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I'm thinking of painting up an Ultramarine for 41k but in the HH style colors pictured below as examples.



I've been looking at numerous video painting guides online, both unofficial and GW official, and none of them mention metallic tones in the base legion colors. My color vision isn't great but it looks to me like they're consistently in the FW HH art. Am I mistaken? If not, any tips on achieving it? I'm considering just using a metallic color from a car focused paint line but the effect could be too prominent with that. I had hoped the new contrast paints over a metallic primer coat might work but the videos I've seen of that aren't promising either. Should I just go with a deeper blue instead and leave it glossy as an alternative?

Most of the FW metallic schemes are originally based off of basing with a metallic and then airbrushing Tamiya clear paints over top. The Alpha legion was a gradient of the Tamiya blue and green clears, while the thousand sons was done with a gold base with Tamiya red clear (it could be done with a silver base too, the red just makes it warmer/richer). FW released their own line of clear paints which are about to be released in the main paint line, but to be honest, I never heard much about them, which seems a bit damning.

The Tamiya clears are pretty much only for use with an airbrush. I've tried brushing them on and I've seen others try as well, and it generally looks terrible. You need an airbrush in order to build up gradual thin, even coats of the clear paint.

I've seen people airbrush the new contrast paints over metallic and it seems like it could be somewhat similar of an effect, but it does not come out as rich as the candy appearance of the Tamiya clears. Cult of Paint on instagram did this by airbrushing contrast paint.

I'm currently working on doing Salamanders with metallics. I've mixed up a ton of a custom mix of Tamiya green, Tamiya smoke, Tamiya yellow, with a bit of black ink, to make a deep olive green.

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I just did a search and found that the guy who did all the original FW heresy schemes, did the following for his ultramarines:
Ultramrine guide:
Pre shade black to white.
Edge highlight everything with white

Mix Vallejo model air blue with scale 75 inktensity blue(20 drops to 1 ratio) and thin it down with about 1 part paint to 2 part thinner.
Apply this through an airbrush with 3 thin coats(should be glaze consistency)
Once dry, use caledor sky air paint to create first highlight(this is very gradual).
Then use lothern blue air paint to add second highlight.
Strengthen the edge highlights(which should still be showing through the glaze in the darker areas from when you did them in white) to blend them from the darker edges up towards the edges that need to be lighter due to the area around it now being lighter. You can then use space wolves grey to edge highlight on the very brightest points.

Next mix guilliman blue glaze with scale 75 inktensity blue(20 drops to 4 ratio) and thin with about 1 part paint to 3 part thinner

Glaze this over the entire model with thin coats.
Remember, the coats seem to get darker after about half an hour. So don’t apply to many coats without giving enough time to do its thing otherwise it will end up too dark.

Finally you can re spot highlight if you feel you need to to add the sharpest focal points.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, it does help at least in the sense that I'm not crazy/blind and imagining the metallics. I don't own an airbrush (nor have any experience with them) which is why I was hoping to find an alternative but at least if I do I'll know what colors/brand to use. I might have to just go with metallic base colors brushed or sprayed on and then try to tone it down on a random test fig.

I used a couple of coats of Druchii Violet over a metallic base for the armour on Fulgrim and my Phoenix Terminators; worked a treat.

It's not as vivid as some, but then I find the gloss "candy" effect off-putting.

Already ordered turquoise for AL.

I used a lot of Tamiya Clears, and they are fiddly, require the perfect mix of thinner/flow improver, and just the right air pressure to use properly. I want to swap over to Badger Ghost Tints. I've heard and read some good things about them. I'd also like to try the GW Contrast Paints. Just something else besides Tamiya.

If you want the candy apple metallic look, you'll need an airbrush. Here is a WiP shot of my 40K Ultramarines Captain:

That was a primer black, base coat VMA Gungrey, then VMA Steel and VMA Silver in zenethil highlights. Next I washed GW Drakenhoff Nightshade. After that was dry, I cleaned up any silver areas. Then I airbrushed Tamiya Clear Blue (X-23) in about 4-5 layers. You have to let each layer completely dry before spraying the next layer! This is critical! If the layer is still wet when you shoot over it, it will either cloud up, texturize, just look really, really bad as the layers interact in unexpected and dramatic ways. Still have a lot of work left on him (like all the gold, clean up a few areas, details on the cape, etc. etc. ). I really love how taking a picture at this resolution really, really brings out all the mistakes you make!

