Topic: Blue metal... ink? or a better way?

[Captain Tineal]

Maybe my skill has once again been exceeded by my ambition.  I have Blue Metalic paint at home... looks great... but its so... blue.  I'd like to have just a blue tint to a silver, and maybe do that with a red as well.  To make like bluish tinted armour, or maybe a redish tinted sword.  Anybody ever done this?  Can you do it by just inking over the metal with a watered down colour, then wiping away excess?  Can you just mix the ink right into the paint?  Help?

[Gneisenau]

I have not much good experience with applying the ink directly to the metal, as it is very colour-intensive. You'd definitely have to thin it down.

On the other hand, I have nothing but good experience with mixing the ink into the colour. For "shiny" armour, I have a constant mix of chainmail and blue ink which looks great in my opinion. The ink improves chainmail much, it looks so much smoother. It might be a personal thing, but I find pure chainmail a bit boring. Add as much ink as you feel appropriate, though even a little amount will do wonders.

Conversely, I have tried to mix some metal colour into black ink, then add more metal subsequently until highlighting with pure boltgun metal. It makes for a very dark armour, but I haven't tested how this looks on larger pieces like bardings.

With red, I'm not so sure, as I am uncertain what you strive to achieve. Is the sword supposed to be bloodied?

But I'm by no means a professional, that's just my personal experience.

[alexei]

When I try to do nice looking metal I'll start with Boltgun and highlight by adding a lighter metallic colour. Then to shade I use very watered down black paint. I imagine that if you substitute the black paint for blue paint it would do the trick.

The main reason I use paint instead of ink is it dulls down the metals and makes them less shiny, as well as giving them a slight tint. But I've had decent results with ink as well. The easiest way in my mind is to base the armour in metallics and give it a blue ink wash, much like you would with black ink. But like Gneisenau said, make sure you water it down quite a bit. Then after that you can either leave it or highlight.

[Captain Tineal]

Well, with the red, I'd like to maybe achieve a magical look... with the blue, I'd just like to add a faint blue tint to my armour on one guy, so obviously I'd water the ink down, just wondering if there is a better way to do it.

[CM Dante]

You've pretty much got the right idea, paint the metal up, ink it with watered down blue ink in a layer or two and then re-highlight the edges of the metal again, simple!

Cheers,

Dante

[Archaon]

The new way I've been painting metal recently goes something like this

1) Liberal 75% boltgun metal 25% chaos black coat

2) Drybrush of boltgun metal

3) Light drybrush of chainmail

4) Black ink wash (40% black ink 60% water)

5) Light drybrush of mithril silver

6) Armor wash (20% black ink, 20% brown ink, 20% gloss varnish, 10% tin bitz, 30% water)

It comes out looking quite shiny, but at the same time it looks like it's been worn in a few battles.

I've had some experience using blue or red mixed into the metallic colors, but I've never really done a colored ink wash over armor. I don't really like the tinted effect colored armor gives.

[thatdave]

You've pretty much got the right idea, paint the metal up, ink it with watered down blue ink in a layer or two and then re-highlight the edges of the metal again, simple!

Cheers,

Dante

I have personally used this method to give a green tint to my Stormvermin.  I have also seen it used to great effect on Slaanesh figs using purple and Tzeentch using blue.  Probably the simplest of the mentioned methods as well.

[nurglespuss]

TAMIYA COLOR metallic blue: X-13

works a treat

hope that helps

[redjoey]

I painted a Grey Knight with blue steel armour.

I started with a basecoat of midnight blue.
Drybrush Boltgun metal.
Really thinned down blue ink wash.
Drybrush Boltgun.
Think ink wash.
Drybrush Chainmail.
Thin ink wash.
Drybrush edges with Mithryl silver.
Thin ink wash.

The end result was a pearlescent effect. The armour does look brand new after this so if you are looking for battle worn armour this is not the best way to go. If you want new shiney armour the end results are spot on.