So I'm painting up my stormies, and I just can't get white to not be an absolute pain. I've watched Sorastro's vids on them, but his paints always seem to go on better than mine and I can't figure out where I've gone wrong.

I've tried thinning to different levels with water. Too much and it doesn't coat, leaving an unclean coat that looks mottled. Too little thinning and the brush strokes are obvious.

I've tried acrylic medium, similar results. Moreover, the medium, even though it says it will reduce viscosity, actually seems to increase it, leaving chunks of paint left behind by the brush or smudging the paint around with visible brush strokes.

I've tried using BOTH together, and... yeah that didn't work either.

Is white just a massive pain in the !@# to use as a general rule? I've painted other minis with reds, browns, greens, etc and never had this much trouble...

I like this video.

I tried this but it left a really grainy look to it which I didn't care for, ended up just going back over with white. Felt like it took way too long for what this is advocating. I have spent something like... 2 hours each on the troopers i'm doing. In fact, I'm literally at this moment (besides typing :D) going back over a rocket launcher trooper after having tried to drybrush it.

Bah, and watching it now she's going over parts of it like i'm doing and her paint is going over smoothly and quickly, how do I DO that!? My paint never goes on that smoothly. UGH this is getting frustrating.

To avoid that grainy/chalkiness you can create a glaze from your white paint, then give one or two layers over the trooper once you've done all your layers and highlights. I typically paint 50% of the layers of any flesh tone using a glaze. It takes many more coats, but it gives a very natural look. If you haven't made a glaze, it's very easy.

I find that washes out any contrasts that are too glaring. White is best done very patiently, working up from a light blue, bone yellow, or grey to a final pure white highlight

Sorastros Legion stormtrooper video uses spray for the white. It's waaay easier. It's what I did for mine.

Sprayed GW Corax white to prime (which is actually very light grey) and then sprayed Army Painter matte white from above only to achieve a zenithal highlight effect. Then all you have to do is paint in the arm joints and vicors and guns with an off-black. If you want to get fancy you can line the details of the armor with nuln oil

The above stormtrropers were the first war game minis I ever painted. My only prior experience was 1 or 2 D&D miniatures.

That looks pretty good KommanderKeldoth, one of these days I really need to pick up a compressor for the airbrush I have. Never even used the thing, it just sits in my closet while I brush primer on like a peasant

What brand paint do you use? I always had terrible results from certain brands personally. Maybe look into the brush you're using too.

Don't forget to look at the results from 3 feet away. I am a bit of an art tourist. I can tell you, in real life even a lot of White Dwarf models have errors visible up close that aren't apparent from a couple feet away. Viewed in person, lots of beautiful 16th through 19th century oil paintings have such errors as well. The errors don't add to up make the work anything less than awesome.

6 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

What brand paint do you use? I always had terrible results from certain brands personally. Maybe look into the brush you're using too.

Don't forget to look at the results from 3 feet away. I am a bit of an art tourist. I can tell you, in real life even a lot of White Dwarf models have errors visible up close that aren't apparent from a couple feet away. Viewed in person, lots of beautiful 16th through 19th century oil paintings have such errors as well. The errors don't add to up make the work anything less than awesome.

I use an army painter brush set, the regiment brush mostly, with Vallejo paints. I know that Vallejo is pretty thick so maybe I'm just having trouble figuring out the right amount to thin, maybe?

I'm also starting to wonder if it's got something to do with hand-brushing my primer... maybe I can look into getting into spray instead. Problem is my local climate is dry and cold, I've had bad experiences with frosting last few times I tried.

10 minutes ago, Varulfr said:

I use an army painter brush set, the regiment brush mostly, with Vallejo paints. I know that Vallejo is pretty thick so maybe I'm just having trouble figuring out the right amount to thin, maybe?

I'm also starting to wonder if it's got something to do with hand-brushing my primer... maybe I can look into getting into spray instead. Problem is my local climate is dry and cold, I've had bad experiences with frosting last few times I tried.

With really light colors, brush on primer is something I've had issues with. Spray primer will miss spots that are really low. Brush primer can flow away from spots that are really high, leaving them darker. Thus I can have a hard time getting the highest spots as light-colored as I'd like them.

But that doesn't seem related to your problem.

Best advice I can give, without being there, is this. Go buy a bag of cheap plastic army guys at Wal-Mart and wash them real good, dry them, and use them for cheap experiments.

IMO a VERY easy way is prime Corax White(a very light grey/white) then spray from above with a white. It basically elimates much need for any white painting. Then do the lines with a thin brush and some thinned black paint.

21 hours ago, Varulfr said:

That looks pretty good KommanderKeldoth, one of these days I really need to pick up a compressor for the airbrush I have. Never even used the thing, it just sits in my closet while I brush primer on like a peasant

I don't even own an airbrush. I just rattle can spray like a peasant. For spray cans Citadel and Tamiya are my go to brands. I used to use Army Painter sprays but had a couple of bad incidents with them.

During the winter I brush prime, but man is it time consuming for regular infantry units. It's nice for heroes though, let's you gave full control over the process.

