Help painting Black!!!!

[Dustin09]

So I'm starting on some Space Marine bikes and I wanted to paint them up something like this http://www.coolminiornot.com/138739
the problem is, I'm not great at painting black. How would you guys paint this? all help appreciated!!!!

 

[Einion]

Painting black's not really that hard. Any particular problems you've run into in the past? That might help with suggestions; there are more than a couple of ways of approaching it.

On that bike, it's mostly just shades of grey and most black items are painted that way if that helps - don't think of it as black. Pure black is probably reserved for the chips/scratches, with the lightest grey used to highlight each one. The 'secret' with these is just to be as neat as possible, since the sharper they are the better they tend to look.

Einion

 

[Demihuman]

Yeah! So maybe don't think of it as painting black but painting dark grey. Maybe start with a mid grey and shade up and down from there. I have had really good luck with a really dark base grey color and then doing highlights with a grey that is only a little lighter and leaving it like that. For whatever reason different shades of grey (black) seem to have a lot of contrast which each other. So either you will need to work hard on your blends or not have that big of a range of highlights.

Also, there are a ton of video demos on you tube for painting Black Templars.

Black primer might be a good place to start.

 

[Torn blue sky]

Very much echoing the sentimonies here. Black black should be reserved for only the definitive parts. The "black" you want is actually very dark grey. This doesn't just help hold it together and blend forward a lot easier, it lets you use a darker shade for any chips etc as Einion said. It's an ilooshun, innit! One that works very well, however.
There's a tip for getting black like that. Mix in dwarf flesh with black paint, it brings out that nice shade. Obviously don't go all the way with flesh, but enough to get to the point where you can switch to a light grey to mix in aiming for final highlights , then (if you desire) to white. It ooks to me there like he may have used a touch of blue too, in the initial mix. Very slight.

 

[Tommie Soule]

wow electrolito not seen him in a while, he a dood.
i'll see if we can get him to put his method here

 

[Dustin09]

Currently to paint black I use a 1:1 mix of chaos black and codex grey then I'll do a heavy back wash over it this usally works great for things like chest eagles and the flex part of the space marine armor, but for more flat, larger surfaces like bikes, and space marine armor it dose not work as well. I wish I could show you guys some picture of the results I'm getting but I am having huge difficulties every time I try to take any decent pics.

 

[Einion]

This is exactly the kind of detail I thought would help; you're not having a colour problem but an application problem.

Those colours should work fine for this, just don't use a wash - glaze the black over the base colour.

Basically take the same thinned paint you'd use for the wash but only lightly load your brush (or load it and then wick some of it out on a cloth or tissue) and then gently brush it on where you want to add shading. Then just layer the black/darker mix on one coat at a time until you get smooth transitions.

Einion