Alien metal...

[Aternox]

Hello everyone. This is my first post here on CoolMini or Not.. I started out as a very traditional artist.. large scale painting, drawing, charcoal, etc.

Over the past several years I have gained such a strong appreciation for all you miniature painters out there. Unfortunately my miniature painting skills have not come to the same level as my traditional painting skills.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of you experts would mind giving a many-year novice some advice. I have a W40k Necron army and for some reason (after about 40 attempts) I\'m not getting the effect that I\'m looking for. If you don\'t mind, I\'ll walk you through some of the problems I\'m having. My hope is that many of you will have simple solutions.

I\'m not exactly sure why I care so much.. Ok.. ok... The truth is that I want a paint job that is going to make my friends ooooo and awwww.

I\'m going for a dark ancient alien metal look. Here is my current attempt with some of the unwanted results.

1) Primed in Chaos Black

2) Painted on Boltgun Metal on body and a darker (almost black) version on gun.

3) Washed in a mix of Badab Black & Dyvlan Mudd.

(Though this looked good wet, after drying it had lost some of its drama.)

4) Second wash in the Badab/Mudd mixture.

(This restored some of the drama but from a distance it really didn\'t do much but darken the overall miniature.)

5) Highlights in Chainmail using drybrush.

6) Localized wash of Scorpion Green in the rib recesses of the chest, the joints of the vertebrae, eyes, mouth, and gun vents.

(This was supposed to give it a really good glow from within. Unfortunately the wash was difficult to control and corrupted the surface wash of Badab/Mudd. In addition, when it dried it tended to stick to the sides of the recesses rather than in the center of them. Would I be better off painting this into the recesses instead of using a wash? ...or would it be better to do this in a different order with more coats?)

7) Mixed a little Pearl Ex Gold Interference paint with some gel base that the art store recommended and thinned it out with water. Painted this over all the raised areas of the model to give it an alien glow.

(I tried many things here. Unfortunately the \"clear\" base that the paint store recommended tended to dry a little on the white side after mixing with the Pearl Ex. I also tried Golden Green Interference paint but it turned out a little too... hunter green that what I was looking for. I haven\'t tried the Golden Gold Interference yet but I have it.)

In the end it really didn\'t have the pizzaz that I was looking for.. I found a few sites where I saw people using color shifting paints (green-purple) but I\'d rather not get too overzealous with special paints.

Can anyone lend some advice?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Aternox
Mixed a little Pearl Ex Gold Interference paint with some gel base that the art store recommended and thinned it out with water.

Hi and welcome.
Try ditching the gel medium and just thin with water.

 

[Chrome]

Something I did when I was painting Necrons was to give everything a spray of gloss varnish after being done with the \"metals\". That served two purposes. Firstly it made the metals feel a bit \"off\" and more alien, secondly it fools the eyes and makes the colour transitions look a lot better than they really are. After the varnish I did the rest of the paintjob. Details, iconography, hoses...
I think I have a model left here somewhere if you want to see...

 

[Chrome]

Something like that maybe? (yeah, it\'s damn basic. lol, I think it was like five years ago that I painted them.) Still good basics though.

 

[Aternox]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
Hi and welcome.
Try ditching the gel medium and just thin with water.

Thanks Dragonsreach.. The store said that water wouldn\'t help hold it in place since it is a pigment powder. They didn\'t have any of the Pearl Ex that wasn\'t in powder form. I heard (after the fact) that Pearl Ex has its own liquid mixing agent that helps the pigment stick. That might be better. Dang I\'m wasting a lot of money. But I guess that is what W40k is for. Hee hee...

Have you had any success mixing the Pearl Ex with your bases? I.e. What if I mixed it with my first coat of Boltgun? I could then try to minimize the number of dark washes I do so that it can come through more.

Originally posted by Chrome
Something like that maybe? (yeah, it\'s damn basic. lol, I think it was like five years ago that I painted them.) Still good basics though.

Hey Chrome. Thanks for the wonderful picture. His armor has a ceramic look.. very cool. Though I really like it I\'m going for a little more ancient looking. That said you have given me lots of ideas. Thanks so much!!


Here are a few of interesting vids from Youtube. They show a couple interesting options. This one is a little too monochrome for me, but that is just the kind of alien metal look that I like. I even thought about mimic\'ing it a bit and then adding the effect of an interference paint to give it an even more alien look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVHdsWGBOpE

This next one is cool, but perhaps a little...uhm... maybe too reliant on the type of paint for effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34lFIIhFw60

Here\'s another one that caught my eye because of the ancient look at the painted skull.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxWIEyRVLP8

This guy did a good job making the metal look worn and ancient.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ja6LJB5kg

Thanks everyone. If any other ideas strike you please let me know.

