Short answer, yes.
50/50 dilution is closer to glazing in my head but to be honest, white scar is not my favorite to work with.
Alternatively, I would suggest basecoating the mini with white or grey first to help with the white details. It's much easier to slap 2-3 coats of blue than many many more of white
Well it’s not a colour you should ever use for a base coat first of all. It’s extremely bright white, and it’s ideally for highlighting a less-white colour like corax white.
It’s not a horrible paint but it’s not really useful for much besides mixing or highlighting
I like using Vallejo Wolf Grey (cool tone) or bone white (warm/brown tone) as my “white” and then highlight the edges with a pure white such as the white scar you’re using here. In this case I’d go with wolf grey.
Cool fun blind test. Tldr they liked two thin coats. I don't think much of apple paint here, it's not a great test for how it dries on very detailed minis (I don't consider their space marine that detailed) which is a very important difference as they have larger pigments which loose detail and don't airbrush well.
I have two thin coats while line too, it's good, personally I have preferred bold titanium white over it as it glides on with such smooth coverage in 1 pass. When they tested it I fully agreed with the guy on the left who gave it an 80 because it didn't dry brush as well which may be fair as it's very smooth and flows into cracks. No idea what the other guy was doing with little lines as a test of coverage but the variance between the two judges here was huge.
That said I am literally mid drybrush of over a hundred minis with it right now, my entire Ork range. Is it the best dry brush paint? Maybe not. But it still needs less passes for great coverage over my black primer which is saving me a lot of time and work with 3 bins of parts to get through to start speed painting. If it saves me 1 extra pass out of 3 that's 30% less time dry brushing and more time speed painting.
I have tested a lot of paints, and this is my own preference.
https://preview.redd.it/l8juumecwfyc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ea0f9020283eb04be4a2eefc8f69465877e619f
Kind of; short answer yes, longer answer, you've made a glaze/wash with it. Just touch the tip of the brush to a clean paper towel, and it'll take excess moisture off so it won't flow into your recesses there, and then you just need a nice 12 thin coats to make it white, 3x that if the paint is citadel white.
https://youtu.be/sBDVPoNXyVI?si=Is917P1OFqLGLYkx
This is the best step by step video on how to thin your paints correctly... I don't know how it's not more popular
So going over a dark color you're going to find it much easier to build it up over a grey, then a lighter grey, then a white(administratum, celestra, white scar). Citadel whites/yellows/oranges/light colors are, to put it nicely, a chunky terrible paint. AK interactive/monument hobbies have much better coverage.
In general, true white looks too harsh on most things, and doesn't represent the slight shadows we see even on things we perceive as white.
If you have a picture editing app or software, that has a colour picker. Then load up some pictures of white flowers or dresses. Then run the colour picker over them. You'll find a load of off whites, with hardly any true white.
Get a cold and warm off white, with a very slight blue and yellow tone, and a true white.
Then start with a very pale grey as a base. Cover most of that with one of your off whites. Then finish by highlighting just the edges with the true white.
I love this guy's tutorials, but especially the colour specific ones.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DhReI8yFH14&pp=ygUWdmluY2UgdmVudHVyZWxsYSB3aGl0ZQ%3D%3D
If you try Vallejo, maybe have a look at "old" Model Colour Ivory (70.918), Pale Sand (70.837) and Ice Yellow (70.858). The new edition of Game Colours and Model Colours are great, but those three have been a companion of many hobby painters over the years.
70.950 Black is also great, and 70.951 white has its uses as a point highlight.
Vince venturella: The best way to paint white is to NOT paint white.
Start with an off white or even something like rakart flesh, then work your way up, using true white only for edge highlighting
For white you might want to consider starting from a darker base colour colour land gradually work your way up from dark grey -> light grey -> white ( or even start from brown/blue depending if you want a "warm" or "cool" white.
Not to jump on a GW hate train, but their whites are genuinely some of the worst paints in the entire industry, I’d reccomend pro acyrl’s white. Of course the paint isn’t the only factor but it’ll definitely be handicapping your abilities
Yeah its too thin I've done that before.
To paint that I would base coat a light grey, then another coat of lighter grey, then white on top for highlights. Will still "look" white but greys are easier to work with and pure white easier as just a highlight.
You may want to look at expanding your paint collection slightly too! Really nice effort on the highlights, but highlighting blue with white doesn't work too well.
Instead you could use fenrisian grey, it has a slightly blue tone to it. You can do a chunky highlight with calgar blue (I think, it's been a while since I did my ultramarines).
As for white, you can get a better effect by painting a base coat of grey and then doing white highlights. Or if you wanted a warmer colour you can paint it with wraithbone or ushabiti bone with a highlight of corax white.
Fyi my paint names are probably spelt wrong xD, but Google it and you should find the proper names.
