Getting that 'oil on water' rainbow?

[red120]

Is there any way to paint this kind of effect?

I want to do my tank's armour in this style.

If anyone doesn't know what I mean:

http://www.dpbsmith.com/desktoppictu...il-rainbow.jpg
http://www.oceanservice.noaa.gov/edu...pol04b_700.jpg

[Aether-Moose]

Hmmm... that's gonna be hard. The only ways I can think of would be using either LOTS of bright, shiny inks (LOTS LOTS), or possibly trying to just paint it on manually? The latter would be hella hard though.
Good luck man!

[Commander_Dante]

Mybe try painting the tank with a water based paint, add a few drops of oil based paint/ink to it and stir? The oil and water based oaint wont mix so itl give some color seperation. The part that i cant figure out is getting that rainbow thing going.{confused}

[scarletsquig]

Chrome effect varnish will be as close as you're going to get to that kind of finish.

[Hard A**]

Citadel used to do some iridescent paints, but I think they discontinued them about 8 years ago.

However, art shops certainly sell a variety of iridescent acrylic paints (Citadel are acrylics of course).

Iridescent (also known as nacreous, interference, pearlescent or pearl effect) paints generally come in primary colours, and will have a stiff 'gel' consistency that can be softened somewhat with various Acrylic mediums such as gel retarder and flow improver; and of course water.

They are something I have experimented with myself, but certainly would not regard myself as having become an expert in. I have some paints, and some Chaos Marines that I was experimenting with at the time, and hope to put up some photos at some point (like when I find them...). You should see that they are about as close to that 'petrol interference' effect as you are gonna get more or less straight out of a tube.

I would suggest you get maybe a purple, a green and maybe a blue or red, and experiment yourself.

One thing you will have to work out for yourself is how the various colour patches swirl around each other - I would try to find some photos of the effect (like that one above) for inspiration and be prepared to try to achive that effect freehand with brushwork.

Here is some blurb on Iridescent paints in general.

[Microcosm]

i guess you'll have to paint many and quite thinned-down layers of paint. and alot of wet-blending i guess. try do mix your colours with a similar ink (makes the colours a touch glossier). and give it some washs of thinned down ink between some of your painting steps.

if you can get your hand on air-brush (and some eyperiance) try it with one of these.

and some funky way to paint it would be using oil colours. not sure though if those wouldn't ruin the texture of the modell....