Talk Fantasy Football

I've decided on black and silver for my Gobbo team, but I foolishly forgot I have a hard time doing highlights on black colours... Can someone explain how it's done?

Particularly on armour edges. I just can't seem to get that nice light gray / white line thin enough or straight enough... AGGGHHHH!!!

I'll submit a pic of what I've done so far soon.

Whatcha think?

Gobbo Front 60KB
Gobbo Back 59KB

Note, on the back I managed to do pretty well on the grayish / whiteish highlights for his circular armour plate (that has his number 1). But for the edges of his shoulder pad and helmet, I think it could have been much better.

that looks realy nice !
not bad painting in any case !!
only the gray and the silver semm to be almost the same in the pic but probably won't be in real life I hope..

nice colours used !

The mini as a whole looks good... Agree on the somewhat dodgy highlighting of the pad, but can't offer you any advice. It's a bit spooky, but we're at the exact same painting level. This mini could've been painted by me, it looks exactly like I'd painted it. =D

/Phreedh

Phreedh wrote:The mini as a whole looks good... Agree on the somewhat dodgy highlighting of the pad, but can't offer you any advice. It's a bit spooky, but we're at the exact same painting level. This mini could've been painted by me, it looks exactly like I'd painted it. =D

/Phreedh

The gig is up! I better quit sneaking over to Sweden to steal your minis!

Anyways, yeah, the silver is almost only on the metalic parts, so it's really a dull colour scheme! Heh... But the Gobbo's certainly look grim and evil!

It's just so damn difficult getting a nice thin and straight line for the highlights... Although I just finished number 2, and the circular armour plate on his back also worked out brilliantly, whereas his shoulder pad was more or less like number 1's. I wonder why that is?

I've been painting for 10 years or so (though I'm hardly expert) and have gone through a variety of different methods of painting black - my best advice has to be DON'T! Not saying you should change your team colour scheme, but black can look a lot better left un-highlighted than that over-done grey we have all ended up with when it gets a bit heavy handed. For my warhammer army I have recently stated to experiment with not bothering to paint highlights onto my Night Goblin units and they really don't look at all bad for it - just make sure the coloured elements are well done and bright enough to distract people, most don't even look at the black anyway.

That said, if you insist here's my advice:

1. Water down your paint and don't ever have much on the brush at a time. This will mean it stays subtle. Better to go over something twice than end up with a wobbly line.

2. Try to be neat, and less is always more. Black is really unforgiving so always keep the highlights at about one third of the size of those on a more neutal colour like brown.

3. Only highlight sharp edges. With some colours you can start from a dark base and the first highlight is a dark basecoat covering most of the raised areas. This doesn't work for black it makes it look grey.

4. Inks can be your salvation - if you do find you have over done it and the model looks like it is covered with grey and white lines ink it down with black. In a pinch you can make this work intentionally, by using ghostly grey as your highlight and inking it down.

5. Drybrushing: normally a no-no, but a very VERY light drybrush with ghostly grey or white around the very edges of robes or texture can give a model a bit of definition. This is what I'd advise on those goblin loincloths.

6. Don't do too many highlighting stages. You want one visible but dark highlight and then maybe two lighter ones on the very tips of detail and edging.

7. Usually I go with a grading of chaos black through codex grey, ghostly grey and white, but sometimes using a darkened blue or turquoise as highlights over the black basecoat works well. Don't highlight too far with this.

That's my advice, but I still say that after 10 years I've only painted about 3 or 4 models with black on them that I'm really happy with. Good luck.