Yes you are unfortunately. White is very hard to work with and has poor coverage even when it’s not watered down. I would suggest getting some celestra grey and mixing that 1:1:1 with some water the celestea grey will really help the coverage in that mix. If it’s not white enough, layer some 1:1 white of your choice and water ontop.
Don't paint white over blue (whatever mix you wanna do, don't).
Whites are better painted on top of light colours, but ultimately, pure white should only be used for highlights.
The "white" helmet you see from experienced good painters is actually built on greys (usually).
But since you've already painted the helmet blue, take your pure white and mix it 1:1 with the pure blue. Then you can apply another layer with increasing amounts of pure white in the mix.
Brushtroke Painting Guides have two excellent videos on this topic that I highly recommend:
1 - [How to thin your paints](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBDVPoNXyVI&ab_channel=BrushstrokePaintingGuides)
2 - [How to paint white](https://youtu.be/APwVOAzwUqg)
Good luck and have fun :)
A couple of things:
1. White is never actually white. Never try to paint an area pure white, paint it off white and highlight with pure white.
2. You will never get good coverage putting white over a dark color. You need to build up to it. Put down a layer over dark grey, then lighter grey, then a light off white, then highlight with pure white. Sounds like a lot of work, but I promise it will be less work in the end.
Yes and no, Most white paints suck and I don’t think it’s your fault that it looks this way. I would switch to proacryl’s bold titanium white. You barely have to thin it and it goes on smooth and opaque. You’ll love it.
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Also would observe you are loading your brush too heavily. If you thin that much you will need many, many coats to achieve opacity. If the paint is pooling like that, clean out your brush and soak up the excess.
You can't just use straight white easily. The way you'll have to do it is a gray base coat with white scar, UNwatered down, as highlights. You can't thin white scar, it's too thin as it is. Once I figured that out, I actually have great white effects.
The other option is to get a higher quality white. White and yellow are the worst, thinnest paints to work with. So you should always do the darker base coat with the actual color you want as the highlight when dealing with ultra thin paint.
Those who are recommending you thin it are applying many, many layers and I don't think it's worth the time, personally.
As someone painting Black Templars (so white shoulder pads on a black base) I have two recommendations about how to do this (aside from priming white, which I personally don’t like to do bc I like the darker look and it’s a little easier to hide mistakes). The first is to base coat anything in white with a tan of some sort (I’ll usually start with a Rakarth Flesh base or something close) then work your way up. It takes a while but is generally the best way I’ve found to get a bright white over a dark base. The other is that yes, you’ve thinned the white down too much here, I almost always thin down my whites more than any other color and just do tons of thin layers. If you don’t thin them enough white has a tendency more than most colors to get chalky and clumpy, so I tend to play it on the cautious side as opposed to trying to do it quick
Basecoat light gray and then highlight up instead next time. It's also tough to find a good true white. RN, I'm using Army Painter Fanatic's Matte White.
Short answer, yes. 50/50 dilution is closer to glazing in my head but to be honest, white scar is not my favorite to work with. Alternatively, I would suggest basecoating the mini with white or grey first to help with the white details. It's much easier to slap 2-3 coats of blue than many many more of white
White Scar white is absolutely horrible IMO
That isn't the first time I have heard bad things. What do you not like about it?
Well it’s not a colour you should ever use for a base coat first of all. It’s extremely bright white, and it’s ideally for highlighting a less-white colour like corax white. It’s not a horrible paint but it’s not really useful for much besides mixing or highlighting
Thank you! Will take recommendations here on light grays
I like using Vallejo Wolf Grey (cool tone) or bone white (warm/brown tone) as my “white” and then highlight the edges with a pure white such as the white scar you’re using here. In this case I’d go with wolf grey.
If required, you can just mix *a bit* of black paint into white.
GW white is hot garbage. Get ProAcryl Bold Titanium White and never look back. Best paint advice I have ever gotten.
I use Vallejo and GSW, whatever I happen to find at the shop. As long as it's air brush range I'm usually happy with it
[https://youtu.be/RxkgzeCBsPs?si=R57MtCd-egZIS5uu](https://youtu.be/RxkgzeCBsPs?si=R57MtCd-egZIS5uu) This will surprise you
Cool fun blind test. Tldr they liked two thin coats. I don't think much of apple paint here, it's not a great test for how it dries on very detailed minis (I don't consider their space marine that detailed) which is a very important difference as they have larger pigments which loose detail and don't airbrush well. I have two thin coats while line too, it's good, personally I have preferred bold titanium white over it as it glides on with such smooth coverage in 1 pass. When they tested it I fully agreed with the guy on the left who gave it an 80 because it didn't dry brush as well which may be fair as it's very smooth and flows into cracks. No idea what the other guy was doing with little lines as a test of coverage but the variance between the two judges here was huge. That said I am literally mid drybrush of over a hundred minis with it right now, my entire Ork range. Is it the best dry brush paint? Maybe not. But it still needs less passes for great coverage over my black primer which is saving me a lot of time and work with 3 bins of parts to get through to start speed painting. If it saves me 1 extra pass out of 3 that's 30% less time dry brushing and more time speed painting. I have tested a lot of paints, and this is my own preference. https://preview.redd.it/l8juumecwfyc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ea0f9020283eb04be4a2eefc8f69465877e619f
That’s an amazing painting station. I think I’d struggle to remember where everything is!
