[norrell]

is ther any way to paint black clothes with a simple coat of chaos clack and the a wash? If anyone has any ideas it would save me a lot of time on highlights and what not.

 

[ArtificiallyEnhanced]

Washes don't really work on black as they darken the base colour and you can't reeeally get much darker than black. I would suggest a Dark gray highlight at least, then wash it. It's how I did the commissar in my avatar. I have more pictures if you want to see them?

 

[Almberg]

This is how I roughly do it.

1. Basecoat with Chaos Black and a tiny bit of Codex Grey.
2. Shade with Chaos Black.
3. Start highlighting with adding more and more Codex Grey to Chaos Black but don't go to pure Codex Grey because it might make it look all grey.

 

[ZMB]

When painting black I like to remember that very few things in real life are true black. As a base I will add a bit of colour to black and even though it makes little difference it is the sum of all the little differences that show up in the end result. Since black is the darkest you can ever hope to get you realy have to focus more on how you highlight. When it comes to highlighting I tend to try to find the highlight that will harmonize best with the mini on a whole. When it comes to black your most obvios choices are to go with either a grey or blue highlight. You can use other colours to highlight with though but more often than not is is easiest to stick grey as a deffault highlighting colour.

I used to use washes a whole lot, but as I grow as a painter of miniatures I find I use them less and less. Black is one colour I would not use a wash on as there is little need since highlighting in the name of the game. Since I don't know what sort of level of quality you are trying to achieve I will assume that you are going for a more table qualty finish. I would start by basing black. Then I would go for y first highlight being 3:1 Black:light grey or medium grey. Remember when highlighting to keep your paint thin as the last thing you ever want to see is brush strokes and if you are painting on laers that thick then you will not be getting the desired effect. The first coat should most of the ridges of the cloth and leave a nice dark fold as you will. I would then mix up a highlight of 2:1 Black:Grey and do the same but trying to cover less area. The same goes on as follows: for the next highlight I would go with 1:1 followed by 2:1. You could if you want go with one last highlight of pure grey as it will give you loads of conrast in the end. If that had been done I would take a wash of two parts water and one part Badab black (or Black Glaze for you Vallejo people out there...and black glaze is AWESOME!) and wash it over the cloth...maybe even 3 to 1 water to black glaze. Realy you are just trying to smooth things out a bit.

Well, there is more than my two cents, but i hope things work out for you mate.

 

[8people]

Mix black with another colour, only a little to give it a petrol or tinted look. Wash with a contrasting colour (purple if you mix in a little green with the black - work with the colour wheel of 'light' instead of 'pigment' which is what most colour wheels are made from, the shadows are made from light - not colour, after all.)

Washing pure black is like having black hair and dying it a temporary lighter colour without bleaching first - it won't work, the lighter colour (the wash) will sit on the black and you WON'T SEE IT.

Nothing black has black highlights anyway, light still bounces back and black isn't in the colour spectrum.

 

[Mad Cat]

Paint the cloth adeptus battle grey then give it 3 coats of badab black wash. Simple, but for better effects you will need to build up grey shades or add a little blue.