Author: Tom Mugwort

I’m baa-aack! With an appropriately named tutorial to boot. It’s been what, a month since I did an ‘official’ tutorial for Hand Cannon?? Not counting the previews of course. I hope you all enjoy, good readers!

This is another in my Basics series of tutorials, that covers some of the fundamental techniques in miniature painting. A lot of novice (and experienced!) painters have trouble with painting blacks. This proves to be a colour that is just a problematic for some as painting white. In this article I will cover the basic techniques for painting black; specifically, black armour plating. In addition to this, since it’s a very short article, and easy technique to master, I’ll cover making snow for your miniatures bases as well.
All paints used in this tutorial are Formula P3, unless stated otherwise.

For this tutorial, I’m using a commissioned model from one of my regular clients; the character Warjack that released in Warmachine: Wrath for Khador – Black Ivan.

I’ve already covered painting black, using several tints of highlight, which was for cloth: Painting Cloth and Highlighting Black, in which I go over proper techniques for thinning your paint, and several colors that can be used for highlighting black cloth. These methods work fine for clothing, and if the surface is rounded, and organic. But the techniques are less applicable to flat armor plates.

This tutorial also uses extensively, Two-Brush Blending. Familiarize yourself with this technique, and practice it over and over as much as you can. It becomes invaluable when painting larger models like Warjacks, and flat, featureless surfaces. You will need a smooth graduation of color to get this method to work, and look it’s best.

The most basic rule to follow when painting black armour;
If you want a surface to appear black, then 50% or more of that surface must remain pure, untouched black.
I call this the 50-50 Rule.

If you’re wondering why your models don’t appear black when you finish highlighting them, this is 99% likely the reason; too much of the surface is painted with highlight colors.

When painting Warjacks, I usually paint all the pistons and innards first. As per my standard means of applying paint – work from the inside out. Anything that is difficult to access, or hard to reach will get paint first. I always completely paint an area before moving onto the next. In this case, however, I left the final glaze on the reds until the very end. This was to enable a more consistent colour overall, and keep the reds coherent across the entire model.

Once the preliminary painting is complete, I base coated all of the black armor plates with Thamar Black.

I then highlighted 50% of each plate with pure Coal Black, and blended the bottom edge out with a second brush. This is going to be difficult to see in the first photo, as it’s very subtle in the bright light of my lightbox. After this first photo, I took the pictures directly on my painting table, as it’s much clearer and easier to see what’s happening.

Treat every armor plate as a separate surface, with its own lighting for the best effect.

There are several colors you can use to lighten Coal Black, and the P3 color chart suggests Menoth White Base. I don’t.
Coal Black has a fair bit of green in it, and Menoth White Base, having such a yellow tint, accentuates this. I find it makes the Coal Black turn into a sickly green, and not a blue-ish black I assume it’s supposed to be.

You can use Underbelly Blue, Frostbite, Arcane Blue, and Morrow White, depending on what tint you want. Don’t use Menoth White Highlight, as the creamy white will again emphasize the greenish tint of the Coal Black, leaving you with an undesirable highlight. Well, unless you want your blacks highlighted a sickly green (Cryx!).

For this tutorial, I used Frostbite, and it’s usually my go-to color for lightening Coal Black.

I used roughly a 5:1 ratio of Coal Black to Frostbite for the second highlight. This was applied to the top 50% of the first, Coal Black highlight, and the bottom …