Shading white?

[rolling thunder]

hey guys, Ive been having a problem lately. ive chosen to make an eldar army (not in itself a bad thing) but consider i want a crisp white paint scheme.. How on earth can i get a clean finish and still get good shading on it without it looknig dirty?

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by rolling thunder
hey guys, Ive been having a problem lately. ive chosen to make an eldar army (not in itself a bad thing) but consider i want a crisp white paint scheme.. How on earth can i get a clean finish and still get good shading on it without it looknig dirty?

Steer away from going towards brown when you\'re shading, stick to neutral greys or even blueish greys.

Aim to have large areas of unmodified white too so they look white. Smooth gradients will also help them look as clean and crisp as poss.

If you look in the galleries for Eldar minis I\'m sure there are some really top-quality white ones you could use as inspiration.

Einion

P.S. In case you\'re not already doing this use a white primer if you can, save you a lot of work compared to working up from grey or black.

 

[nels0nmac]

Personally for Eldar I would go for a cool white colour. For that I would start with Space Wolf Grey as a base and work up to pure white for highlights; and if you want there to be more of a contrast you can shade with Shadow Grey. The blue tint to the greys gives the final white a clean cool look to it.

 

[rolling thunder]

thanks for the advice. What ive ended up doing is:
White primer base.
Wash of fortress grey mixed with badab black
Several thin layers of Vallejeo White
(spelled wrong im sure!)

It looks ok. But maybe not as clean as i would like. i will post pics once the layers are complete.

 

[StarFyre]

problem may be that normally, white clothes are only pure white at the highest hilite.

So normally, you can prime white...then do a very thin basecoat (2-3 layers) of a beige/grey colour. Then glazes of a light grey (very light grey) into recesses, with a darker grey/blue mix in the deepest. Then move towards the pure white on the highest edges.

Shadows add a grey to anything where they fall...as far as i can think of examples from looking at stuff on my work desk...

Sanjay