 

[AegisD]

I\'m by no means an expert, but as a fellow necron player I\'d like to throw my hat into the ring.

First of all, if you want the rib cage and other details to look like they\'re glowing, I\'d paint scorpion green in the recesses first. It\'s a challenge because the arms and gun are in the way in the front, so the paint tends to get on other areas. But this way, you can clover it up later with the boltgun coat. As for the glow, we\'ll get to that.

It sounds like you\'re either putting the wash on too thick, or not breaking the surface tension of it and allowing it to really flow. I\'m assuming you\'re getting either \'tide marks\' or an unwanted buildup in certain areas. What you want to do here is move some wash to a side dish with your brush, then take a toothpick, dip the tip in some dishsoap, and just touch the toothpick to the small pool of wash. You should see the result immediately. Don\'t go hog wild though, you\'ll end up with a soapy wash.
Then wet you brush, get the excess water off, load it with wash, and wash the mini with it. You don\'t want it to pool much, but a little in the recesses and details is fine. You can cover that later. Remember, it doesn\'t have to be very thick. And try not to let it flow into the scorpion green areas too much.
Also, you can always do multiple coats when they dry. I usually do 3-4 thin ones to really darken boltgun (which can also be thinned with water, but not as much as other paints) though.

Now, I\'d try to selectively drybrush the highlighted areas (like around the armor edges, etc) with a smaller brush loaded with mithril silver, and try to blend a stark highlight on the very edge, to the washed area. This takes a lot of practice but it\'s worth the effort. I\'ve been doing this for a while now (I abandoned my attempt at rusty necrons for those who aided in my other thread, and am very happy with the nice, cleaner result) and it looks great. Once that\'s done, you can highlight further with a detail brush and some chainmail along the the very edges for a final bright highlight. Overall this will give you a result similar to the codex version, which is what I think you were shooting for. It\'s what I was too, and I\'m very, very pleased with the result.

Once that\'s done, I\'d work on the glow. Really dilute some scorpion green with water (about 8:1 water/paint ratio). It should look very thin, and make almost no mark on the mini when used. Load your brush with that, get off the excess, and start painting it on the areas you want to glow. Remember to move in the direction of the highlight too.
It should be drying almost as soon as the brush moves off of it, and thus it won\'t take too long to build up. This should produce a pretty good glow, although you can always take it up a notch and add some white to the green for further highlighting.

Like Dragonsreach said too, I\'d ditch the gel medium. Flow medium in general (which might be different, I\'m not sure what you\'re using exactly) is great for competition level minis that you\'re willing to spend hours doing perfect shading on, but if you want to paint an army it\'s easier to just shade with layered colors and thinned paints.

And if you want a \"golden green\" don\'t be afraid to mix some green in with your metallics. Happy painting.

 

[Aternox]

Originally posted by AegisD
I\'m by no means an expert, but as a fellow necron player I\'d like to throw my hat into the ring.

First of all, if you want the rib cage and other details to look like they\'re glowing, I\'d paint scorpion green in the recesses first. It\'s a challenge because the arms and gun are in the way in the front, so the paint tends to get on other areas. But this way, you can clover it up later with the boltgun coat. As for the glow, we\'ll get to that.

It sounds like you\'re either putting the wash on too thick, or not breaking the surface tension of it and allowing it to really flow. I\'m assuming you\'re getting either \'tide marks\' or an unwanted buildup in certain areas. What you want to do here is move some wash to a side dish with your brush, then take a toothpick, dip the tip in some dishsoap, and just touch the toothpick to the small pool of wash. You should see the result immediately. Don\'t go hog wild though, you\'ll end up with a soapy wash.
Then wet you brush, get the excess water off, load it with wash, and wash the mini with it. You don\'t want it to pool much, but a little in the recesses and details is fine. You can cover that later. Remember, it doesn\'t have to be very thick. And try not to let it flow into the scorpion green areas too much.
Also, you can always do multiple coats when they dry. I usually do 3-4 thin ones to really darken boltgun (which can also be thinned with water, but not as much as other paints) though.

Now, I\'d try to selectively drybrush the highlighted areas (like around the armor edges, etc) with a smaller brush loaded with mithril silver, and try to blend a stark highlight on the very edge, to the washed area. This takes a lot of practice but it\'s worth the effort. I\'ve been doing this for a while now (I abandoned my attempt at rusty necrons for those who aided in my other thread, and am very happy with the nice, cleaner result) and it looks great. Once that\'s done, you can highlight further with a detail brush and some chainmail along the the very edges for a final bright highlight. Overall this will give you a result similar to the codex version, which is what I think you were shooting for. It\'s what I was too, and I\'m very, very pleased with the result.

