Bartertown.com

(Changed the title to reflect the new goal)

Hi everyone,

I've been going full-tilt painting my Legion army. I have a lot done on my beasts!
However, I haven't done anything with the infantry models because I don't know what to do!

I think I want to paint their armour in a purplish-black. Similar to this picture.


I'm not sure what colors to work with.
My initial guess is
Base coat: Black
Second coat: 1:1 Leviathan Purple: Black
Wash: secret weapon purple wash?

Edges/Highlights
First coat: silver paint? Maybe mithril silver?
Highlights: Plain White?

I use a mixture of GW, Vallejo, and Reaper paints, so I don't have a major brand preference.

If anyone has any suggestions it would be really helpful.

I am going to experiment.

First step is base a coat. Here is Lylyth with stylin' legs.

I am trying Liche Purple and Hormagaunt Purple

And, if anyone is interested here are some of the beasties. They aren't *quite* done, but close.

Hmm, the difficult thing is determining if the armour itself is purple or if the armour has a purple tint due to an effect in the scene. Legion is known for it's purple so it would be understandable for the artist to put a soft purple feel into her. Her pants are actually black but in the picture they have a purple colour mixed in and the fur on the khador guy also shows purple. I believe the armour is actually silver with a purple wash (this resembles the glow/tint/whatever you want to call it). I wish I still had my Lylyth so I could try my own test but I might have something laying around similar that I could test on. I'd imagine it would be a metal colour with a purple wash or a ratio of metal to purple. the highlight would be a mithril or similar colour. I would imagine if you were wanting to get a more accurate look I would paint the metal with non-metallic colours faking the resemblance of metal rather than painting it with actual metallic paints (I do this for my gold. Makes a super cool raw gold look that fits my lizardmen well). A little harder than simply slapping on some Boltgun but if done correctly can really make a punch.

Since the beasts aren't done yet I shall wait until they are so I can accurately opinion-ate them (although they look good so far, a little too shiny (a shade or varnish?) but that can be taken away with a matte spray).

3eland wrote:Hmm, the difficult thing is determining if the armour itself is purple or if the armour has a purple tint due to an effect in the scene...
... I believe the armour is actually silver with a purple wash (this resembles the glow/tint/whatever you want to call it).... I'd imagine it would be a metal colour with a purple wash or a ratio of metal to purple. the highlight would be a mithril or similar colour. I would imagine if you were wanting to get a more accurate look I would paint the metal with non-metallic colours faking the resemblance of metal rather than painting it with actual metallic paints (I do this for my gold. Makes a super cool raw gold look that fits my lizardmen well). A little harder than simply slapping on some Boltgun but if done correctly can really make a punch.

Since the beasts aren't done yet I shall wait until they are so I can accurately opinion-ate them (although they look good so far, a little too shiny (a shade or varnish?) but that can be taken away with a matte spray).

Whether it is due to the scene effects or not, it is look I want to emulate. I agree that it looks like it could be a silver/metal with a purple wash maybe? Maybe I need to start over on my test figure.

I've never done the non-metallic metal painting. I will have to investigate that too.

The light makes the beasts seem a bit more shiny then they are in real life, but the green does have a gloss to it. I was going for a kind of slimy skin look, but it could be toned down a little.

Okay, so I tried the purple wash over the mithril silver.


It looks a little better in real life than the pictures show. (Sorry I couldn't get the camera to take a decent picture)
I am wondering if it might look better if I did several thinner layers of purple wash. Also, the purple looks a little pinkish, I think I may try mixing black wash with it, or finding a darker purple wash.

Don't forget the artest has also taken into account shadow and light sources, which will affect the colour of the armour. You model is in a different pose and you may not be able to recreate the same light/shadow effect.

I like the purple wash over the sliver, I might have used a darker metalic to start off with. Try tinting you wash with a darker wash to bring it down a little. I would also thin out the wash some more as well, this can let you put on more layers without it building up too much

optimusprime14 wrote:Don't forget the artist has also taken into account shadow and light sources, which will affect the colour of the armour. Your model is in a different pose and you may not be able to recreate the same light/shadow effect.

I like the purple wash over the sliver, I might have used a darker metallic to start off with. Try tinting you wash with a darker wash to bring it down a little. I would also thin out the wash some more as well, this can let you put on more layers without it building up too much

Thanks, I will strip her and try a few different variations of thinner/darker washes.
I don't have a darker silver to use as a basecoat, so I will have to go out and get something for that.

you can make silver darker by mixing in black.

I wouldn't use silver. I'd use gray.

Eric

kturock wrote:you can make silver darker by mixing in black.

I am always scared of mixing colors cause I'm sure I will never get them the same twice. Lol.

MagickalMemories wrote:I wouldn't use silver. I'd use gray.

I think I will give both a darker silver undercoat and just a medium grey undercoat

One of my friends suggested to put a real light glaze over using a soft body black wash.

Currently Lylyth is soaking in simple green so I can give it another go maybe tomorrow.

Hey,

I stripped her and am trying two ways.

left leg is leadbelcher metallic and right leg is stormvermin fur. both have 1 initial wash of purple.

planning on another wash layer. then highlighting with either lighter grey or silver.

I would go with a much lighter shade of gray, myself.

Eric

It looks like you are applying the paint fairly heavy. Do you thin your paints down? Also, to make a more realistic feel upon the model I would pick a point/angle you want the light to shine on and hit the model with a white primer lightly at that point/angle. This will help you in the end with pushing hat realistic feel like in the picture.

Can you get us a better picture of the model? Some close ups maybe so we can see the model better. Trying to see details with such a dark background (the rest of the model) is hard.

MagickalMemories wrote:I would go with a much lighter shade of gray, myself.

Yeah... I thought the other grey I had would be too light, but this one turned out waay darker than I thought it would.

3eland wrote:It looks like you are applying the paint fairly heavy. Do you thin your paints down? Also, to make a more realistic feel upon the model I would pick a point/angle you want the light to shine on and hit the model with a white primer lightly at that point/angle. This will help you in the end with pushing hat realistic feel like in the picture.

Can you get us a better picture of the model? Some close ups maybe so we can see the model better. Trying to see details with such a dark background (the rest of the model) is hard.

It is actually pretty thin. I use the reaper "flow improver" to help thin stuff out. The grey is could be a touch thinner, but I think it is mostly the lighting on the pictures.
I will try to get some better pictures later tonight.

Your picture is bad because your camera focused on the bottle and not the fig. See how crisp the words on the bottle are and how washed the legs are?