Painting White??

[StillANoob]

Ok. So I bought my first box of Eldar (Dire Avengers), and they are all assembled and awaiting painting. Now I don't have the funds to buy a white spray can right now, but I have a pot of Skull White paint. So I started painting one fellow. And it sucks. White is horrible to paint. I can't get a nice smooth coat. I've done 2 coats and there's still plastic showing up everywhere and im afraid of putting too much on and obscuring the detail. Can anyone help me?
Is painting white meant to be this hard or am I just bad?

Cheers,
SaN

[magg]

White, red and yellow are very hard to paint on black base coat.

What you can do is either apply dozen of watered down layers or to create a better point of departure. Foundation Colours are great for that. For white I recommend a layer of Dheneb Stone, if you like a more beige tone, or Astronomican Grey. On this colours, Skull White will cover better than on black base coat.

On cloth I usually use:
-Dheneb Stone
-Gryphonne Sepia
-Dheneb Stone
-Skull White

I also used this recipe on more flat areas.

Hope this helps
-Magg

[Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four]

Wait, are you painting the skull white directly onto bare plastic? You really need to prime your miniatures before you paint them, otherwise you'll pretty much ruin them... Invest in that can of spray primer!

[StillANoob]

I was using the Skull White as a undercoat, like the picture on the back of the box.
I only have a Chaos Black spray, which I suppose I could use then go over it with Codex Grey then Fortress Grey then SKull White. Would that work?

[ElegaicRequiem]

Get white or gray primer. Depending on what you want the finished result to look like, you could even try getting the fancy light gray stuff.

[StillANoob]

I've decided too scrap the white idea and just undercoat black then do details in white rather than the majority. I've basically flipped the paint scheme. Thanks for the help guys.

Cheers,
SaN

[3ggh3ad]

(after priming the model)

use a medium to light gray as a base and build it up

codex gray or astronomicon gray
50/50 astro grey and white
white for highlights

[hudderschris]

I have used choas black spray and then about 3/4 more layers going from codex grey to white

[Bobulus]

Ok, I'll tell you a wonder what I've discovered lately. Everybody ask how the hell in WD the white models look so awesome? Well, I've been painting white for decades now and lately I have started to use some mediums (matte) Windsor & Newton. It helped a lil, but the white painting was still complicated.
The surface tends to dry before the paint under, that's why we have those nasty brushmarks. Giving water to the paint doesn't solve anything, it just brakes the texture and the result is 100 lucky coats w/o brushmarks hopefully.

The basics of painting white is that white has to have an gray layer underneath and you work the way up to skull white (or other counterpart brands). The system is the same just this 1 000 0000 $ advice which I am giving you now. It has been 15 years till i have discovered it and it make wonders. It is called the "FLOW IMPROVER", you have two brands who I am aware of, the Windsor and Newton and Liquitex flow improver. The using is very simple, on a palette you put a drop of flow improver and 20 drops of distilled water. I call it a mixture. This mixture you use it with paint as you used water before. Keep in mint the ratio 1:20 flow improver to water, otherwise if you put the flow improver alone it will destroy the paint and make it like mud. What it does to the paint. Actually causes the paint to behave like watercolour, you don't have to wait the coat under to dry, you can pass over as many times you wish and there is no brushmarks.
The white color will still need a couple of coats but the fact of having a perfect surface and a perfect result is worth the effort. If you use airbrush, that's another story, but you can still use a drop of flow improver to help the white.
There it is. Problem solved after many, many years.

Happy painting!

[StillANoob]

@ 3ggh3ad and hudderchris

I undercoated the models chaos black, then used codex grey, fortress grey and then a few coats of skull white. Im waiting for the last coat to dry then I'll see if i need another but it looks pretty good.

Bobulus

wow thats really cool. I'll have to look for some of this stuff next time I go shoppin'. Thanks for the help!


Cheers,
SaN

[Laughing Man]

Work up to white from Grey is you want a more basic white or from dheneb if you want a more beige.

Painting White is really annoying and i being a rather shabby painter avoid it which is why i mostly paint my models blue and grey because it's so much easier. Also if you think white is bad painted onto black, just try yellow.

