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Hello All,

Apologies for this being a little bit Mickey Mouse but I have always struggled with painting white and getting a depth of colour. My skills are sufficient to make small bits like skulls, oath of the moment etc look good however I am now painting a high elf army with a dark green and white theme and I want the white robes etc to look really good as opposed to: sitting room ceiling no depth of colour white. Could anyone please help. I bought the new citadel colour range so specific reference to the paints in this would be even more helpful.

Thank you in advance.

Ed

Anybody?

Start with a light beige and highlight up to white. There early are many many techniques depending on what tone you want it to be.

Do you want the robes to be pure white? If it is pure white then the shadow should be a light grey color. If you are using white with another hue in it you need to shadow with a darker version of that huge.

Well...I don't know if this would help but here's my two cents: when I do white like in robes and whatnot, I put a very thin layer of white, or sometimes work with just the primer layer (if I happened to have coated the model white), and then come in with a thinned wash of some color - either a blue (Asuramen Blue Wash) or a brown (Gryphonne Sepia Wash). After that thoroughly dries, I then go and layer in the white, leaving more of the colored areas to fall in the recesses and folds, applying the fullest white on the crisp bends of the fabric. I choose blue if I want the model to look "regal", brown if I wanted a warmer, more natural look. Sometimes even thinned ink leaves a bit too much color, so sometimes I do layers of glazes, leaving the most color in the interior of the folds. Your mileage may vary, so please take with a grain of salt. Best of luck!

For an example of the blue, you can kinda see it here on this Anima Tactics figure, though I apologize for the photography being a bit blown out http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-viewimage.jsp?i=413938

Like Winter mentioned the type of white will dictate the method you go about for it. In general when painting white the trick is to not paint white; you want to get as close to it as possible, yet if you end up with a pure white you have no where to go with highlights and can easily look flat.

However in general you just build up thin layers upon a base to slowly build it up, ensuring a smooth and even cover.
For a warm white, such as cloth, you start with a brown or beige as Winter also suggested.
For a cold white, such as ice or perhaps white armour in an arctic themed army, you start with a blue.
For a neutral white, such as a statue or armour in a more neutral area, you start with a grey.

These base colours shouldn't be too strong as you want to eventually have a "white" instead of just what looks like a brighter version of it. For the blue I guess an equivalent of the Space Wolves grey would work. However when I paint white I generally go for either the neutral for armour or the warm white for parchment. However in the end you should end up with a close white, highlights in white will make it look like a proper white.

my own opinion that works for me is that you should never use white... or black they really dont exsist as a colour
by this i dont mean never use white paint just not straight from the pot i add a light flesh to my white to tone it down ass for black i add brown
it all really depends if you want pristine out of the paint shop models or been on the road for a while

Alternatively you can paint pure white and then shade the recesses with a sepia. This lends itself to some models more than others, will try to upload a pic later to show it.

I found this worked well on my marine and did primed black did 1 coat of white leaving the recessesblack then washed in a dark wash then used thinned down layers of white on a apothacary, seemed to have worked well on it for my not so great skill level but not sure how it will work on a robe.

 Umarine2010 wrote:
I found this worked well on my marine and did primed black did 1 coat of white leaving the recessesblack then washed in a dark wash then used thinned down layers of white on a apothacary, seemed to have worked well on it for my not so great skill level but not sure how it will work on a robe.

And what white did you use to cover black with white in one layer???

reps0l wrote:

 Umarine2010 wrote:
I found this worked well on my marine and did primed black did 1 coat of white leaving the recessesblack then washed in a dark wash then used thinned down layers of white on a apothacary, seemed to have worked well on it for my not so great skill level but not sure how it will work on a robe.

And what white did you use to cover black with white in one layer???

i used skull white but never said it covered it in 1 coat but could see how it might read that way so nope 1 coat did not cover black in 1 but the other thinned layers after did, think it took 3-4 coats of thinned skull white which is nice as i found i could leave some shaded areas while adding the other layers

 Umarine2010 wrote:
i used skull white but never said it covered it in 1 coat but could see how it might read that way so nope 1 coat did not cover black in 1 but the other thinned layers after did, think it took 3-4 coats of thinned skull white which is nice as i found i could leave some shaded areas while adding the other layers

Now that makes sense. My apologies for misreading. In any case what you did looks great.

i basecoat in black and i would use watered down astronomican grey to undercoat then bleached bone over that followed by skull white

I have painted roughtly 900 points of white scars bikers, and through trial and error, i have found my prefered method:

I start with a grey primer, if you are using black, try 1 basecoat of grey to start.
Then, a 1:3 mix of Light Grey to White - You want the grey to be as close to white as possible. I used 2 layers of this over grey primer.
Then, Highlight the edges as pure white.

Take this for example,

Look at the front wheel cover thingy (not sure what they are called). You see 'white', but closer inspection you can make out a white edge highlight.

(sorry, you probably struggle to see due to a poor pic)

Thank you all, I will have a go on the dragon I'm starting with and post a pic of the result.

I've got two methods that I use to paint white myself.
http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2012/08/there-are-only-two-ways-i-paint-white.html
One of them is for large areas and the other is for smaller areas.



In your case though, it sounds like you're more interested in robes that have a bit more variation in color to them.
I have this tutorial on painting robes that might help.
http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/12/quick-look-at-how-to-do-layering.html
It starts off with brown and works up to white using a layering approach, but you could easily change the browns to greys for a cooler look (as opposed to warm) to the model.