# Painting *********** Armour



## imm0rtal reaper (Jul 15, 2008)

Hey heretics, Reaper here, continuing my Power Armour Painting series!

This thread is for perhaps the hardest off all the colours...White

Now I'm still testing methods with white but I've come up with one way that yeilds acceptable results.

1) Undercoat your model Black

2) Basecoat the area you want white with Astronomican Grey

3) Layer slightly thinned skull white (2-3 coats, again this depends on coat thickness and desired look)

4) Paint details

As i said I'm still trying to mess around with the white method but that is the method I'm using thusfar.

I don't have a picture because i've only used this method in small amounts and can't find the marine I tested it on (my bad)

So let's see those pearly whites people

Reaper


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## imm0rtal reaper (Jul 15, 2008)

I found a picture with the white method, it's used on a fire warrior here but it looks the same on power armour.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

As someone who paints an absurd amount of white armor... here's my three cents. 

You can either treat white as the "high point" from which you're shading, or you can treat it as an extremely light grey and work up from a dark grey basecoat. Either way, it takes a couple coats to get it right.

From black, I do pretty much the same thing Immortal Reaper does, although I don't use foundation paint. That's how, almost step for step, I do my power armour.










From white:
You'd think this would be almost a no-brainer, starting from a white basecoat. But it's just as involved as starting from black. The difference is that you tend to get a more even coverage on the flat areas in less time. This is how I generally paint vehicles. 

1. Start from a white basecoat. 
2. Wash the entire area that's going to be white with 75/15/10 water/ultramarines blue/black. Badab Black, the GW wash, is even more dilute than that-- in fact, for what we're doing, it's too dilute. 
3. Blend white back up from the recesses, so you end up with a gradual transition of stained "grey" to flat white again.


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## taLLis (Aug 22, 2008)

Some of mine, started with a black basecoat, then dheneb stone, followed by progressive mixes of dheneb stone and skull white, i only used pure white for the final highlights



















- tal


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

I find the most effective method for painting a white model from a Black Basecoat is to wash on a few layers of Skull White. Then, mix Codex Grey and Rotting Flesh. Thin that, then paint it on liberally. On top of that, paint Rotting Flesh and Bleached Bone mix, leaving the dusty colour of the bleached bone in the corners/recesses. Finally, the last stage is several washes of White, to pure it up. Not as black and white pure, but a bit softer.


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## imm0rtal reaper (Jul 15, 2008)

just a side note, if anyone has any particular colour they would like me to feature just post it in one of the PPA (Painting power armour) threads or PM me. I'm not the best painter but i'm fairly good at finding simple, quick ways of painting solid colours

Loves 

Reaper


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## jakkie (Dec 21, 2007)

have you done one for blue?? i need some help with which paints to buy - im looing for a dark blue, like a crimson fist.
thanx


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## imm0rtal reaper (Jul 15, 2008)

To jakkie:

I'll do one for blue in about an hour, I need to have tea and get a picture of one of my blue SM first


Regards 

Reaper


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## jakkie (Dec 21, 2007)

ok, excellent.:biggrin: thanx a lot


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## dirty-dog- (May 14, 2008)

i dont have skull white but heres how i paint the closest to white i can get.

black under coat

layer of calthan brown

followed by two layers of bleached bone leaving some reccesses,

and then i suppose you could addd a final layer to that of skull white as the bleached bone at this point looks quite light.


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## asianavatar (Aug 20, 2007)

The way to paint white depends on the finish you want. The undercoat makes a big difference in the look of the final white. I paint two different ways depending on the white I want. First gives me a clean pure white. This is done by:

Basecoating black
Either astronomicon grey or codex grey.
Thin layers of white leaving a bit of the basecoat showing at crevices. 

The other way I do white gives a bone or almost ivory look.

Basecoat black
base with bleached bone
Thin layers of white, again leaving some base colour in the crevices.


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## Digg40k (Sep 7, 2008)

Another brilliant post. Surely these should be amalgamated to create and ultimate Power Armour topic?


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## imm0rtal reaper (Jul 15, 2008)

Amalgamation would be awsome 

If anyone else had colour suggestions I'll dip into my Power armour banks to see if I have a simple method to paint that colour (I've painted a lot of one off marines in the past)

Loves 

Reaper


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Hows about crossovers? Halved/Quarter schemes? How would you suggest doing them? Full Basecoat, then half it or Halved/Quartered Basecoat it in all the colours from the Primer?


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## LVix (Oct 18, 2008)

Wow, there are more crazy people out there who like painting white (even though it is a pain... :wink: )! 

Here's a method from a white basecoat, it gave me a really nice bright white but do thin your paints and dust your models before you paint... I didn't do either well enough and my poor marine turned out the worse for it.  This is a really basic colour with no use of washes (which is something I'd recommend looking into.)

White basecoat.
Stage 1- 5:4 mix of Shadow Grey/Fortress Grey
Stage 2 - add 1 part Skull white to the mix
Stage 3 - add 2 parts Skull white to the mix
Stage 4 - add 4 parts Skull white to the mix
Stage 5 - Pure Skull White (do 3 thin coats)


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## Triangulum (Jul 15, 2008)

I paint all my inquisitors in white, but I tend to think that bleached bone makes it look more realistic with an extreme highlight of white on the upper body so it looks like they have actually been out of their hermetically sealed space ship in a century.


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## chromedog (Oct 31, 2007)

I started with a white undercoat, and base coat, then I apply a black wash around the joints, touch up with astronomican grey, and skull white over it.

Works, isn't too much of a p*i*t*a and looks quite good from 2-3 feet away. Job's a good 'un.


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## Lord Reevan (May 1, 2008)

I use it on my apothecaries and hopefully storm troopers soon but for now I use 

black undercoat, adeptus battlegrey over that. one flat coat of white, then several layers of thinned white. The flat first white makes it tie up a bit faster.....


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## Otep (Mar 18, 2008)

for my storm troopers i went black primer -> fortress grey -> a crap load of white (i seriosuly have no idea how much...) building to the highlight area where it should be straight white... makes a nice transition from an off white to solid white 

took me about... 10-ish minutes? but thats because i smoke while i paint...


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