[StillANoob]

Oh God no. My mate has like 40 gaurdians. Hes from the yellow craftworld (i cant remember) and i can see it in his eyes when he paints. He hates it. It looks hard as. Keep the yellow thank you.

[verminard]

For a white you have a few different bases you can go with that yield different results. What I use for Marines like White Scars is to start with
1:1 graveyard earth and spacewolf gray
Then Devlin Mud wash
1:1:2 Graveyard, Spacewolf, Skull White
1:1:4 Graveyard, Spacewolf, Skull White
Pure Skull White

Makes a nice white with dirty gritty recesses

For Eldar I like a cleaner blue white which works out like this

Fenris Grey basecoat
Spacewolf Grey
Azurmen Blue Wash
1:1 Spacewolf Grey, Skull White
Skull White

And the third White I use for robes and cloth, its the grey white

Astronomicon Grey
Codex Grey
Fortress Grey
1:1 Fortress Grey, Skull White
Skull White

Hope that helps, when you use the multiple different whites you can paint them all on the same miniature and still make it appear as tho they are slightly different shades and break the monotony up.

[pausenclown]

+1 to Magg's and verminard's layering techniques. I did my Black Templars using the "grey white" layers from verminard some time ago and it works like charm. While layering you can even leave small borders of the Astronomicon, Codex and Fortress Grey on the white areas and you automagically get more depth.

[Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four]

Dec 7, 2010 7:52:43 GMT -5 StillANoob said:

Oh God no. My mate has like 40 gaurdians. Hes from the yellow craftworld (i cant remember) and i can see it in his eyes when he paints. He hates it. It looks hard as. Keep the yellow thank you.

A tip for your friend: prime the minis white, then use the old Citadel yellow ink directly over the white primer. This gives a stunning yellow with very little effort. It may be possible to do this with the new Citadel washes, but I have yet to try it...

[mardaddy]

After years of a little hesitation, I finally delved into some yellow SM's (Imperial Fists) on a commission - 40 figures and three Rhinos.

I found yellow is actually easy now. Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four has it right... Spray paint white from the cheapo Walmart or Home Despot $.99 bin, then yellow ink or watered down Sunburst Yellow, highlight as needed. Results were brilliant.

[verminard]

Be careful with cheap primer, test it on sprue first. I have seen some primers out there turn Plastic kits into a weird rubber consistency. Yellow got a lot easier since the foundation yellow came out also, and the spray gun. I like to use white glue to glue all the models to a long 2x4 and give them all a coat of spraypaint, then load up my spraygun with Iladian Darksun and hit them with that right after, followed by golden yellow. Then I pluck them off and pick out the details and such, but the spray gun makes a very nice consistent coating with no brush stroke marks that are a classic problem on yellow.

[StillANoob]

Yeah , I bought a small can of white spray paint a while ago from Toyworld. It was for like model cars and stuff. I used it on my gaurdsmen and it worked, but it didn't really, cover them. It just dripped into the gaps so I had white in the valleys but a weird glazed look over the high parts.

[Bobulus]

The technique I've used so far on my Bretonnians (they where white and blue) was to use an light blue and go for the pure white. I've also wetblended in some cases but it is a pure torture to blend the white, I have tried wit retarders and also with some glycerine. Here is the picture. I don't know where I found the will to paint so much white, but on the other hand was worth. But is time consuming. Now when I tell you, buy the flow improver, trust me, It is a totally new dimension in painting white and others hard colors.
I.e. the recipe of painting perfect white is to use an light gray and go on a surface with it, (IG eagles for example) next use flow improver the way I wrote you in the previous post and mix 50% white to 50% gray and finally white. You'll need 2-3 coats of white, but this time with no brushmarks. The white will be perfect! Trust me on this one, it is worth a lot of lost hours

[sj]

I think that this is the right thread to ask this:

What would be the best way to paint a vehicle that is going to have significant black and white areas (just imagine a Bane Wolf -tank that goes by the name "Pepe")?

[krasimirova]

Prime white.. Paint black.. That would be the easiest way.. You don't need 5 - 9 layers of another color, sure it won't stand out as much, but it will be the fastest way of doing it..