Painting blue (tempered?) steel

[Roger Bunting]

Ok, so I\'m painting some grey knights and intend to give them that blue tint look to them.
I will have to describe to you what I\'ve done so far as I don\'t have a camera.:~(

Currently I have 6 of them at the stage of having basecoated in boltgun metal, shaded with a black wash and highlighted up to chainmail (will be going up to mithril). I have several others that are only at the boltgun stage. The question is what\'s the best way to give them that tempered steel look (I\'m not looking to weather the armour)? I\'ve looked at some tutorials on painting metallics, which suggest using purples and greens amongst others for glazes, though those I looked at didn\'t include a blue finish.
I don\'t know if I\'m making any sense here. I guess I\'m basically asking what to do and at what stage of painting the armour.

I\'ll be grateful for any suggestions. :yes:

 

[Larre]

highlight it to mithril (from boltgun to chain mail to mithril) and when you have done that, take some regal blue and water it down, almost so you can\'t see it when you brush it on the model. make serveral layers of glazing untill you get the effekt you want... and add a tiny tiny drop of dish soap, it gives the glaze a smooth surface.

I hope that helps ^^

// Larre

 

[Roger Bunting]

Thanks Larre. So you think just the blue and not any other colours in the shadows? Just a thought, more of a silly question really, any dish soap? Most of them are coloured, won\'t they alter the hue?

 

[Bengoodall]

I would have said any liquid soap would work, it just adds a lot of lightness to the paint, means it runs into the gaps more.

But I would have just undercoated black, gone up through silvers, aimed a blue ink at it, get it nice and blue, and then a very very fine dry brush of a mithril or similar silver over the top, just to bring it back up again.

It depends on how blue you want it, proper tempered steel tends to be a very blue colour, so you could almost make a very thick ink as one of your base coats.

Maybe do a test model on something you dont plan on using,and see how it looks.

Its gonna be very shined up if you do an ink over silver paints though.

 

[airhead]

Try Reaper Masters Series blue metal. or a final shot of Tamaya blue smoke.

 

[Avelorn]

Originally posted by Roger Bunting
Thanks Larre. So you think just the blue and not any other colours in the shadows? Just a thought, more of a silly question really, any dish soap? Most of them are coloured, won\'t they alter the hue?

No, but you have to add it very very sparingly. I usually just take some on the back of my brush and stir it some in the water. All it should do is remove the surface tension.. nothing more.

 

[Roger Bunting]

Thanks for the help people. It\'ll probably be a few days before I can let you know what I tried and what worked for me (not feeling too well at the moment ). Just took a quick look at the RMS paints. At least from the pics those metallic blues look good, though I\'ll probably wait until the next time I need to do something like these Grey Knights, the terminators, perhaps... I\'ll have to find out where I can get them easily here (I\'m in the UK). Dang all these recommendations for different paints, I have only so much (little) money but no willpower to stop me buying these things. lol

 

[Bengoodall]

You are amongst friends here then.

 

[matty1001]

You could get VMC Gunmetal Blue and use that as a basecoat or first highlight.

 

[Roger Bunting]

Another recommend paint!! You\'re killing my bank balance. But seriously, thanks for the suggestion Matty.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

I just did some blue steel and a WASH of blue over it really did wonders.

 

[Roger Bunting]

Any particular blue you like to use? I already have a list of stuff I\'m going to buy (when I\'ve robbed a bank), so you may as well add another paint to it

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Prussian blue is spot on for spring steel, gunbarrell steel.