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Why is yellow difficult to paint? I've never tried it myself, so I'm not sure how it's any different to any other colour.
And if it's difficult to paint, are there any ways of making it easier?

Thanks for any replies

It's because the pigmentation is very thin, so it leaves a lot of streaking.

I find that a very solid white base coat is best, followed by 2 or 3 coats of yellow. But when you realise that just took about 6 layers of paint on the same section to get to that point, it gets kind of off putting.

Yellow and airbrushes are good friends.

MongooseDoggie wrote:
Yellow and airbrushes are good friends.

The only way I intend to do yellow where possible haha.

MongooseDoggie wrote:
Yellow and airbrushes are good friends.

What is it about airbrushing that changes things? I'm not really well-versed on the chemistry of paint and how it plays out here.

Airbrushes can lay down an extremely thin, and very even coat, which is incredibly difficult to do with a brush.
All the really nice yellows are transparent pigments, which unless layered up perfectly evenly (like with an airbrush) will show stronger streaks of colour where the layers are thicker, which leads to the difficulty faced by many with yellow.

Conversely blue pigments tend to have excellent coverage, thus why ultra marines and now dark angels have been good 'starter' armies (green has a lot of blue in it) while imperial fists is not so much starter friendly. A difficult painting process can be enough to put off a lot of people who want to play more than paint.

Yellow is the biggest pain in my butt when I was doing Bad Moon Orks. I did the best dilution possible with lahmen medium and multiple coats over time so that it actually began to base.

But by about the 3rd or 4th coat it just turns into a chalky look. The wash saves it though, removes the chalky look and gives it some nice shadowing, but then the following layer is still a pain and can leave a chalky look again on the highlights.

I haven't found a way around it other than people recommending to use diluted mixtures and patience with many thin coats. I'm not sure if it is a citadel paint trait or if all yellows experience this.

I'm just glad that I don't have to use yellow any more and intend to never use it again lol.

Try this guide

http://davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com/2012/11/lamenters-update-painting-yellow.html

Thanks for the explanation, HairySticks. That makes sense.

Did someone mention this already? A solid white basecoat I totally agree with and if you don't have an airbrush, then keep the yellow paint thin and do lots of coats. If you think applying it straight from the pot is a good idea, think again because you'll wind up with a lumpy surface with lots of brush stroke marks.

Great info on this thread, I plan to do some Imperial Fists someday and some nice tips here.

I'm not a fan of the brownish yellow Imperial Fists. My formula though is spray primer white (any brand), the army painter daemonic yellow for a base coat, then shade with other yellows/mixing/washes, and highlight with brighter yellows/mixing.

Using Averland Sunset as a base and working up to brighter yellows makes life a lot easier.

This method has worked for me, recently. Not sure about vehicles, though.

http://mengelminiatures.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/imperial-fist.html

I dont use solid white basecoat for yellow, unless I want a cold yellow. For warm rich yellows try a beige base, I like to use Zandri Dust from the citadel range, but ushabti bone (bleached bone) should work well, giving an effect somewhere between pure white and Zandri dust.

When spraying cars they dont exclusively use white or grey, as primer, they also use beige, and it depends on the exact colour theyre supposed to be matching. Some colours also require a specific base colour, we should be able to understand this from the way we would use black as a base for silver and brown for gold etc.
When using transparent paints (like many of the yellows and reds out there) this process of 'underpainting' becomes very important.

One idea might be to base with a mixture of ceramite white (or whatever opaque white) mixed with your chosen yellow to give a beige more akin to your particular yellow before applying just the yellow.

I found that starting wtih a yellow primer, you can have pretty good looking models.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/437272.page

 Selym wrote:
Why is yellow difficult to paint?

Because you are descended from Green Lanterns, and are afraid of yellow.

Instead of a white basecoat (unless of course you want YELLOW!) try mixing yellow into a foundation paint. Dheneb stone for instance. I'd have thought using white would increase the chances of streaking?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Using Averland Sunset as a base and working up to brighter yellows makes life a lot easier.

This, patience, and a wet palette.

I've painted up 1k of imperial fists from a black undercoat using iyanden darksun, sunburst yellow and skull white ... many thin layers.

I will be painting from white in the future

My Tip which I was taught by someone many years back... Use fiery orange [think it's drgaon/fuagan orange now or something like that]

Build up fiery orange to pure white, then use a yellow ink [or glaze I guess, but add some flow extender] over the whole thing.

You get an incredibly vibrant yellow without the brown that some people dislike.