Hey, everyone! Ben here again from Moosehead Studios with the second and final part of my painting AdMech articles (for now, at least). In this article, I am going to cover the second-largest section of my Skitarii Vanguard and Rangers: the white sections.

If you missed the first article it is where I painted the blue sections.

White is one of the most difficult colors to paint, right up there with yellow and black. What I have discovered works best for me is to build up layers on whatever it is that I am painting and trick the eye into believing that what it is seeing on the model is pure white cleverly applied instead of several layers of different colors built on top of each other.

And I can’t stress this enough when painting white: it is always better to apply several thinned layers of paint instead of one thick.

I mean, this is the cardinal rule of painting as spoken by the one and only Duncan Rhodes (@WHTV_Dunc on Twitter). When you are working with really light, transparent colors, streaks are much more visible if you just slap thick layers of paint on. Put a couple of drops of water into your paint, mix it, drag your brush into a nice point, and lay down some solid thin layers.

Normally, I would build up to pure white from a base layer of a light gray, but for this project, I chose to build up from a base layer that more closely resembled a bone color (I used Vallejo Bonewhite). I had used it previously on my Onager Dunecrawler and felt like this idea of these cybernetic warriors having a piece of them resemble human bone was an interesting concept to represent on the model.

Once this layer had been applied smoothly over all of the areas that I was working on, I gave it a wash of GW’s Reikland Fleshshade, making sure that it darkened up the recesses. I then came back with my base color (Bonewhite) to clean up areas that the shade may have gone that were not recessed. Once this is all dried, you should have a very clear distinction between your recesses and everything else.

After this stage, I had to begin adding layers so that I could start tricking the eye into believing that it saw pure white.

This first layer I added was Flayed One Flesh from GW in a zenithal (top-down) method. This blended with the darker Bonewhite to look like a natural transition from where the light would normally be hitting the model from the top down as if I was shining a light directly above it.

This color is very close to white, and you could honestly stop right here if you felt like it. But, I didn’t, and it’s easy to add one more layer and makes the white “pop.”

Now is the time to bring in some pure white for the models. Using thinned-down paints, a brush with a good tip, and a steady hand, I applied edge highlights to the raised folds on the cloth. I used Vallejo White, but GW’s White Scar would work just as well.

White

I was very pleased with these results by using this simple method.

Check out my Instagram (@mooseheadstudios86) or my Facebook page to see some samples of what I’ve painted. If you have a hobby dream you’d like some help accomplishing, or have ideas for future articles, send me an email at mooseheadstudios86@gmail.com and I would love to talk to you!