Weathering Black

[Mourner]

so, i\'ve recently started painting a deathwatch space marine, but i\'ve come across a little problem.

the idea is to paint the model as black as i can, with the main areas painted Chaos Black to black ink black, and use the mini as a sort of experiment to practice OSL , weathering and battledamage.

and that\'s where i hit a glitch. How do i weather black armor? all the examples of weathering and battledamage i\'ve seen so far are done using black \"scratches\", with white highlights.
Black scratches on black armor however does not catch the eye enough in my opinion.

Do you use a different color when painting battledamage on a black surface?

I\'ve looked at the recent DeathCompany SM by Jakob Nielsen but that shows mainly rust effects, and some black scratches and chips if you look really closely.

any help whatsoever would be more then welcome.

 

[Kester]

The answer to this is a question. Space marine power armour is made from plas-steel and ceremite (spelling?) so, what colour is ceremite? In the latest Dark Heresy novel there is a description of power armour that as yet has not been painted with chapter colours. It is described as a steel / silver colour. So, for weathering black power armour, do the scratches and what have you as steel.

 

[matty1001]

Or don\'t actually paint the black black. paint it dark grey and use black for the chips. Similar to this by electrolito 77:

Peace and love...

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by matty1001
Or don\'t actually paint the black black. paint it dark grey and use black for the chips.

He says he wants to paint the armour as black as he can.

Mourner, I\'d do the chips either in a silver or metallic grey, or in a darkish brown-grey colour. With something very dark you do have to accept that there\'s less scope for certain things and scratches can only really be indicated by the surface beneath being exposed and/or by a highlight on the bottom edge.

Einion

 

[Mourner]

thanks for all the replies guys, I was planning on using NMM as well, but since there is precious little metal on the mini itself, i might paint the scratches using Boltgun....

maybe give the armor itself a glossy shine and deliberatly keep the metal dull as a contrast