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So I was thinking of starting up ultramarines, I have an airbrush and all that jazz...but I want to have litanys on the armor as well...sooooo would I basecoat the armor, then do the litanies and then start the highlights? as if the light is washing out the white of the litany scribbles? orrrrrr would anyone have any experience with this kinda thing?

I paint everything else first, and do the purity seals last. Use brown instead of black for the litany scribbles, and you don't need to try and wash them out.

I was meaning the script you see on the actual power armor...like the little white scribbles on a kneepad, or on the shoulder pad...or on the shin armor...maybe I can find a pic

Oh right.

I do that last before weathering, use a really light grey rather than a white

Yep, what kb said. Highlight the armour, do any marking/text/scrollwork, then do weathering if that's your style.

So base colors scribbles then do the airbrush highlights, gotcha....glad I have practive marines to test on first lol

If you want the text to fade in the same way the armour itself fades when you airbrush it.... that's really difficult. You could try painting the base colour, doing the text and then doing the shading with a low opacity black or dark brown. I can't really think of any way of blending it with the highlights though.

 WillyBRags wrote:
So base colors scribbles then do the airbrush highlights, gotcha....glad I have practive marines to test on first lol

Other way round! you want to highlight the mini before doing the freehand, otherwise your highlight will cover it.

 Paradigm wrote:

 WillyBRags wrote:
So base colors scribbles then do the airbrush highlights, gotcha....glad I have practive marines to test on first lol

Other way round! you want to highlight the mini before doing the freehand, otherwise your highlight will cover it.

That would be the point though, if you put all those highlights in and then the markings they would stick out like a sore thumb, I want them to be there but be washed out as if the sun was whiting out the armor but it should white out the markings as well

say if I was to paint my guys up like dis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6LSty0u6RI the marks should go on befor all those highlights are used right? I'm going to have to practice on either way an see

An, I didn't realise you meant that kind of really reflective look. In that case, I guess markings then highlight would be the method, but I'm not sure how good it would look. All I can say it's try it and see!

 Paradigm wrote:
An, I didn't realise you meant that kind of really reflective look. In that case, I guess markings then highlight would be the method, but I'm not sure how good it would look. All I can say it's try it and see!

I will, if it doesn't work I'll just use the airbrush to basecoat...I really want the markings more than the realistic look...I'm weird

What colour do you want the litanies to be?

The problem you'll have is that if you paint the litanies one colour, the armour is blue so you highlight with a lighter blue... the text will get tinted blue as well.

That's why I said you could do it with shading rather than highlighting, because you can shade with a colour like black or brown, so both the armour and the litanies get tinted the same colour and all is well.

Highlighting... I'm really not sure. Maybe you could use a very low opacity light grey to do your highlighting so it fades out both the armour and the text together, but I have never tried that so I have no idea if it'll work (and obviously depends what colour you are using for the text, there's no point if the text itself is white!). I think you'd want to use mediums or maybe a matte varnish to mix up a semi-transparent white/grey.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
What colour do you want the litanies to be?

The problem you'll have is that if you paint the litanies one colour, the armour is blue so you highlight with a lighter blue... the text will get tinted blue as well.

That's why I said you could do it with shading rather than highlighting, because you can shade with a colour like black or brown, so both the armour and the litanies get tinted the same colour and all is well.

Highlighting... I'm really not sure. Maybe you could use a very low opacity light grey to do your highlighting so it fades out both the armour and the text together, but I have never tried that so I have no idea if it'll work (and obviously depends what colour you are using for the text, there's no point if the text itself is white!). I think you'd want to use mediums or maybe a matte varnish to mix up a semi-transparent white/grey.

That's what I'm thinking....that the highlights might get washed out after 4 layers of blue and white get airbrushed on....maybe just try it on the basecoat and highlight one color lighter