Hello all, I have a Lizardmen Army that consists of all 5th Edition models. Recently after picking up the game again, I purchased a Saurus Oldblood. I like the look of the model so I bought it to collect it since it will not fit too well with the old Saurus. So the plan was to paint him white, since Oldblood is supposed to have white/pale skin. I base coated with white and I am having some problems. It seems that the new Games Workshop Gold paint is very thin, even after like 3 layers of paint I still cannot cover up the blemishes underneath. Being plastic, I cannot wash the paint and redo it, and the gold is already starting to look thick. Do you guys have problem with the GW gold too? It looks nice on a clean dark undercoat, but it seems that you can hardly achieve a bright gold color with it since its so transparent!
I haven't had trouble, however, I always use a black undercoat and I haven't tried GWs new line of paints. From a general tips perspective, gold will usually come out looking better if you use a brown basecoat first, especially so if its going on top of white. I use scorched brown, but any mid/matt brown will work. One-1 thin coats of that down first then put the gold over it and you should get a better result. As for stripping back plastic, it can be done if it is looking too thick, but you are right that it is more difficult than metal. Off the top of my head dettol (soaked then scrubbed with an old toothbrush) works quite well and doesn't damage the plastic, there are other techniques around as well, possibly rubbing alcohol or isopropyl (though I'd test it on a piece of sprue before a model).
i recommend vomit brown as a base for gold. it has great cover, and you only need a single layer of gold on top. problem it is doesnt exists anymore... formula p3 has great colors and i THINK that this one matches the color pretty well. LINK anyway, the point is to chose an undercoat that matches the gold pretty closely. oh, and i would recommend to stop using GW colors in general and guy some vallejo or P3 ones. ofc you shouldnt throw away the ones you already have, but when you need a new tin, consider getting one of the alternative manufacturers. vallejos gold for example has MUCH better coverage than GWs gold, and without the huge metal pigments. LINK EDIT: for getting rid of paint, strong ethanol (90%+) will work well. you can usually buy it cheap at the gas station. Break fluid is said to work wonders, but that is much more expensive. do NOT use acetone on plastic models, tit will damage them more or less severely.
Heh looks like everybody has their own way of painting gold. I usually use orange as an underlay for my gold to achieve the Aztec gold look. If I were to paint for HE, I'd use a white underlay instead; just make sure it has good coverage because as we all know gold doesn't have good coverage, that's all
I used mournefang brown followed by hashut copper then gold to make sure it doesn't become to thin. sometimes i just use mournefang brown or hashut gold on there own before adding the gold.
I use Khemri Brown, sadly it doesn't exist anymore. Probably some new GW base paints will do the job too. If I want more "luxurious" looking gold, I use Iyanden Darksun as base. I learned this from Lord Tsunami, so extra round of thanks for him. I'd be interested in trying some other paint ranges, but our local store only has GW's and I abhor the idea of ordering paints online, for some reason. Maybe something happened in my previous life that traumatized me...?
Here's some more reading if you want to know more about the brown basecoat technique http://lauby.blogspot.com/2011/03/tyberos-red-wake-supplemental-2.html If you do need to strip the paint of your plastic model, you could try a soak in Simple Green, if you can find it in your neck of the woods.