Oils Painting armour on La Hire bust

[Gary D]

Hi, I just bought the La Hire bust by Young Miniatures and need a game plan on painting the armour. I'm after the tarnished look like the box art. Should I base coat with gloss black and airbrush Alclad chrome followed by wash/filter/drybrush of a matt black (I use oils so I would have to add a "matting" agent). Does anyone have a SBS on tarnishing metal that would work?

Thanks, in advance,

Gary Daugherty

 

[housecarl]

I don't know if this will help Gary. This is for bronze and is using printer's inks. But I think you might get some ideas. http://www.tbforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4692&highlight=metals&page=2
Carl.

 

[Gary D]

Thanks Carl! I do have different printers inks so I check it out!

Gary

 

[megroot]

Gary if you didn't start, maybe this will do.

Start after priming with a layer dark grey acrylic paint.
After drying mix silver printers ink with black just enough to have a silvery black.
Brush it on and after one hour remove the paint as usual for oilpainting with a dry brush.
Once this layer is dry, add a wash with the black paint only. Let it dry and drybrush the metall with more silver to your basecolor.
The high highlight with only silver printers ink.
When this is done you can add some small spots with a brown color (burnt umber).
If you want a hammered look you can change "the first drybrush" with a piece of the foam that you find into the figurebox.
Get some paint on it, wrap it off and with a dapping motion paint the metal.

Hope you can do something with it.

 

[Gary D]

Just picked it up tonight Marc so I haven't started yet.

Thanks for the SBS, I will give it a go!!

Thanks again,

Gary

 

[Einion]

Gary, if you want to go that weathered I wouldn't bother using Alclad - standard metallic paints of one kind or another will get you there sooner.

Einion

 

[Gary D]

Thanks for the reply Einion. I'll stick with the silver printers ink and black oils as Marc has mentioned.

Gary

 

[Gary D]

Well I gave it a go with the silver ink/mars black mix but it just doesn't look right. It probably would be the way if I was painting onto metal but as this is resin removing it after one hour just takes me back down to the base coat. Thanks anyway Marc.

Any other suggestions as I am drawing a blank with the exception of trying painting it all flat black, drybrushing silver, and using black oil washes after to get into the nooks and crannies?
Perhaps an enamel gun metal (don't think that would look right..)

As mentioned earlier I am aiming to replicate the box art.

Thanks in advance.

gary

 

[housecarl]

Gary Dimitios did it a while back. http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34640&highlight=hire
Carl.

 

[Gary D]

You're a good man Carl. I don't know how I missed that! It's exactly the look I'm after.

He says "recieved a basecolor of silver ink with ivory black, some brown and black shades and some edging with pure silver ink. "

Do you think he mixes the silver ink with a touch of black and brown or does he stipple the black and brown seperately after the base coat of silver dries?

Sorry to sound naive on this but I've never done this before.

Thanks again Carl.

Gary

 

[housecarl]

Why not drop him a PM he's an amicable sort of chap.
Carl.

 

[Gary D]

Did as you suggested Carl. thanks.

gary

 

[megroot]

You're a good man Carl. I don't know how I missed that! It's exactly the look I'm after.

He says "recieved a basecolor of silver ink with ivory black, some brown and black shades and some edging with pure silver ink. "

Do you think he mixes the silver ink with a touch of black and brown or does he stipple the black and brown seperately after the base coat of silver dries?
Gary

That's exactly what i wrote down. So i cannot immagine where it went wrong.

marc

 

[Gary D]

Thanks Marc for the reply. I need to clarify one thing and that is when I tried to remove the silver/black paint after one hour with a brush, I actually wiped down to the primer coat and not the base coat and that is what didn't look right to me.
So...
I have now stripped it, re-primed it with Tamiya grey spray primer, let it dry, and yesterday airbrushed a new coat of "Old Silver" ink/mars black oil mix and that is currently drying. It currently looks like an oily silver colour.
I will try a black wash tonight when I get home from work. Do you think I should use a shiny silver ink instead?

Thanks

Gary

 

[Meehan34]

Do you own any Vandyke brown? I used this color when aging my bust of La Hire. You can look at him in my Vbench to see if it suits you.

 

[megroot]

I think you removed to much. You have to remove paint till you got no brushmarks. Unfortunally we oilpainters paint to thick. That's why we must remove most of it.
If you paint thin enough you shouldn't remove no paint.
I never airbrushed my oilpaints. Tried it one time at it went to a great mess.

the shiney silver ink?
I have printers inkt that looks flat. I made some spots shiny with a little enamel gloss varnish.

Hope i helped you further.

 

[Gary D]

Thanks for your patience with me guys.

Mike, nice work!!! That is exactly what I am trying to achieve. I actually thought of using a gun metal as a base colour but thought it might look too "sparkly". Maybe I should strip my bust again and go that route. I do have van dyke brown. You said you rubbed it in? with a soft cloth or stippled it with a brush?

Marc, I may have scrubbed off too much instead of a light wipe.
I have 2 shades of Silver inks. one is Regular Silver that has a bit of a shine (brightness) to it and the other is called Old Silver that is more flat and oily in colour. I used the latter thinking it would aid in the tarnished look.

Thanks again fellas. Maybe this correspondence will be of help to others as well.

gary

 

[housecarl]

Gary to upset the apple cart altogether. I would go with acrylics for you base coat, then weather these with oils. That way your subsequent coats won't remove the earlier ones, as you will have the tendency to do with oils on oils. Paint it all a nice shiny silver, and then weather as you would a burnished metal figure.
Hope that makes sense,
Carl.

 

[Gary D]

Thanks Carl. I think you are right. Dimitrios was kind enough to respond to my PM and he base coats in acrylic black, lets it dry and then adds a silver ink/black oil mix and then highlights, lets it dry, then adds shadows. I am going to give this a try.

Thanks for all the help guys!

Gary

 

[Einion]

Dimitrios was kind enough to respond to my PM and he base coats in acrylic black, lets it dry and then adds a silver ink/black oil mix and then highlights, lets it dry...

Meant to post something about this the other day Gary, I think you're not waiting long enough. It's feasible to do this kind of basecoat, overcoat, wipe off method with oils or enamels, but you've got to give them enough time to cure - with enamels that can be a couple of days but with oils you might need to wait a week or more. Course if you're speed-drying with heat then overnight could do it.

Another contributing factor can be the printer's ink. They vary a lot but some don't have the kind of binder level that oil paints do, so any mix that has one strongly represented may not become solid enough to withstand rubbing/abrasion. Two ways around that are to add in some additional binder (e.g. oil or Liquin) or after drying to thinly coat it with varnish to provide a protective barrier, which is what a lot of aircraft modellers do.

Einion