White with acrylics

[Yarok]

Hello Planeteers,

I'm about to start painting Pegaso's Teutonic Grand Master, so this naturally implies... white! A former oil painter, I could use some tips on how to get a nice warm white using acrylics. Which color mix would be a good start?

I was thinking about a warm medium/light grey base using white, burnt umber and black, then adding some more of the two latter for shadows. Maybe some washes of prussian blue would be nice later on, too...

Looking forward to reading your advice

Patrick

 

[Joe Hudson]

Hey Patrick,

I am no expert but check out my vbench and see what I have done, Dutch Drummer, Officer and etc. I have several different mixtures that I use.

Joe

 

[PJ Deluhery]

The best advice I can give you is to make your midtones something darker than white. You can either make them warm - like white + beige, or cool - like white + gray. The idea is that only the very highest highs are actually white, and all other values are some shade of this value. If you paint the midtones white, you have no lighter value for the highlights. But by starting with a shade value you preserve the white for the highs. The figure looks white to the eye, even though it is actually much darker.

Here is an excellent article on the subject that explains it better than I can. While it deals with reds, the principle is the same

Painting Reds

Good luck.

 

[MattS]

Just to add my 2 cents to the good advice already posted, make your base color with simple color mixes and on the darker side of mid gray. When I painted this figure, I used a base of ivory, black and prussian blue (all vallejo). I only used pure white for extreme highlights. Some burnt umber and middlestone was worked into the shadows on the lower parts in the tunic and cloak for a weathered effect. Ivory was used for highlighting mid and higher highlights. I also varied my white mixture between the cloak and the tunic. I went for a warmer tunic color and a cooler cloak color for variety. I hope this helps. Good luck with the figure. It was a blast to paint, but very heavy.

Matt S.

 

[Yarok]

Thanks, guys!

Joe: your topic is exactly what I was looking for, since I paint with Vallejo too. I'll take a closer later on

Joe and Pat: Good idea to switch between warm and cold white. I plan to use this on fabric / painted items (i.e. clothing with warm tones, the shield and the white on the checkered horns with cold white). I may be mistaking, but I think I read this trick from Mike Blank (basically one of the best and well known "black and white" painters around). It's an interesting article you posted there, Pat, red is tricky indeed, and i'll have my share with the flag on this one.

Matt: Yup, this is one heavy fig' :lol: I glued both legs and cloak together, and kept everything else apart to reduce weight

 

[thegoodsgt]

I just want to correct something Joe said. He is an expert!

 

[Yarok]

I've read his step by step on white with Vallejo and Steven: you're right! Joe: you are an expert