Airbrush Stormcast

[OIF4IDVET]

Has anyone tried Airbrushing their Stormcast? I am trying to think of a way to not drybrush because I hate that kinda grainy texture. Do you painting wizards know if a good zenithal of Liberator gold would work maybe? If I applied it after the retributor base and wash. 

[Malios]

Airbrushing works well for models with lots of smooth surfaces. Space Marines of all types and Adeptus Custodes armies for 40k / Heresy are testament to this.

There are several ways to do it, depending on the tone of metallic that you want. You can do it all with the same metallic colour, such as the Angel Giraldez true metallic silver method, or you can use several colours via the airbrush.

But regardless of the method, the aim of capturing that definition with the airbrush is to go from dark to light. The hard part about this with metallics is that metallics are shiny, and being the same colour they tend to blend into one another: You have to use more extreme shades on the dark/light scale to create that zenithial definition.

A common method with gold is to use a dark copper as the base colour, then a 50-50 mix of copper and gold, then bright gold as the extreme highlight with the airbrush. Then use bright silver with your normal hairy brush on the edges where the light catches.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Malios

[RuneBrush]

GW metallics through the airbrush are actually quite tricky as the metallic flecks apply differently, sometimes giving you a more sparkly finish.  Retributor isn't actually too bad, but the others are sometimes a bit dodgy.  I'm assuming you're trying to go for a traditional gold finished stormcast?

[Kramer]

5 hours ago, OIF4IDVET said:

Has anyone tried Airbrushing their Stormcast? I am trying to think of a way to not drybrush because I hate that kinda grainy texture. Do you painting wizards know if a good zenithal of Liberator gold would work maybe? If I applied it after the retributor base and wash. 

@Lysandestolpe dropped a stormcast tutorial in which he uses a retributor gold - earthshade - retributor gold  and them a final highlight of a silvery gold mix. Looks great to me and I’m currently following that on my stormcast as well. 

 

[OIF4IDVET]

Yeah Im going to try for the traditional Hammers Of Sigmar look.  Auric armor is so aggravating to use for me I was thinking skipping it in favor of air brushing the liberator over retributor. 

[MitGas]

You might wanna mix in some normal (for example black) color into your metallics for the basecoat, as that way it's less shiny for the shadows. The Scale 75 colors are also way more dull than let's say Vallejo Metal Colors, so you could use the S75 for the base and then go over with a brighter Vallejo color. Contrast colors and inks can be used as filters with an airbrush (to tint and/or shade further). You can also create gold via inks (or even Contrast Paints) over a silver base, as that way your zenithal would be good for those parts as well.

[Malios]

Best advice is not to use GW paints through an airbrush. Once you use a better brand with dedicated airbrush paints (Vallejo, AK Interactive, Scale75, MIG, even Tamiya), who also have dedicated thinners, you will understand.

You can use GW (or even standard hairy brush) paints if you really don't want a second set of paints, but the additional $$ spent saves you lots of time and drama.

[XReN]

I did a metallic zenital for my Celestial Lions space marines and it does look good. But than I'd reccomend creating shadows also with airbrush (I used some Druchi Violet for that after all metallics) 

Also never had any problems airbrushing GW paints. 

[zedatkinszed]

Use Vallejo metal colour paints for this. They're designed for Airbrushing.  You can use the GW paints for drybrushing. Vince Venturella has a great video on the topic here: