Silver Highlights

ManicMan

ManicMan

Lord
So, one of the age old questions: how to Highlight Silver. If it's a dirty Silver, something like a chain mail, no problem, I use a lighter silver. But if it is a pretty clean lighter silver.. I have no shade to move up to.

Normally, I use a white but I'm never 100% happy with it.
So, while I might have tried this before, I looked around and some say to mix some white with Silver, with ever increasing amounts to get it lighter and lighter...

oh dear.. I tried that. I've got a not awful white with a grey-blue, quite alot like Citadel's "Corax White"... but maybe a tiny hint more of blue.. either way, Not the success I was hoping for.

I would say what my normal bright silver is but.. well, It's a warpaint 'fanatic' Metallic.. that's about all I can say as there labels are awful. Alot of the Army Painter ones I got are decent laminated paper labels, but this is an awful print on plastic so it just rubs and flakes worse then old metallic foil stickers on 80s toys.. though WP3191 is written on it where it hasn't rubbed.. which claims to be 'Shining Silver' which makes sense and looks about right.

anyway.. tips and tricks for highlighting silver, without going on the 'fake metal' style ^_^
 
Like you I tend to do a little bit of silver over my "metal", but you're right for a purer silver that's not going to cut it. Vallejo did a metallic medium which I've occasionally mixed with white to make a glittery white. That might work. Otherwise you could try one of the very shiny metallic paints - I've some Liquid Chrome from Molotow which is very shiny - that might work to highlight a slightly less shiny silver just on the edges. There are various other more "true" metallic paints in the hobby space that might be similar.

Otherwise I'd try shading the silver down a bit. Maybe not with the classic black wash however - maybe instead just with a more manually painted darker silver, perhaps a bit of blue mixed in rather than black? So accept your silver is the top highlight, but just push the contrast a little withe some careful shadows?
 
yeah, I can see how it can be much easier to just shade down then up, like with white (I try to use an off-white as a base for that)
So far, I've taken the silver and shaded with a black, but for the highlighting I have tried that mix I made but then used the base silver on the edges/edge of the highlighting to kind blend it in a bit and I'll have to take a good look to see how well that has turned out.
 
I use Scale75's Metal N Alchemy metallics almost exclusively and find them to be very good; part of the silver set is a very light silver (Speed Metal) and brighter than that is White Alchemy which is a metallic white - it mixes into Speed Metal/other stuff in a more pleasing way than a regular white paint.

I agree with Eric that it's often easier to create the perception of it being brighter by darkening the metal nearby.
 
as Scale has gone bankrupt (Or is about to, expect no restocks soon) let me introduce to you my secret weapon: Vallejo true metallic Sterling Silver Light
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I think they must have been having financial woes or similar - not something I've been following, but their statement which would seem to be related is here:
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[EDIT - Doh, that's from 2 years ago!]
 
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ManicMan said:
Just gone Bankrupt? After launching that new KS a couple of days ago? I know its Digital only but still... odd...

but fair enough ^_^
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Didn’t know they did that 2 days ago but in Spain if you ask the biggest retailers they tell you that’s the reason they’ve not re stocked in a lot of time. Sorry if this wasn’t up to date.
 
Eric said:
I think they must have been having financial woes or similar - not something I've been following, but their statement which would seem to be related is here:
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Mmm; I just noticed that is 2 years old 🫨
 
Also, I stopped buying from them the moment they published a "commemorative" book on the Blue Division (the francoist unit who fought for the nazis). No one, I repeat, no one in Spain would doubt for a second who their CEO supports with a publication like that.

It works like this: "Should I buy that lovely green paint I love for moss to the guys who cheer who killed my grandpa?"

I hope you'll appreciate the irony here.
Wilbur out!
 
Wilbur the Red said:
Mmm; I just noticed that is 2 years old 🫨
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What comes around goes around I guess! I saw the June date and just assumed it was recent given what you'd mentioned. Guess this time round perhaps they are properly on the out. Still I'll be checking out the silver you suggested when I next swing past the gaming store, I see they do a full set for "silver shading" which looks interesting.
 
Back to topic. Do you have a pic of what you are trying to highlight? Is it chainmail? Cause don’t think most chainmail is made of silver (unless some bling armour for Dwarfs or High Elves! 😉).
 
This is a human ^_^ sorry, I'll try to take a photo tomorrow evening when I get the chance.

Skaven generally don't have brights, even though I'm not the kinda guy that loves to do everything very dirty. I see it as after a certain point, it would just make it worse to be too dirty.. I mean, you wanna battle with some tunic covered in mud? its a pain. heavy, thick, bad idea, so even the ratties would have a certain degree of how to keep clean, Also, think about it. Rats are almost as much clean freaks as Cats are. Though you need to compare the normal Clan Rats with the Nurgle like Plague Monks.
 
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