J-paint's combined thread. - Pink horrors

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**Valhalla130**

I don't remember seeing the vampire looking dude. That could be the basis of a hellacious army by itself!

**J-paint**

@bebop - Thanks man, means alot coming from a painter as accomplished as you!

@Valhalla - Lol they are really alot easier than you'd think!

@Moltar - Thanks Moltar, I really agree about the randomly floating backpack, it bugs me too, but I couldn't think of a good way to suspend it.

@San - Thanks San, you really really should, I can imagine you would come up with something incredible.

@Gits - Pah, you are more than a good enough champion, your mantis warriors are beautiful

@Comrade -

@LDD - haha the close combat guy is indeed something of a mentalist, the sniper does has a pattern but its become a bit too subtle and faded.

@Warboss - Sorry for the slow reply, its actually the skull head from the vampire counts fantasy caine wraight kit.

@Valhalla - Lol it could indeed!

So I have been having more marine fun this weekend, namely an iron hand, I have got really caught up in their fluff, they are awesome!

Before paint:

After paint: Any tips on how to improve the black armour would be much appreciated, I have tried to go for a realistic weathered look, but I can't decide if it has worked perfectly?

**Gitsplitta**

I think it looks fantastic! Painting black armor has always been kind of a boggle to me. You've handled it very well in my opinion.

**San76**

He looks great mate. Very dynamic pose and lots of detail. The lenses are also very nice and tie it all together nicely.As for the black....I think it does look good but I think maybe I liked the way did the armour on the black Templar a bit better. Only a bit though as the legs look awesome

I got to ask...Where did you get his model? Or did you just make him with your kit bashing skills?

**J-paint**

@Gits - Thanks Gits, your being too damn nice again though! Remember what we talked about!!

@San - Thanks man, as far as the black/silver and bright gren as a spot colour goes i'm fairly pleased with the result, but the black itself is still bugging me, its such a nightmare to paint well! The model itself is actually mostly a finecast techmarine with added bits from the new sternguard kit with a small amount of greenstuff, you can see it fairly well in the first picture, nothing special! I wonder if you could help me with my question below San, you seemed to know what was what when it came to black armour when I asked in your thread.

So whilst I was fairly happy with this Iron hand it was not really the look I had intended, it was just the direction it took because it was what felt comfortable, what I was aiming for, and was going to use as a guide was this picture:

Does anyone have ANY idea how I could imitate this kind of look, or is it only possible due to the fact that its a digital image? The black in particular is interesting because it looks metallic, do you think mixing a dark silver into the black would give a good look, or would it just turn into an iron warrior?

**Gitsplitta**

J-paint wrote:
@Gits - Thanks Gits, your being too damn nice again though! Remember what we talked about!!

Oh shoot... sorry. Let's see.

The hazard striping on those wires isn't quite yellow enough?? How's that?

O.K., I don't really mean it though. Sorry. No flaws this time. Try harder next time around...

**Vitruvian XVII**

Looking great J! Rally love that iron hand. I tend to prefer to paint black armour as a really dark grey instead. ie i never actually paint pure black onto the armour, i find pure black too harsh.

**J-paint**

@Gits - sigh! If I ever get round to getting an airbrush you will be able to criticise me as i learn how to work the thing, your airbrushed green is a thing of beauty!

@Vit - You live Vit! Hooray! I think I am going to agree with you there, both you and San have suggested that and I will be giving it a go, you sir need to update your PandM blog, I need more!

So been thinking about how to copy the picture I put up in my last post, I have decided that I would probably need to use a NMM technique to paint the black to get it to look shiny but not properly metallic.....now this is a terrifying idea, especially as i am getting psyched to buy a heresy era IH army (the new FW stuff is exquisite!!) Anyone know if Black NMM works? Or does it jsut look like steel? Its almost the same thing.

**Dr H**

Hello. I've been following (read; lurking) your blog here for a while. Very nice painting throughout.

Just an idea or two for the black.
Have you thought about lightly dry-brushing silver over the black surfaces, you only want a light dusting, but that may give it a metallic sheen.

Or a gloss coat or maybe better would be a satin varnish coat. Although, this may not look right in pictures even if it does in real life.

Or I've read about using a soft graphite layer over the black to give it a metallic look. That is; rub it gently with a pencil. Then give it a varnish layer afterwards.

Or, as you say, paint on the reflections/shine in a nmm like way. I can see that being difficult. You'll need to think about the model in separate sections / geometric shapes and shade/shine each individually.

I haven't tried any of these techniques, so can't help you much. Good luck.