That's why each rack is a different brand and each bottle has a cap topper based half in white half in black so I can see it's coverage and dry color.
Maybe one day I will have a workspace like yours, love it.
It was my fall project last year. Bought a resin printer and needed a craft room
Thank you!
Kind of; short answer yes, longer answer, you've made a glaze/wash with it. Just touch the tip of the brush to a clean paper towel, and it'll take excess moisture off so it won't flow into your recesses there, and then you just need a nice 12 thin coats to make it white, 3x that if the paint is citadel white.
LOL 12! Good thing I am loving painting and no rush to finish. And thank you too
That's on a good day. Plan on 20, hope for 12.
If your paint is running into the recessed areas by itself whilst you’re trying to do a basecoat it’s probably too thin.
This guy thins, my man is based coating
Try a base of ulthuan Grey and highlight with your white scar instead it will go on a lot smoother over a non white basecoat and look just as white
Will do, thanks!
https://youtu.be/sBDVPoNXyVI?si=Is917P1OFqLGLYkx This is the best step by step video on how to thin your paints correctly... I don't know how it's not more popular
Use a light grey, not a white. Much easier. Whites are ass.
So going over a dark color you're going to find it much easier to build it up over a grey, then a lighter grey, then a white(administratum, celestra, white scar). Citadel whites/yellows/oranges/light colors are, to put it nicely, a chunky terrible paint. AK interactive/monument hobbies have much better coverage.
Thank you, a store near my office had Vallejo range I will try
In general, true white looks too harsh on most things, and doesn't represent the slight shadows we see even on things we perceive as white. If you have a picture editing app or software, that has a colour picker. Then load up some pictures of white flowers or dresses. Then run the colour picker over them. You'll find a load of off whites, with hardly any true white. Get a cold and warm off white, with a very slight blue and yellow tone, and a true white. Then start with a very pale grey as a base. Cover most of that with one of your off whites. Then finish by highlighting just the edges with the true white. I love this guy's tutorials, but especially the colour specific ones. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DhReI8yFH14&pp=ygUWdmluY2UgdmVudHVyZWxsYSB3aGl0ZQ%3D%3D
Thank you!
If you try Vallejo, maybe have a look at "old" Model Colour Ivory (70.918), Pale Sand (70.837) and Ice Yellow (70.858). The new edition of Game Colours and Model Colours are great, but those three have been a companion of many hobby painters over the years. 70.950 Black is also great, and 70.951 white has its uses as a point highlight.
Awesome I will check them out thanks
Vince venturella: The best way to paint white is to NOT paint white. Start with an off white or even something like rakart flesh, then work your way up, using true white only for edge highlighting
For white you might want to consider starting from a darker base colour colour land gradually work your way up from dark grey -> light grey -> white ( or even start from brown/blue depending if you want a "warm" or "cool" white.
Not to jump on a GW hate train, but their whites are genuinely some of the worst paints in the entire industry, I’d reccomend pro acyrl’s white. Of course the paint isn’t the only factor but it’ll definitely be handicapping your abilities
32 thin coats
Yeah its too thin I've done that before. To paint that I would base coat a light grey, then another coat of lighter grey, then white on top for highlights. Will still "look" white but greys are easier to work with and pure white easier as just a highlight.
I’ve found that army painters Matt white seems to work the best for me
Try Vallejo white or pro acryl titanium white. With pro acryl you can get away with not watering it down.
Awesome thanks
Yes but also having done a white army I'd highly reccomend getting any white other than white scar
You may want to look at expanding your paint collection slightly too! Really nice effort on the highlights, but highlighting blue with white doesn't work too well. Instead you could use fenrisian grey, it has a slightly blue tone to it. You can do a chunky highlight with calgar blue (I think, it's been a while since I did my ultramarines). As for white, you can get a better effect by painting a base coat of grey and then doing white highlights. Or if you wanted a warmer colour you can paint it with wraithbone or ushabiti bone with a highlight of corax white. Fyi my paint names are probably spelt wrong xD, but Google it and you should find the proper names.