Once that\'s done, I\'d work on the glow. Really dilute some scorpion green with water (about 8:1 water/paint ratio). It should look very thin, and make almost no mark on the mini when used. Load your brush with that, get off the excess, and start painting it on the areas you want to glow. Remember to move in the direction of the highlight too.
It should be drying almost as soon as the brush moves off of it, and thus it won\'t take too long to build up. This should produce a pretty good glow, although you can always take it up a notch and add some white to the green for further highlighting.

Like Dragonsreach said too, I\'d ditch the gel medium. Flow medium in general (which might be different, I\'m not sure what you\'re using exactly) is great for competition level minis that you\'re willing to spend hours doing perfect shading on, but if you want to paint an army it\'s easier to just shade with layered colors and thinned paints.

And if you want a \"golden green\" don\'t be afraid to mix some green in with your metallics. Happy painting.

Thanks AegisD.. Very helpful. I\'m not really going for the codex example though. I\'m trying to make it more like the Necrons on the W40k computer game. They tend to be a very dark version of Boltgun.... almost black. Perhaps I should lightly drybrush a Boltgun/Chaos mix over the top of Chaos.. If I do another light brushing of the gold or green interference, that might look really interesting.

I\'ve had some success with a light drybrush of the Scorpion Green for the glowing effect. I like the interference to make it look more alien. I\'ll give your suggestions a try.

Maybe a darkened copper/bronze/tinbitz would look a little better as a base.. Thoughts?

 

[Amazon warrior]

I did this:

It was a base of metallic green paint (Reaper sells a variety of coloured metallic paints) shaded with dark blues and blacks and then highlighted with (strains memory) some combination of mithril silver and a green/gold pearlescent art paint (not necessarily mixed together tho!). Turquoise was glazed on for a verdigris effect that you can\'t really see here, and then I did the glowy bits with turquoise and pale blue paint. In retrospect, I should have done the glowy bits first, but you live and learn. Dunno if that\'s any help?

 

[Aternox]

Originally posted by Amazon warrior
I did this:

It was a base of metallic green paint (Reaper sells a variety of coloured metallic paints) shaded with dark blues and blacks and then highlighted with (strains memory) some combination of mithril silver and a green/gold pearlescent art paint (not necessarily mixed together tho!). Turquoise was glazed on for a verdigris effect that you can\'t really see here, and then I did the glowy bits with turquoise and pale blue paint. In retrospect, I should have done the glowy bits first, but you live and learn. Dunno if that\'s any help?

Definitely does, thank you.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Originally posted by Aternox

Originally posted by Amazon warrior
I did this:

It was a base of metallic green paint (Reaper sells a variety of coloured metallic paints) shaded with dark blues and blacks and then highlighted with (strains memory) some combination of mithril silver and a green/gold pearlescent art paint (not necessarily mixed together tho!). Turquoise was glazed on for a verdigris effect that you can\'t really see here, and then I did the glowy bits with turquoise and pale blue paint. In retrospect, I should have done the glowy bits first, but you live and learn. Dunno if that\'s any help?

Definitely does, thank you.

Cool, glad it\'s of use!

 

[AegisD]

Originally posted by Aternox

Thanks AegisD.. Very helpful. I\'m not really going for the codex example though. I\'m trying to make it more like the Necrons on the W40k computer game. They tend to be a very dark version of Boltgun.... almost black. Perhaps I should lightly drybrush a Boltgun/Chaos mix over the top of Chaos.. If I do another light brushing of the gold or green interference, that might look really interesting.

I\'ve had some success with a light drybrush of the Scorpion Green for the glowing effect. I like the interference to make it look more alien. I\'ll give your suggestions a try.

Maybe a darkened copper/bronze/tinbitz would look a little better as a base.. Thoughts?

You could always just do a 50/50 mix of boltgun and black. Or even add more black. Don\'t be afraid to mix your paints. I Would do it in a separate dish though.

 

[Aternox]

Thanks for your help everyone! After experimenting I found a few styles that I think are promising.

In my experimentation the interference/color shifting paints tend to only really shift when over lighter surfaces. This does not seem to be the case with auto-air\'s water-based flair colors (see previously linked youtube videos). I learned that the effect can still be gained in a couple different cases.

1) Mixing the pearlescent/interference raw powder pigments (Pearl Ex brand is what I used) with a base color.

2) Using standard paints and then applying a clear varnish over the top of the model that is mixed with the pearlescent/interference pigment.

