"Painting Armour" Topic

Hello

I am a complete novice. My first interest is in the wars of the roses and I am going to buy my first models this week. I have not painted anything since an airfix model years ago! I have seen some topics on the message boards but would like advice

Would I paint a knight's armour with bright silver paint and a common soldier's (say ) hemet with a darker iron colour? Some of the discussions on the boards are taking a bit of time for me to work out (washes, dips, tinting etc). I am going to use games workshop paints and vallejo paints as there is a Games Workshop and an art store in the town where I live.

This is an excellent resource and I will find the help useful. Thank you

There is some debate about the finish on medieval armours.

"Munition grade armour – the kind issued to rank and file – would more likely have been untreated and uncoated with a view to minimising cost. This also had the side effect of giving soldiers polishing to do – armies abhor ideleness.

Better grades of armour – for officers and for elite units – could have had a wider range of options. Officers had servants to undertake menial work, so regualr polishing would not have been of concern to the wearer of the armour. Alternatives were 'blueing' and russeting'.

Blueing was a heat and oil treatment that produced a very dark blue-black finish that was fairly shiny. Modern blueing treatments are chemical-based: 'gun blue' can be bought in most firearms dealers; it is not as rust-resistant as the heat-and-oil process.

Russetting could have been achieved by using any of a number of different chemicals, allied to controlled rusting alternating with light polishing, culminating in applying an oil to protect the final surface that was achieved."
link

In the Wars of the Roses, armour is typically referred to as "white harness". This is presumed to be a reference to the polished steel finish.

When painting my own WOTR figures, I use a base coat of gunmetal and then dry brush with silver.

I do pretty much the same. Undercoat black. Heavy dry brush/blocking of pewter and then lighter drybrush/highlighting with silver. the shinier I want the armour the more silver I will apply.

Some helmets I will paint in the livery colours though.

If you're interested in the easiest options, undercoat in black, block paint with GW's chainmail and then finish with GW's black wash. I did the same on my Normans:
link

Steve
Cavalcade Wargames
cavalcadewargames.com
nycjadie.wordpress.com

I use Nycjadie's technique, but instead base with boltgun metal (GW colors), wash black, drybrush chainmail, and then lightly drybrush silver. Gives a darker look to the armor, with more contrasts.

Damon.

Working on 15's
Basecoat black.
Drybrush chainmail with Vallejo Natural Steel (I'd be tempted to use Gunmetal on 28s)
Block paint Plate armour Natural Steel, Then highlight (usually by drybrushing) with silver.
Finish off with one stroke downwards of Coat d'Armes black supershader.
Sword blades silver for a contrast with natural steel.

These before I'd discovered supershader link

I've been painting medievals for many years. The main thing about painting armor is that it should look good on the battlefield (wargaming table).

The important thing is to have right contrast between mail and plate. Your mail armor should be visibly darker than plate armor. Mail was oiled by animal fat to prevent rusting and retain flexibility. Animal fat darkened the metal somewhat. Mail has a lot of holes/crevices. Plate has a lot of surface area compared to mail and was often polished using sand. It was often shiny.

Use darker metal colors for mail and bright metal colors for plate. Ordinary graphite pencil can also be used to apply darker metallic color on mail.

As others said plate was treated in different ways and could even be painted. I usually paint majority of my armor in shiny plate and dark mail with some figures here and there with painted or darkened plate armor. It looks "right" on the wargaming table. igwargminis.com/photo3.html

"The main thing about painting armor is that it should look good on the battlefield (wargaming table). "

Isn't that true of all wargames figures, whether wearing armour or not?

I think he means as compared to holding up the miniatures closely to admire the detail under a bright light: on a typical table the impressive paint job goes away and you enjoy a group effect instead. Miniatures as part of a group will be more satisfying if they were painted AS a group and not a collection of different painting styles or even color palates, especially over an extended period of time; the effect of that would be hodge podge on the tabeltop.

I have to add in my fav fast painting method: it produces a good group effect for any period. The "Sand People" method: prime thoroughly with white; paint skin, wood and metal (and a horsey color if cavalry); wash with sepia ink; finish the base. DONE! Yeah, but not finished. They look good enough to game with and you can go back and add in shield patterns, tunic colors, horsey details like socks, etc., with a solid drybrush over the inked surfaces. This churns out a bunch of figures very quickly….

1066.us

You can just polish it with fine steel wool, and use a dark wash to darken the crevices, assuming the minis are made of metal.

Then seal.

Produces a very "realistic" metal finish, since the metal is exposed.

I porefer to layer the metallics…. I've always got a good result from this technique (page 2 for close ups):

link

Cheers,

Darrell.

And the new Perry WoR figures are very tempting!!

Top Gun Ace's technique won't work here