14 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

I don't even own an airbrush. I just rattle can spray like a peasant. For spray cans Citadel and Tamiya are my go to brands. I used to use Army Painter sprays but had a couple of bad incidents with them.

During the winter I brush prime, but man is it time consuming for regular infantry units. It's nice for heroes though, let's you gave full control over the process.

Same here with the cans. Citadel is perfect. The only Army painter can I bought came out super grainy and really messed up the texture on one of my flametroopers.

#Spraycangang

42 minutes ago, Jabby said:

Same here with the cans. Citadel is perfect. The only Army painter can I bought came out super grainy and really messed up the texture on one of my flametroopers.

#Spraycangang

Yeah I had that happen with some scout troopers, then shortly afterwards a brand new can of their matte varnish severely frosted and ruined my just completed Boba Fett. That was the breaking point with them.

6 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Yeah I had that happen with some scout troopers, then shortly afterwards a brand new can of their matte varnish severely frosted and ruined my just completed Boba Fett. That was the breaking point with them.

It really sucks. I now have a full can of primer just collecting dust. I guess games Workshop is going to be getting all my money now

1 hour ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Yeah I had that happen with some scout troopers, then shortly afterwards a brand new can of their matte varnish severely frosted and ruined my just completed Boba Fett. That was the breaking point with them.

Horror stories like this are the reason why I still varnish my figures with a brush...

32 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

Horror stories like this are the reason why I still varnish my figures with a brush...

Can't go wrong with Testors dullcote. Never had a problem with it. I also brush varnish heroes usually to achieve greater texture differences (areas of matte vs. Gloss)

32 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

Horror stories like this are the reason why I still varnish my figures with a brush...

Can't go wrong with Testors dullcote. Never had a problem with it. I also brush varnish heroes usually to achieve greater texture differences (areas of matte vs. Gloss)

On ‎4‎/‎1‎/‎2019 at 12:08 PM, KommanderKeldoth said:

Can't go wrong with Testors dullcote. Never had a problem with it. I also brush varnish heroes usually to achieve greater texture differences (areas of matte vs. Gloss)

That's what I did for mine, Testors white rattlecan. Once they were all white it was just a matter of detailing all the non-white features. Black for the under-armor bodysuits, black for visor trim, gloss black for helmet lenses, grey-blue for ventilator slits on the side of the helmets, and 1:8 Nuln Oil:Windex for highlighting where shaddows should fall around the armor.

And then various other details...

Here's an example of priming black and then drybrushing up lighter and lighter using Teri's method. It works really well on the Death Troopers because of how detailed they are

I use Vallejo acrylic paint and never ever had an issue with white, it even works over black primer. Hopefully that helps in some way, as each company has different pros and cons... maybe it is the company you are using that is the issue not you.

On 4/4/2019 at 1:30 AM, KommanderKeldoth said:

Here's an example of priming black and then drybrushing up lighter and lighter using Teri's method. It works really well on the Death Troopers because of how detailed they are

What colours did you drybrush on? Grey?

4 hours ago, Jabby said:

What colours did you drybrush on? Grey?

Vallejo German Grey, adding a bit more GW Calestra Grey with each layer. Each layer got a lighter and lighter touch with the brush as well so I was just picking out highlights by the time it was pure Celestra Grey

I'm gonna be the heretic here. I prime my Stormies white and then hit all the black accents followed with a light dry-brush on the gun in a metallic paint.

Finally, I just hit the armor with a cheap, $.99 glossy white (not sure if it's Apple Barrel or Folk Art, honestly). I personally find that it catches the light perfectly to where I do not need to go in and accentuate the shadows. Admittedly, I've never really been a huge fan of the "hyper-shading" technique from GW that seems to be prevalent in miniatures so YMMV.

I prime my Citadel miniatures with Chaos Black and/or Corax White (depending on a number of factors) and brush Vallejo's grey primer onto pretty much everything else and have never had any trouble painting white. An important step is to paint a light grey between dark and/or strong colors and the final layer of white.

On 4/5/2019 at 8:49 PM, FSD said:

Admittedly, I've never really been a huge fan of the "hyper-shading" technique from GW that seems to be prevalent in miniatures so YMMV.

The way Games Workshop do their highlights and lowlights is designed to make the details "pop" through increased contrast, which isn't my cup of tea, but is a valid stylized approach, especially when considering tabletop gaming viewing distance. However, as much as I enjoy listening to Duncan, Peachy et al. on Warhammer TV, it really irks me how they describe this method as if it also simulated natural (top-down) lighting. It does not. And what boggles the mind is how 99.9% of the time they ignore Citadel's own vast range of dedicated drybrushing paints and put sharply defined lines of "normal" paint on edges and raised areas, which looks horrible up close.

Generally speaking I am a blending kind of man and reserve washes and drybrushing for the obvious cases (mail, fur, scales, plumes), but I do use them on all my Citadel miniatures (in part due to the details overload on many of them). However, I try not to actively contradict natural lighting when doing so, i.e. I paint over washes in recesses where zenith sunlight should reach and never ever drybrush with upward strokes.