3) Mixing pearlescent/interference pigments with silver or other light color and using that as a highlight (thanks Amazon Warrior!!)

It\'s amusing to me that I have a lot of art experience, but I never really played with metallics or pearlescent paints.. Metallics, interference, pearlescent, and so-called color shifting paints are all very similar.

I used #1 to create a very interesting green-bronze pearlescent paint by mixing good ol\' Tin Bitz, pains grey, and some Pearl Ex Interference Green. It lost nearly all of its interference effect but gained a luminescent quality.

I used #2 after I painted the model just how I wanted. I allowed it to dry and then mixed a VERY small amount of the Pearl Ex Interference Gold and Green with some low gloss varnish. This resulted in a very interesting look. The model was primarily unchanged but it gained the full force of the interference even though the base model was dark. The only way to really appreciate it is to pick it up and turn it.

I used #3 with lots of success, but it isn\'t really apparent on the model. I need to perhaps increase the surface area of the effect or combine this with #2 and use the varnish over smaller areas.

Anyway, I\'ll try to get some pictures up soon. The only problem I have run into is that if you use the gloss over the top of any washes I use to make the model look unkept, the washes are also \"varnished\". Unfortunately the only matte mediums are not as transparent and you end up with a slight white haze.

Thoughts? I suppose I could use the light varnish first and then do the washes over it.. This is pretty tricky.

I went ahead and ordered some Auto-Air Bronze-Green and Violet-Green color shifting paints for more experiments. 4oz for $26!... Criminy!

 

[Shawn R. L.]

One thing that can give a very nice effect is to paint a sparkle/metallic coat then put a CLEAR color over that.

 

[AegisD]

Originally posted by Aternox
The only problem I have run into is that if you use the gloss over the top of any washes I use to make the model look unkept, the washes are also \"varnished\". Unfortunately the only matte mediums are not as transparent and you end up with a slight white haze.

Thoughts? I suppose I could use the light varnish first and then do the washes over it.. This is pretty tricky.

If you\'re worried about wear from lugging your army places, I would just hit them with a matt sealant, then use \'ardcoat (paint on gloss varnish) to gloss what you want from there. The nice thing/bad thing about matt sealant is that it removes all the luster from your metallic paints. It\'s nice because it gives the feeling that they\'ve been in a tomb for a few thousand years. But it\'s bad because it can ruin all your metallic highlights too.

I\'d say overall metallics are the hardest paints to work with.

 

[Trevor]

Any chance of some pics of what you\'ve been doing? It would help with giving advice...

 

[Aternox]

I'm back...

Hello everyone. Thanks again for your feedback so long ago. I had a family issue come up and I pretty much dropped everything modeling related for a while. I captured some of the work I have done so far. I did five different samples using different techniques and basically the same paint. I landed on a paint from Jacquard called Mink as my primary color. Some of the models have various metallic undercoats. I also experimented with Purple washes as well as using the Mink Pearlescent as an undercoat, wash, and drybrushed overcoat. The results seem similar but if you zoom in you can see differences. Please note that one of them (the one without the green rod) hasn't been highlighted yet. Ran out of time...

So I'm looking for a little feedback.. Not sure where to go from here.

First from left:
I like this one a lot but it was a little too simple to paint.. Mink undercoat, dark wash, Chainmail highlights. Very simple. I like that it has a lot of green tint to it. The Chainmail highlights tend to high the brown in the Mink a little.

Second from left:
This one actually has no pearlescent at all. It is what I was thinking about doing before the Pearlescents came to mind. It is basically a copper color with a dark purple wash. You can't really tell from the picture, but it is kind of a dark purple. It is highlighted in a mix of copper and boltgun.

Third from left:
This one is based in copper, drybrushed in boltgun, washed in dark purple, drybrushed in Mink, and finally highlighted in a mix of green, gold, and silver.

Fourth from left:
This one looks pretty stunning but is also a bit... ruddy. It also lost a bit of its pearl look because it has so many layers on top of it. It is based in copper and then Mink. It has a dark purple wash and is then highlighted in a mix of bronze and silver.

Fifth from left:
This one is the last one I did and it is essentially like the fourth except that the Mink was applied at the end as a drybrush instead of using it as a base.

I guess I'm getting a little frustrated because the models look a little too uniform for my taste. When I started I created a model that was a very traditional Necron (i.e. boltgun with a brown/black ink wash) and you really saw the details. For some reason when I use the pearlescent Mink I loose something.. Not sure what. That said, I love the "alienness" of the pearlescents..

Any thoughts? Please note that I tried about 20 or so pearlescents and/or interference paints before landing on Mink.

Thanks again.