Blog Metallic paints

[WildColonial Boy]

I see a lot of miniatures posted on this and other forums where the metallic paint has just been painted over a light undercoat.
Warhammer TV seem to encourage this and maybe its because more recent GW metallic paints allow for this.

However I have always painted any metallic area black before putting down the metal colour. I feel this gives a better result, although it may just be old school thinking.

What do others do and or think?

I have never had the courage to try NMM so I go about metal painting as described above.

 

[Imrahil]

Interesting thought, I haven't noticed any significant difference between the two..

I'll inspect some of my models today to see if there is a difference.

Grrr, Imrahil

 

[btrain16]

I put down a layer of black first, and it works well enough that I keep doing it. Thing is, I've never experimented side-by-side with alternatives, so I have no idea if it's actually adding any value...

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

However I have always painted any metallic area black before putting down the metal colour. I feel this gives a better result, although it may just be old school thinking.

What do others do and or think?

For metals such as copper, bronze, brass or gold, I like to put down a layer of brown first. I find they look better with a brown under layer as opposed to a black one.


It also depends what brand of metal paint you are using. If I'm using my favourite acrylic metal paints (Vallejo Metal Color), then it doesn't really matter as they always look great.

 

[bOdziO Wolf]

Agree with bronze under-layer for gold paints. What I got from my experiments is that if you have 1 layer you will have ~50% of coverage and 2 layers with ~90% coverage, which meant the layer under will be always partially visible and will give a slight tint to the metallic paint you are using.

Black for silver and gun/sword metal makes also perfect sense, which is probably why black for metallics comes from.Techniques involve dry brushing and the black color gives you a nice auto-highlight feature using this approach.

Note that I've also seen cool approaches for dragons where scales were, for example, painted green and the metallic gold was dry-brushed giving a very interesting biological feeling golden scale!