Wednesday 16 March 2011

Painting tip... Gold...

Gold is a bit of a paint to paint. Mostly because gold paints have a tendency to be, well, a little ropey. I've tried quite a number of them over the years and never really found one that 'just works'. I tied Vallejo Air Metallics last week and was generally pretty impressed. Nice coverage and control but one downside: For some reason, Citadel washes just wont sit right over them. That's a pain if you're working fast and like using washes.

So, last weekend I had a bit of a think about the problem and came up with something. Perhaps the ticket isn't to find the perfect gold paint but to work out how to not use the gold paint? Now, I use Citadel paints for the most part and their silver metallics are really nice. It occurred that Mithril Silver has very little grey quality to it. So, I got my hands on some rich burnt umber ink and mixed some into the Mithril. Bingo, a lovely rich gold. I chose a rich dark brown as it'd tint the colour with less ink so the coverage would be preserved as much as possible. For a more subtle gold I did the same but with a mix of yellow and burnt umber.Another good result.

Going to have to try this out properly on a mini sometime but my tests have been pretty impressive.

I used Daler Rowney FW inks personally. If you have old GW inks lying around, the Flesh Wash would probably work nicely.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks, I will try this on the unit I'm currently painting. I have that Daler Rowney burnt Umber which is wonderfull.

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  2. With the Vallejo, I use the VMC transparent "Smoke" paint. water it down and add some flow-aid and bobs your uncle a perfect wash for the air metallics.

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  3. i love tin bitz shaded with inks highlighted with rub and buff gold leeffe but i note that on its label it contains soluble copper not gold - i do not varnish metallics because the sheen goes - hence brush on dull cote .........

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  4. Interesting, I might give it a go. Pictures could've been great for this post.

    BTW I found this post @ Hakomike's blog quite useful (for shiny, yellowish gold)

    http://hakomike.blogspot.com/2011/02/simple-shiny-gold-technique.html

    Cheers.

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  5. I tend to go for a less yellow gold, in that I put healthy doses of purple washes onto a base coat of bronze and scorched brown. Only then do I start to highlight with 'real' gold. It's definitely a darker goldy colour, but I've always liked it :) . I would just like to agree with the Vallejo air metallics though - absolutely wonderful things - so very fluid. In fact the only one which I don't especially go for is the gold! GW's hits that particular sweet spot for me still, after all these years :p

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  6. I tried it today with success.

    Paul Hess

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