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I'm still a novice really when it comes to painting (although I feel like I'm quite precise and decent at getting my models tabletop-ready). The base colour for my Angels Revenant is black, but it's a bit flat at the moment. Have added some depth to my other colours by using a wash (e.g. the bone and white wing details and bronze), but would like to liven up the black a bit.

Was just wondering what the best technique and best colour is to do that?

Have read around and Codex Grey has been mentioned as a edge highlight colour. GW website has Dark Reaper and Fenrisian Grey as layer paints on top of Abaddon Black (which is what I've used) for 'Clean Black'.

I want to go for a similar colour to the armour of the Death Company (as my chapter is a Blood Angels successor).

Any tips for a simple edge/highlight?

Thanks.

I use thunderhawk blue to highlight black. It's similar to dark reaper but a touch more blue. Gradually mix it into your black, then add a touch of white one you need to lighten it more. Yu can use this to highlight your armour panels too.

You can highlight blacks with a neutral grey, which gives a slightly faded look, or highlight with a blue-grey for more of a clean and “freshly painted” looking black.

Also instead of painting pure black, use a very very very dark grey, then you can shade it down to pure black in the crevices. It’ll give more depth and look more realistic.

One of the theories of scale models is the smaller the scale the more pale you should make colours compared to their real life counterparts, as it simulates looking at them from a longer distance. In that sense it makes sense, even if you do want a pure black, to lighten it up slightly.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I use thunderhawk blue to highlight black. It's similar to dark reaper but a touch more blue. Gradually mix it into your black, then add a touch of white one you need to lighten it more. Yu can use this to highlight your armour panels too.

Thanks


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
You can highlight blacks with a neutral grey, which gives a slightly faded look, or highlight with a blue-grey for more of a clean and “freshly painted” looking black.

Also instead of painting pure black, use a very very very dark grey, then you can shade it down to pure black in the crevices. It’ll give more depth and look more realistic.

One of the theories of scale models is the smaller the scale the more pale you should make colours compared to their real life counterparts, as it simulates looking at them from a longer distance. In that sense it makes sense, even if you do want a pure black, to lighten it up slightly.

Thanks, that's helpful. And yes, it does make sense!

As a general tip; to get black to look black, you want your diffuse highlight (that's usually the one to the centre of panels, or the one with the gradient) to be extremely subtle - very dark, just off black. Specular (edge) highlights are much brighter than you might expect, generally going up to almost pure white for 'dots' at light pointing corners, but fading down to just about 50-50 of that top mix to your base highlight on edges facing away.

winterdyne wrote:
As a general tip; to get black to look black, you want your diffuse highlight (that's usually the one to the centre of panels, or the one with the gradient) to be extremely subtle - very dark, just off black. Specular (edge) highlights are much brighter than you might expect, generally going up to almost pure white for 'dots' at light pointing corners, but fading down to just about 50-50 of that top mix to your base highlight on edges facing away.

Thank you. Appreciate the detail.

Dawnstone is my go-to drybrush highlight for black armor. Its relatively muted, so you can get pretty aggressive with it. It works well as both an edging tool, as well as simulating lighting on flatter surfaces.

Be careful when highlighting black since it very easily will start to look dark grey.

Thanks for all the tips. I'll try it on a test model first (I'm getting a few new additions anyway - so can try it when I'm painting those) and see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, will just cover it with the base colour. Hopefully it will, though.