Painting Weapons and Gold

Just painted the first skink of my new lizardmen army, which is the 2nd model I've ever painted and thanks to a whole bunch of awesome youtube tutorials he actually looks pretty good! Unfortunately my iPhone can't take a pic worth seeing.

Whilst the skinks skin and face look good, the gold bangles n such and his weapons are pretty bland. I was wondering if anyone could explain how to do them.

More specifically, I would like to know how you stop gold from looking like just a blob of gold with very little contrast or depth.

Also how people highlight the little spikes on the hand weapons. Do you just drybrush them? I tried it but the paint ends up spreading down the side of the spikes and not just on the edges.

 

I think the answer to both of your questions is GW's excelent washes,
specificaly Griffion Tone Sepia and Delvin Mud, posibly Badab Black.
Thises are great for shading metals and bone and ither fine details.

For highlighting small things I like to use the sides of the brush rather than the tip,

 

Yeah washes make a big difference with making gold stand out more, the best one for a mid tone brightish gold (like dwarf bronze) is devlan mud. You can also highlight the most extreme raised areas with a bit of silver like GW does, but I have never really liked that look personally.

Golds can be a bit of a pain to use. If you don't water them down, they go on very thick and ruin all your detail so make sure you are watering down, more so than with other colours. On the other hand, a bit too much and the metallic pigment just goes to hell and the paint doesn't cover at all. Play around with it to get the right consistency.

 

Personaly I use Tensors Enamel Metalics, I find they have finer metal flake, and more of it on goes on smoother. Keep in mind these are enamels any they clean up with thinnner instead of water.

 

/agreed on the washes, silver highlighting, and using the side of the brush. I also had to go the extra mile as a last step for the gold and obsidian. I always spray my models with a matte sealer to protect the paint job, but because of all the gold in this army I had to buy a gloss sealer as well to go back and brush over the gold. Gives it that spit shine.

 

Ok I guess that answers my question! I'll give it all a go and let you know how I get on. I have found that the gold is rather thick but when I watered it down it ran everywhere, guess knowing how much to water down just comes with practice. Thanks all.