Re: Metallic coloring, was: Painting irridium vehicles

On Thursday, November 1, 2001, at 08:12 AM, Brian Bilderback wrote:

> One of the problems I've always had when painting with metallic
colored 
> paints, whether vehicle figs or fantasy RPG swords et al, is that the 
> result, rather than looking like metal, looks like, well, metal paint.

There are a few different ways to get "metal" effects. (I'm sure that 
there's many more than I present here, but I've actually used these.)

(1) Metal paint, which doesn't really look good, as it's not scaled
well.
(2) Testors Metalizer paints. You spray these on with an airbrush and 
then buff them out. You end up getting a really good effect for scales 
of about 1/50 to 1/150.
(3) Bare Metal adhesive foil. Designed for model cars and planes, this 
stuff looks like metal because it is metal. Apply, rub down, and presto.

It takes a little practice to get right, but it looks great. I wouldn't 
advise it for scales less then 1/100.
(4) Non-metal paint for metal effects. Also known as "scale" painting, 
because when you look at metal from a long way away, I doesn't look like

metal (much like looking at a small scale miniature "close up"). Rackham

does this to excellent effect on their figures, and some GW staff 
painters also do this very well. The smaller the scale, the more 
appropriate this technique is.

Schoon