**San76**

Heya J...sorry for the delay, something is going wrong with my subs - im not getting notifications when some of them update (which is annoying!).

i think you are probably right mate, to get that look glossy look on a model NMM is what you are going to need to do; or you could go for a really contrasting highlight pattern. i dug around on dakka and coolminiornot (the harshest website of all) to find an example of what i mean, and i found this figure by Eric Chan (http://www.coolminiornot.com/341631). now, Eric clearly has traded with the warp gods for that kind of skill (and yet the crowd only gave this figure a 9.2? tough room....) ...but i think maybe if you were to use black/brown/blues instead of space wolf colours you might get something similar to the pic you posted? i downloaded the pic and converted to greyscale and it seemed not dissimilar from your IH.

anyways, cant wait to see them mate. before i go i will say...you know an army painted like the IH you already did would be totally kick arse, right?

**Gitsplitta**

You know... you ought to check out moonpie's blog. He's got that kind of look to his Emperor's Fools (marines). It's a rather crude look close up but very convincing at tabletop distances.

**nerdfest09**

Hmmm quite a quandry eh! you could attempt something not quite how you would imagine painting it! basing the model in a silver or boltgun colour and then using multiple washes to darken the armour to black, having a damp clean brush handy to wipe & control the intensity of the washes as you add them could/should give you a different black armour!

**bebopdrums2424**

Yeah. j Im assuming thats a metal look there, and not a nmm carbine type look? well. you could go two ways with this. Either actually paint the extreme highlights, which wont really be effective unless you REALLY commit to it, right? (ive no doubt youd do an amazing job) Which of course is fun, but also time consuming and i doubt you'd wanna do it over and over again? The other option, considering that this maybe an army project, might be the use of a blush applicator, the kind women use. Those big soft brushes for their cheeks. The bristles are so fine and numerous that the paint dries almost instantly on them and turns the paint into a fine powder. The drybrushing result is much finer and stronger, but in a very even and subtle way. Its also fast, because the brush is so big. And, in fact, the result will almost be identical to that picture. Only downside is itll use more paint. Maybe an obvious answer but the blush applicator is the key.

Cheers!

EDIT: i just read what nerd said and ya,hes right, of course. The black ink will help alot. what id do: Black primer. Drybrush with applicator, soft darker metal color directly over primer. Black wash, maybe two. Drybrush again a little less area with a lighter metal, another black/brown wash. then drybrush lightest metal only tiny spots for extreme...black glaze.
Haha, thats what id do. for the fast way.

**STC_LogisEngine**

I'll just leave this one here, don't know the artist but I guess it is just the sourcematerial you need J-P.

Enjoy tearing your hair.

**nerdfest09**

You are a horrible little man STC! now none of us can even attempt to paint black ever again!

**Theophony**

I don't say that lightly. The black is beautiful.

**J-paint**

@Dr H - Thanks Dr H! You have some really good ideas there, I think I will really challenge myself and go for the nmm effect (well, try!) But thanks for the thoughts!

@San - I had that problem for a while too, seemed to sort itself out after a while fortunately! Unfortunately I fear the NMM looks like it may be the way to go, I think that picture looks really promising, and 9.2?? agreed they are very harsh critics over there! And haha oh it would, but that would be too easy San, we have to make it absolutely impossible for some reason, I havn't even tried NMM before!

@Gits - I had alook and your right, perhaps something like that with a bit more blending might work well!

@nerd - Whats annoying is I actually thought that would be a quick fix, but when I came to try it it just looks like a very very dark silver, frustrating!

@bebop - Now the make up applicator is a brilliant idea! Do you have any examples of when you have used this technique? It sounds great, but also a bit too good to be true! especially as I don't have an airbrush, sounds like the perfect alternative. Your recipe sounds really good actually, I will have a bit of an experiment!

@Theophony - ...I agree.

@

STC_LogisEngine wrote:
I'll just leave this one here, don't know the artist but I guess it is just the sourcematerial you need J-P.

Enjoy tearing your hair.

STC I actually hate you! why oh why would this exist without an in depth tutorial!!!! I will reward several internet cookies to anyone who can work out who did this!

**bebopdrums2424**

YEAH. Those are freaking gorgeous. If that the look you want, you know what you must do!

The alternative i described is a faster and definitley less beautiful approach. But you should try it and see what it looks like? Its a fast paint. 15 minutes

As far as examples of my stuff, no, i only use it on tanks and my tanks are sad. so you cant see it.

But it does work extremely well.

**Moltar**

BAM:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?48121-Flameon-WIP-s

Hope that helps.

**J-paint**

Ty bebop I will! especially as this other method takes 16 hours just to do the black per figure!

Moltar - You sir are a gem! thank you!

SO then just in case anyone else is interested in how this astounding black was done, well we need not worry, apparently it's very EASY! This is what the guy said: (He is from Poland, but compared to my Polish its pretty impressive!)

'Painting black colour was kind of easy. I was looking on miniature and start imagine where the colour schould schine. Next I mark this point with mix of adeptus battlegray ( 50:50 ) an chaos black. next made a smaller mark witch pure adeptus, and next with adeptus and a little bit scull white and than i did it again, and again with more white paint until i decided it looks good enough. And it took me some time because I was trying to make this very smooth.'

