Painting white armor

[Jericho199]

I grabbed a box of dire avengers to paint whenever I need a break from painting guardsmen (I currently have an armored fist squad that doesn't have heads because.... I hate painting guardsman heads). I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for what colors to undercoat, paint and highlight white body armor with. I'd also like to paint some SoB with white body armor. Also any tips such as painting between the plates and such.

Thanks!

[Ork warlord 'Waazzza']

mmmm....da if youz want a white body, paint the body black first den white
and for da head paint that white and then paint da whole thing what you want..
yez... yez

[Cagarner]

Hmm, ive never done white armour, but it think a black undercoat, with shadow grey on the armour, then use some skull white to add on top.

[Stubber]

Steer clear of black. KEEP AWAY FROM IT.
You models will come out a dull grey colour that you won't be able to get rid of.

Undercoat them with skull white. Mix some skull white and bleached bone about 50:50. Then highlight with more skull white.

Originally Posted by Stubber

Steer clear of black. KEEP AWAY FROM IT.
You models will come out a dull grey colour that you won't be able to get rid of.

Undercoat them with skull white. Mix some skull white and bleached bone about 50:50. Then highlight with more skull white.

Seconding the venerable Stubber here. I've helped with my fiancees dire avengers, and the above mentioned works great for both white and light blue armor.

[Guard Master]

When painting white you can also use frotress grey as a basecoat and one thing that really helps is add a little water to the paint and paint it on in really thin layers (Last time i needed about 7 or 8 coats to get a solid white colour)

[Gnr. Keil]

Thin layers yes. White is a very slow to paint on.
You can do a black undercoat, but after that you will need to do a layer of codex gray then two layers of fortress grey and the three layers of skull white to get it to look right.

[JoeGuardsman]

I would also go with a white primer. Paint everything that you can before moving on to the white it'll only end up smudging at some point while you are holding it. Base coat with fortress or codex depending on how stark you want the lines. Basic advice I know but it is important. I have a technique that is difficult to perfect but it works very well and takes less time than the tried and true and time consuming way of layer painting. It takes a steady hand and a perfect mixture of water and paint but I use surface tension to paint white. I use a very watery solution and dab it onto the surface creating thick drops on the area that I want to paint white and make sure to get as much of the surface in one go. The surface tension will keep the paint out of the shaded cracks and the water will evaporate leaving a completely even finish. You have to leave it to dry for a while but if you use the assembly line it should be fine, just be careful not to smudge it later. Also if you mess up and it goes into a crack just take a dry brush and vacuum it up, the paint should be watery enough as to not leave a residue.

[Perturabo]

For my Eldar banshees I used a black undercoat because I wanted the Armour scheme to be blcak with bone/white blened plates-trust me it takes lots of layers and alot of blending to avoid that dirty look-starting from browns all the way up to white!!

You can use a black undercoat if you wish. but id would only advise it if the area you are painting is relatively small-say a Dire avenger helm. Paint the area you wish to be white with a good base of Ice Blue then paint the white over that-this will help make the white look more "brilliant" an you can leave the blue showing in the areas/edges to give definition. Obviously use plenty of thin layers to acheive this instead of two thick ones lol!

The other method is to spray it white then give the entire model a wash of very very thinned down ink-either black , blue or grey (you need to experiment to get the right wsh colour and strentgh for your miniatures) and the re-highlight the white areas again leaving the wash in the detail areas. (this method is quicker and good for "batch painting when quantity rather than quality is the issue)

[Plisken]

When i painted some of my old white gaurdsmen, i primed them white (nothing new there), THen overcoated it with white and highlighted with bleached bone. It didnt look bad.

[experiment 626]

hehehe! well, just to add onto the other methods here;

for dull greyish white shades:
- black undercoat
- bascoat codex gray
- 1st highlight w/fortress grey
- 2nd highlight with 50/50 fortress grey & skull white mix
- final highlight w/skull white

for blueish shades;
- black undercoat
- bascoat shadow grey
- highlight w/space wolves grey
- highlight skull white

for bright 'pure' white;
- white undercoat
- wash with shadow grey
- highlight w/space wolves grey
- highlight w/skull white

basically the method you use all depends on the type of white you want - battered or 'holy' or whatever!

cheers!

[Inquisitor Kasimir]

Figure I may as well throw in my 2 cents worth.
If you want a white that looks kind of "ancient" ,like on my Sob's. you might want to try:
black under coat>> snake bite leather>>bleached bone>>mix of bleached bone and skull white.
If you want a very ancient look ,you can use a small amount of chestnut ink watered down with H2O and Future in the cracks and lower parts.

Just a thought.
Kas.

[TauMan]

If you want to have the cleanest white on black ever do it this way:

Undercoat= Chaos Black

Chaos Black+Shadow Grey+ Codex Grey+ Fortress Grey+ 50:50 Fortress and skull + Skull

Takes about 25 - 30 minutes!

[TauMan]

If you want to have the cleanest white on black ever do it this way:

Undercoat= Chaos Black

Chaos Black+Shadow Grey+ Codex Grey+ Fortress Grey+ 50:50 Fortress and skull + Skull

Takes about 25 - 30 minutes!