Advice on painting white smoothly / well?

Machen

Vassal
Hi folks,

I recently painted my first predominantly white-colored armored miniature (a metal Drone Trooper, the Star Schlock equivalent of a Storm Trooper) and discovered first hand how hard it can be to do without leaving noticeable brushstrokes and getting pasty. After finishing, I discovered first hand how hard it is to photograph a predominantly white colored miniature with an iphone, which kept washing it out.

Is there any advice you could give me on getting the best results when hand brushing white? (I still don't have an airbrush and would rather not invest time and money in one at the moment.) Are any specific paints particularly good? Is it mainly a matter of thinning the white paint and applying several coats, or is there more to it?

Here's the Drone Trooper in question alongside a Star Schlock Ape Trooper that I also painted recently (yep, their take on Planet of the Apes. 70's / 80's Sci-fi mash-ups are what Star Schlock is about.) I don't know if the image below will do a good job of showing the difficulties I'm having - just getting the image to appear here without being auto-adjusted by the forum to a starkly washed out white took some doing.

Ape and Drone Troopers Star Schlock.jpeg
 
personally? can't say how great I am but 2 options come to mind.
1) airbrush. for a base coat or primer, or when a figure is mostly one colour like that, It gives smooth results. I only really use it for that. Mostly primer work (though it's a pain at times to get a decent coat.. despite trying to come at it at all angles I often get a bad spray which people refer to as 'zenithal highlighting'... naw, just a crap job.. (though surely if it was zenithal, meaning acting like the sun was at it's zenith, most of the sprays I've seen claiming to be that would be far worse coverage.. oh well, each to there own))

2) water or such like. adding a touch of water or whatever your paint thinner of choice is would give a thinner coat of paint which uses the surface tension of the water to spread out a bit, which often removes the brush strokes without wiping out Karl Howman... takes more coats and longer to dry but does the job.
 
Point ^_^; yeah, I can see the issue there but it kinda is a good way to do a flat even base, specially on colours like white. Not really much time to invest as I'm finding even with basic setup, it's quicker then hand brushing the primer on with a decent coat, though I could probably do it better or faster with a bit of work. But yeah, regardless probably should have taken a bit more note of that bit ^_^
 
Just blame the size of the titanium dioxide molecules for any roughness. Can't say I'm an ace when it comes to white, I quite often avoid it. The last one I did was quite a quick paint job on this Reaper Mousling:

halloween-mouseling.jpg
So that's a phone camera photo. Just brushes.

Smooth shading on large white areas is easier with an airbrush - you could for instance base in your shade colour then work the white over the top of that feathering the edges (or do it the other way round), but on smaller models I don't know. Maybe on StormDrone Troopers. I'd probably prime in pale grey, then do a white (possibly using an ink rather than white paint - since it often flows better in the airbrush), then maybe a pale grey from below as a shade and then white again to neaten up that shade as required. Then I'd panel line it for any other shading and use a brush to tidy that up if needed. Maybe a satin varnish if the armour is supposed to be quite shiny. Anyhow that's all a bit moot since airbrush investment isn't quite on the cards.

If in the land of brushes I'd suggest visiting well mixed paint and thinners - probably worth looking at actual acrylic thinners for your paint range since they will probably be the acrylic medium rather than just water. A couple of thinner coats certainly should help and that's probably the best way of getting a smooth coat. As for actual "painting white" I think I've read that the trick is deciding what shade to go for - a warm colour or cold colour and working out how best to work that in if you need a good shadow. The best whites I've seen are often not that white - they just signal to your brain that the colour is supposed to be white. Weathered whites can look quite good - seen some nice Dark Angel terminators in very worn white armour that looked very cool. To be fair your mini looks perfectly fine, and any roughness isn't presumably going to show much at 2-3'. So I'd probably as others have said try slightly thinner (well mixed) paint.
 
I don't have a lot of experience with white, my usual method for all my blended colours is a final wash. For me it smooths out everything. Vallejo make a white wash, but sadly I have no idea if it's any good
 
I think you're trooper looks great. I don't think I do any better than you do. Not as well, really, but I'm content with it. I'm the weirdo who would paint the thing black and then layer up with light grey and white without even waiting for the grey to dry. (I would wait for the black to dry first.) I'd possibly finish by adding a brown or grey ink and then before it dries a pretty heavy drybrush of white. But brush strokes don't bother me. They give a thing depth and texture that I sometimes miss in airbrushed miniatures. So I guess my personal take is that you're already doing it right. :)

Kudos for a lovely miniature!
 
I use white or off-white and a white contrast style paint (which actually has grey tones).
Like everyone says your mini look fine, sure looks different IRL, but very acceptable from a distance!
 
Got a few of the Xpress, slightly “lighter” coverage compared to the Citadel Contract, feels little more like a wash? But with all of these paints mileage and coverage really varies depending on the strength of pigment…
 
My usual 'bright white' method is a base layer of Foundry Arctic Grey A, washed into deepest areas only with Army Painter dark tone, then highlighted up with Foundry Arctic Grey B and only on the very tips white.
 
In reality, there is nothing really bright white. You always have dirt and grime, the surroundings reflecting, shadows cast...

I always pick a colour when painting white, and only use white as the final highlight. Like @Fimm McCool 's answer, this can be grey, but I also used blues, browns and purples. Very light tones of the colours, often already mixed with white.
They tend to cover quite well. Then highlight up adding white, with only the highest highlights being pure white.

When painting something just white on larger areas, it always seems too flat for my liking.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top