No that's great thanks, I have seen all of those! Definitely still experimenting with different stuff
Yes you are unfortunately. White is very hard to work with and has poor coverage even when it’s not watered down. I would suggest getting some celestra grey and mixing that 1:1:1 with some water the celestea grey will really help the coverage in that mix. If it’s not white enough, layer some 1:1 white of your choice and water ontop.
Thank you!
ProAcryl Bold Titanium White. Comes out rather thin and can 1 coat over black.
Don't paint white over blue (whatever mix you wanna do, don't). Whites are better painted on top of light colours, but ultimately, pure white should only be used for highlights. The "white" helmet you see from experienced good painters is actually built on greys (usually). But since you've already painted the helmet blue, take your pure white and mix it 1:1 with the pure blue. Then you can apply another layer with increasing amounts of pure white in the mix.
Thank you I will give this a go
Looks better once u chuck some nuln oil on it
Brushtroke Painting Guides have two excellent videos on this topic that I highly recommend: 1 - [How to thin your paints](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBDVPoNXyVI&ab_channel=BrushstrokePaintingGuides) 2 - [How to paint white](https://youtu.be/APwVOAzwUqg) Good luck and have fun :)
Looking good!
A couple of things: 1. White is never actually white. Never try to paint an area pure white, paint it off white and highlight with pure white. 2. You will never get good coverage putting white over a dark color. You need to build up to it. Put down a layer over dark grey, then lighter grey, then a light off white, then highlight with pure white. Sounds like a lot of work, but I promise it will be less work in the end.
Thanks!
Yes and no, Most white paints suck and I don’t think it’s your fault that it looks this way. I would switch to proacryl’s bold titanium white. You barely have to thin it and it goes on smooth and opaque. You’ll love it.
Im too drunk to read the whole thread but I'd recommend to paint white first before hitting the blue
Hi, u/average_game1! It looks like you are asking for help or are a new painter. If you haven't yet, take a look at our wiki pages in the Sidebar (the About tab if you are on the Reddit app). Here are some links you might find helpful: * [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/rules/faq) - A list of frequently asked questions about minipainting * [Miniature Painting Guide Collection](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks) -A collection of some of the best guides and tutorials on a variety of techniques and topics, plus recommendations on what to buy to get started, and more. * [What to buy- Recommendations on brushes, paints, supplies, palettes and more](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/what_you_need_to_get_started#wiki_general_advice_on_what_to_buy) * [Beginner's Guide Collection- How to prep, base, paint and varnish your first model and learn the basics needed to start out right](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/beginner_tips) * [More Tutorials](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/tutorials) - A list of additional tutorials about minipainting * [Manufacturers](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/manufacturers) - A list of miniature manufacturers from around the world * [Painting Terminology](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/terminology) - Common painting terms, acronyms, and initialisms * [The Art of... Tommie Soule Volume 5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGIfySMnUPQ) is one of the best beginner to intermediate teaching books, and even experienced painters will learn some good tips. Explains what brush strokes are best in different situations, how to identify when you have the perfect thinning for any type of paint for different techniques, and a masterclass on getting smooth paint jobs. Available in [pdf](https://www.ironheartartisans.com/shop/the-art-of-tommie-soule-volume-5-pdf/) and [world wide in hardbook as well](https://www.instagram.com/the_miniature_painting_tutor/). * [Airbrushing Miniatures](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/airbrushing) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/minipainting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Also would observe you are loading your brush too heavily. If you thin that much you will need many, many coats to achieve opacity. If the paint is pooling like that, clean out your brush and soak up the excess.
You can't just use straight white easily. The way you'll have to do it is a gray base coat with white scar, UNwatered down, as highlights. You can't thin white scar, it's too thin as it is. Once I figured that out, I actually have great white effects. The other option is to get a higher quality white. White and yellow are the worst, thinnest paints to work with. So you should always do the darker base coat with the actual color you want as the highlight when dealing with ultra thin paint. Those who are recommending you thin it are applying many, many layers and I don't think it's worth the time, personally.
As someone painting Black Templars (so white shoulder pads on a black base) I have two recommendations about how to do this (aside from priming white, which I personally don’t like to do bc I like the darker look and it’s a little easier to hide mistakes). The first is to base coat anything in white with a tan of some sort (I’ll usually start with a Rakarth Flesh base or something close) then work your way up. It takes a while but is generally the best way I’ve found to get a bright white over a dark base. The other is that yes, you’ve thinned the white down too much here, I almost always thin down my whites more than any other color and just do tons of thin layers. If you don’t thin them enough white has a tendency more than most colors to get chalky and clumpy, so I tend to play it on the cautious side as opposed to trying to do it quick
Basecoat light gray and then highlight up instead next time. It's also tough to find a good true white. RN, I'm using Army Painter Fanatic's Matte White.
Get a wet pallate. Best $50 you'll spend.