a good one will not stick to surface only get stuck in the panel lines. Giving you outstanding white..