"Black Armor" Topic

I'm thinking of getting started in Medieval gaming by way of the Hungarian Black Army of the 1480s (so called because of their black armor). However, I'm a little leery of my ability to paint decent looking black armor for 15mm figs. I tried using some "metallic" black on a fantasy figure recently, but it's just a slightly shinier version of matte black. It still just looks black, hard to distinguish any details. Does anyone have any tips for me?

Paint in shades of gray instead of black

There are a lot of different paints. Perhaps Humbrol could help ? There are four Enamel Metalcote Colours, 27001-27004. The last one, 27004 (AC 5039) is Gunmetal. You use this paint like this: first put on the paint and let dry for a few hours or so. Then use a toothbrush to gently brush. The paint will start to shine and details are easy to be seen.
Normally black armor is just black because it protects against rust. Since we do not like the sight of this (;-)), we try to do better than historically correct…
Hope this helps !

My thoughts were to put a coat of clear shiny coating after the normal Dull Cote you may use, but sounds like Porthos is more of an expert than I am.

The theory that the Black Army was named after the colour of their armour is just a theory. The name only started being used after Matthias's death apparently.

The illustration of a knight in black armour on the Wikipedia article does seem to be in black armour but isn't too different to illustrations of knights across Europe. In some cases, the black is simply down to the silver ink tarnishing.

Supposedly the best way to paint black armour is undercoat black, then dry brush very dark green.

Dark green?! I spray Krylon black as my primer/undercoat, then drybrush a variety of "steel" or lighter metallics. The more metallic you apply the more the black is lightened. So you can play with varying shades of "black" by how much you apply the drybrush.

What Swampster said. The title Black Army was not used until after Matthias' death. And even then it was derived from the fact that most of them were mercenaries, and some elements did not behave well on de-mobilization.

Black armour is just armour painted black, I wouldn't expect it to look too nice.
Similar to Legbiter, a dark blue is the best way to highlight black horses, so may work for armour.

Black base, lightly drybrush a dark steel over the upper surfaces of the plate, and a shinier steel on the raised edges (such as the rim of a visor). I wash with a mix of black (with a touch of brown, but you don't really see that) Windsor-Newton ink and Future. Alternately, GW's "Nuln Oil" wash is an excellent formulation, and is hard to mess up.

The wash "smokes" the silver a bit, but mainly, it blends the two tones, so it doesn't just look like black paint that wore off. It works especially well with 15's, which can easily end up being too silver, or too black (and thus not showing up well enough).

IMO, a simple black with silver highlights looks too "late" with cheap, mass-produced reiter and pikeman's plate painted dull black.

Here are some pictures I took of actual surviving "Blackened Armor" on display at Castle Glatt in the Black Forrest. Glatt is one of the few surviving moated castles.

link

Hope you enjoy them and hope it helps in your painting ideas.

v/r
Tom

Just use Gun Metal paint (I use Coat d'Arms). Looks fine.

Pity those are on Google dye4minis.

I knew I'd get a lot of good ideas here. Thanks, everybody!

Neither the Black Legion, the Black Gard, the Black Band(s) or the Bande Nere actually wore black armour (at least not predominantly) or wore black clothes. "Black" was more ment as a synonym for "badass" (or "elite"). This distinction also sometimes comes with other colors, like the White Band (or Red in Japanese military history, though I failed to dig out this color for the west).

Aside that…
Just paint the armour black and highlight it with iron or silver. If you want more depth, dark grey, then a black wash and then the highlight.

My 2cents go with nonmetallic iron.