Ye Olde Inn

Does anyone have any good tips on painting white and black? Whats a good colour base to use and what colours to use to layer it up?

Flacktron wrote:Does anyone have any good tips on painting white and black? Whats a good colour base to use and what colours to use to layer it up?

For black you can use black as your base color add dark grays or dark blues to the black depending on if you want it to be a warm black or a cool black. As for white I would start with an off white, like tan mixed with white, then just keep adding more white to the mix and layer up.

Hope this helps

I've seen a painted Batman figure in a shop and when I asked the guy how he painted it he didn't use black at all. It was all blues and greys. I didn't go into details with him to find out how he layered them up but I found it very interesting that t still looked amazing, basically black from a distance until you got up close. There are probably videos I guess on you tube

Yes, you can try Doctor Faust Painting Clinic or Sorastro Painting.

The real black black looks unrealistic black to my eyes.

Using dark grey will achieve a good black effect most of the time and still allow for photos to be made.

Then, I have an airbrush. So I would likely spray paint black and then spray paint very thin light grey until I am happy.

The artistic way to mix your own black base color is to mix a dark blue and a dark brown. Both should be fairly unbiased.
This means your blue should contain as little red or yellow as possible and your brown should be the most possible equal mix of yellow, red, and blue.
Of course, we're not scientists, so from that base you can go darker by adding a true black if you want it darker or a red if you want it warmer and so on.

Lighten it up with a sky blue for highlighting or soemthing warmer according to taste and texture.
As Anderas has said, true black should never be used flat out.
The blackest paint I use is black ink to put a film or shadow over something very dark in itself.

The only time I have ever used pure black is for a base color (it's more of an under coat) under silver or something I wanted darker because acrylic paint can be transparent. I guess maybe I gave some misleading information when I stated "you could use black as your base color". I apologies for that, I didn't actually mean paint it with pure black and call it good. It was more you could use black as your base (under coat) in the recesses as your shade and then layer with watered down dark blues and dark grays as you see fit and highlight your mini.

I agree with both of you that you should never use pure black, because black is not a true cover. It's the absence of all color. If you where to mix every color in the color pallet you would end up with some variation of brown, it will never be black unless you put black into it.

Believe it or not the Orc's I painted and post in my tread about my HQ minis were under coated in black on the red tunic. I only did this because I was using cheap apple barrel acrylic paint from Wal-Mart and that red coverage is garbage. So when I painted my first few coats with a white primer under coat, the tunics looked more of a dark pink then pure red. I do the same thing with gold, I'll under coat it with brown or a mix of gold and brown (kind of a bronze color). Then I'll highlight it with gold. I know that this was off subject the of white and black, but they a tricks I've picked up trying to get the color I was looking for.

Don't worry about it being off topic, this information from all of you is brilliant. I only painted for a few years 10-15 years ago and have recently got back into it since purchasing a HeroQuest set. I'll stick a picture up of a Goblin I found spare in my collection. I've base coated it black then the darkest grey I have is eshin grey so I'll coat it in that and work up from there

Thanks again for your tips

I ended up using greys and didn't have any dark blues. Do you guys mix and make your own colours/tones or stick to using pre made colours from manufacturers?

That's just a tad too light to represent black. If you want to have it black, try going over this with(several) thin coats of black ink until you like the result.
It looks good, though. It might be gray as is, but I compliment you on your blending.