To summarise he just uses pure skill! And about 16 hours for the black on one figure! If I ever was going to do a squad for Golden demon I might consider this, as it is, life is too short!

So I have tracked down another amazing example of black by the damned artificier, who's black looks like this:

And he has a tutorial on how to do it, so even though it is a bit more blue in hue, I think it will still look pretty good, still time intensive, but hey, hopefully not as bad! The only thing is he has used an airbrush for this technique, do we think a mere paintbrush will have the same effect or will it look too chalky? I guess I could always try and apply the colours with bebops make up brush idea, I will buy some paints then experiment when I get some free time.

**Gitsplitta**

Very nice. Post a link to the tut, will you please?

**J-paint**

the damned artificer wrote:
As promised a while back here's a tutorial on how I painted the black on Abaddon.

Note that this is for a simulated high reflective black, and not everyone likes this particular look for black

I used VMA 71.005 intermediate blue, VMA 71.075 sand, VMC 70.950 black and Secret weapon washes W002 heavy body black.

1. Basecoat model VMC black.

2. First highlights are airbrushed on with Intermediate grey, making sure to focus on the area where the light would pool.

3. Next hightlight is 1/5 VMC sand to VMC intermediate blue. Again focus on where the light would pool, and make sure to leave part of the previous highlight.

4. Next highlight is roughly 2/5 VMC sand to VMC intermediate blue. By this stage you'll start to think "what am I doing, this doesn't look black at all..." Which is why step 5 is needed

5.To re-define the black I use the wash from secret weapon which leaves a slightly shiny surface, which is really great, any black wash with some gloss varnish added should suffice though. Now you blend back the highlights to define them and make some contrast.

6. This is the final stage and also the detail stage of the model. Using a brush touch up any areas that needs to be a bit darker with the black wash, also use it to blackline all the rivets and panel lines. Then using a 1/1 mix of VMC sand to VMC intermediate blue highlight all the edges. If you prefer add a further highlight of 2/1 VMC sand to VMC intermediate blue to make the edges of the "light pools" stand out a bit more.
Add all other details like the red, gold and steel detail in this case. (the model isn't complete as I didn't have the time atm.)

Hope this is useful to some of you guys

Here you are Gits, this is doubly useful as now I have it easily accessible on my thread too! Hope he doesn't mind me copying it like this

So here is a link to the page as well:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/513627.page

**STC_LogisEngine**

You don't hate me, you wanted reference material and you got it!

Anyway, I threw up a PIP-shot of the upscaled librarian on my thread since you where interested.

**GiraffeX**

I have something which might work in regards to the first pic of the digital image, I believe you can do that. I'll pm you though wouldn't want to embarrass myself posting my pics on your blog

**cormadepanda**

Neat black stuff j paint.

I would do the shimmer with just a black and white (mix to get all the shades inbetween) building up to a perfect white and layering. Perhaps a near water color paint thickness. Try that out?

**San76**

Damn those are awesome...guess we all know the standard to aspire to with Templar now....as daunting as it is...it kinda wants to make me give it a go.

looking forward to seeing your next lot of Iron Hands roll off the production line J.

**ephrael**

Have you considered using the Vallejo Model Air color Metallic Black? It is a very dark black metallic color. I have a shoulder pad painted with it that I can post a pic of if you would like an example. You could also try a product called Rub-N-Buff. It is a thicker paint product that you can apply with a soft cloth and polish to a sheen. I've been experimenting with it and can post a pic of it as well. You can actually dry brush the Rub-N-Buff lightly over a black base coat to achieve a metallic sheen.

**nerdfest09**

^ Now this sounds intruiging ephrael! I for one would welcome any chance to aquire new techniques that are a little left of centre :-)

**J-paint**

@STC - as I said on your thread, your PIP is simply stunning! All grumblings are withdrawn, please share your method?

@Giraffe - You are too modest, those pics you sent were awesome!

@Comrade - Your a harsh taskmaster comrade! That will take a lonnnnnnnnnnng tim, but you may well be right!

@San - Tell me about it, researching these different methods of apinting blacks has really flagged up my inadequacies more than anything!

@Ephrael - Now that is another very interesting idea sir, I would love examples of both the metallic black and the rub n buss if you have them? Would be really interesting to see what sort of results they give! Thanks for your thoughts btw.

@nerd - Agreed, in fact the forge world masterclass book advocates that rub and buff stuff for gold if I remember right, you might remember, you have read it more thoroughly recently!

**ephrael**

Nerd and J-paint, I have 4 different colors of the Rub-N-Buff. Ebony, Silver Leaf, Gold Leaf and Spanish Copper. I'll get a sample of each uploaded later this evening for you to look at. I would also recommend looking at this fellow's method of painting black power armor. I think that it's the one Iive settled on for my Heresy Era Dark Angels. I'll be substituting Vallejo Colors instead of GW's but otherwise I think that its the one for me.
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?378339-The-Iron-Tenth-A-Heresy-Era-Iron-Hands-Log