Thanks. That's a very glossy blue! The metallic finish is what I was looking for though. Are you planning on keeping it glossy or dullcoating on the final layer? As for close up high res pics, I agree as I just finished a model and purposely took some pics 360 degrees around it before clearcoating/decals specifically to find things that I missed with both my naked eyes and the new granny magnifying glasses I started using. Aging in the hobby sucks! :(

AMMO of Mig Warhead Metallic Blue might be your friend.

If you have room in your budget for it, I would strongly recommend picking up an airbrush. It saves so much time on base coating, especially if you're working with colours like yellow.

Unfortuantely, I don't. It'll be either brush on or spray (or a combo of both). I went to four stores and found the all purpose Rustoleum metallic blue as well as four different Testors metallic blues across their two lines (normal and model master). I tested out the Rustoleum and it was waaaay to flaky (it looked like clear blue that someone took a salt shaker full of flakes and dumped it in) for my purposes. When I likely get a Michael's coupon this weekend, I'll try out some of those colors on a test swatch to see which one comes closest to what I'd want. Unfortunately, none of them stocked any Tamiya products (spray or brush on) and I only found one metallic blue in a paint pot that was specifically in an airbrush line of paints.

If you aren't going to get an Airbrush, Contrast over a metallic gives a decent effect. That's what I'm planning on doing with my Ultramarines.

Arcanis161 wrote:
If you aren't going to get an Airbrush, Contrast over a metallic gives a decent effect. That's what I'm planning on doing with my Ultramarines.

Could you post pics when you do? The only video I've seen of brush applied contrast paints over metallics wasn't promising IMO.




Admittedly, they're not specifically using a blue there but I wouldn't be happy with any of the three results that he got with the three colors.

 warboss wrote:

Arcanis161 wrote:
If you aren't going to get an Airbrush, Contrast over a metallic gives a decent effect. That's what I'm planning on doing with my Ultramarines.

Could you post pics when you do? The only video I've seen of brush applied contrast paints over metallics wasn't promising IMO.




Admittedly, they're not specifically using a blue there but I wouldn't be happy with any of the three results that he got with the three colors.

Will do. He did kind of haphazardly applied them though. Check out this one; the guy did it a little cleaner.

Yeah, I saw that video and iirc posted a link to it over in the news and rumors contrast thread. The problem is that the effect is applied with an airbrush with mutliple thin built up coats though so not applicable to what I'm doing at least with a brush unfortuantely. It's not that I don't want it to work well... I'd love to be wrong in this case as it would make my own efforts so much easier. I just personally haven't seen a video or series of pics that show it (yet).

 warboss wrote:
Yeah, I saw that video and iirc posted a link to it over in the news and rumors contrast thread. The problem is that the effect is applied with an airbrush with mutliple thin built up coats though so not applicable to what I'm doing at least with a brush unfortuantely. It's not that I don't want it to work well... I'd love to be wrong in this case as it would make my own efforts so much easier. I just personally haven't seen a video or series of pics that show it (yet).

Took a sec to find this thread again. Contrast paints with metallics are...mixed. Look at the guy below; the Ultramarines Blue Contrast refused to layer thin and evenly. To get it even, I had to apply enough to remove the metallic effect altogether. However, if you look at the bolter clip, Snakebite Leather (which is quickly becoming my favorite of the whole line) made the rounds look like brass.

There's other blues in the line that may work better for a metallic effect, but I'm actually happy with the results of this experiment. Will make painting my Ultramarines far faster.

Also I know I chose silver trim whereas most Ultras use gold trim. I wanted a personal touch to mine, and a way to make painting them quick and easy.

Thanks for the update! Ironically, I was also thinking about this topic/thread because this video came up in my youtube recommendations this morning and shows the other blue (talassar iirc) over metallic as well along with purple.