"Painting metallic clothing for SciFi Aliens/Pulp? Ideas..." Topic

How might one (as in me) go about painting metallic looking clothing (as in pulp-alien jumpsuits)?

I've got a bunch of Pulp Figures Radon Zombies and thought of trying metallic jumpsuits. Maybe Silver Mithril with a black wash?

All tips welcome.

Thanks,

Synjin

This is a wild guess, I've not done it yet. Get a silver triad (three shades of silver paint) and paint it all the darkest shade. Then paint most of it the mid shade, leaving the darker color in the folds, lastly highlight with the lightest shade. I painted mine green, after what I could make out from the Black and White serial "Zombies of the Stratosphere" and as I recall there were few folds in the tights they wore.

Just polish your minis with fine steel wool, and then do a dark gray, or black wash.

Finished.

Easy! Daler-Rowney Pearlescent Liquid Acrylic inks – a range of colours – absolutely perfect for the look you are after.

If anyone wants to get an iridescent green or blue HALO armour finish – use either the green or light blue pearlescent ink and then a quick wash of Citadel Asurmen Blue or Thraka Green to suit.

Cheers
Mark

I picked up some untinted pearlescent paint and mix it in. I used a dark purple for my radon zombies, but the plain stuff allows you any color. It tends to lighten the tone though, so picka color a shade or two darker than what you want.

Keep the wash diluted.

I applied mine full strength and the end result is drastic though, in my case, exactly what I was after.

link

Dan

May not be quite what you want, but I used Reaper's Sparkling Amethyst for my Greys. It's a purple with gold metallic in it. No pearlescent in it though.

I use some of the pearlized semi transparent over an opaque base coat

Women's fingernail polish will provide people with some great colors.

They just need to be thinned a bit, before applying to your miniatures.

Another route to take if you don't have pearlescent paints would be to paint the area with metallic paint as you would for plate armor or similar and then tint it with a wash of the appropriate color. When I have done this I find that if I add an additional highlight in bright silver after the wash has dried and then rewash I get richer results.

Eventually though you might want to get some pearlescent paints. They do yield some very cool results.

I like an artist's acrylic silver. It looks more like satin than metal.

Hyplar or similar. Here is an unrelated use which shows it to good effect:
link

Good suggestions above. Also you can mix up any color metallic you want by adding colored paint to silver.

This tip is from, of all places, Games Workshop / Citadel's How to Paint Citadel Miniatures. It turns out hobby metallic paints are paints with metal flakes added to them (aluminum flakes I think?). Untinted (just clear acrylic media and metal flakes) is the brightest silver in the line -- for Citadel, I believe that's Mithril Silver. All other metallics have tint (colored paint) added to that, either a gray shade for silvers or a brown shade for golds. What this means is, any other color metallic can be prepared from Mithril Silver plus the appropriate color paint.

I wimped out and used Vallejo Chainmail and washed with Badab Black. But they look good with purple hoods, gloves and belts. Their faces are based with Charadon Granite, dry brushed with Vallejo German Medium Camo Brown then Vallejo Grey Khaki and finished with drops of Devlan Mud in the eye sockets. All of the equipment will be in medium greens with yellow details.

Most of my Pulp stuff has a definite comic book look to it. Now I need to make them a rocketship and maybe some hover jeeps.

Thanks,

Synjin