"Painting White on the Templar knights Help please" Topic

So far I'm have a heck of time getting the white to look right on the knights. Currently using a tirade for Coat de Arms. I love the paint, but just can't seem to get the shading.

Thanks

Much of the shading will depend on what you like the best.

When painting white, often shading moves more toward the blue range---that is what I like---or even over into the browns--white-ivory-light brown

To get more info on how to work with white---try some googleFu on "How to paint snow"---this will be mostly on oil paintings or water colors but it will give you ideas on what to try and pictures of how to give the color white depth and shading

Vallejo do a set called Black & White that contains good gradients for a cloth white.Not blue/grey to white, more a warmer linen to white. On the cover there is a knight painted using them, and it looks good to me (think it's a 70mm+ figure though)

White is a pain in the $%&. Right now I paint figures grey and dry brush up to white highlights. It's not perfect but does a reasonable job in a short time.

Xin

When I painted mine I started with a cream coloured basecoat, then several layers of thinned white, slowly building up the white.

here are mine –

These are 15mm figs. White is a difficult "colour" to work with I agree.

Very nice work!

I always base my white with light gray. That goes for shields, barding, and surcoats.

Base colour: Vallejo Off-White. Shade with Citadel Ushabti Bone – or similar cream shade. Try Citadel Karak Stone for deep/dirty shading. Highlight with Vallejo white. Shading with grey looks like … shading with grey. Somehow it jars. it shouldn't but it does.

For a "cold" White I use (usually to represent crossbelts and the like): base- Light Grey; 1st Light- Pearl Grey; 2nd Light – Pearl Grey+White (50-50); Last light – White.

For a "warm" White (i.e to represent cotton or linen): Basecoat- Buff Yellow; 1st Light- Buff Yellow+White (75-25); 2nd Light- the previous mix with more White; Last light – White.

I use paints from different manufacturers (whatever I have at hand at the moment), although mostly Vallejo, Scale 75 (very matt finish, which I like for historicals) and Games Workshop.

White can be troublesome. I will look into using a cream as a base and see how it turns out.

Vallejo's off white is a good starting point, then you can use their white gray for shade and regular white for hi-lites!

Don't know if it's any help.
For (oilpaint) white I use Burnt Umber+ Yellow Ochre + Chrome Oxide green + a little black.
Then I start mixing in white till I get the desired shade of 'white'
This mixture coats everything in one go, even the darkest purple or black.
Shade with the original mixture. Highlight with white + a little blue.

Thanks to everyone that posted. I going to try a cream color next. Hope it works…

Although it's a bit of overkill for my purposes, the Andrea White set is superb, and exactly what I would use for Templars.

I second oldbob, if you really want to make a statement in white (or any colour for that matter) you'll have to switch to oils.