Linelighting under an armour/shoulder plate trim

[Booah]

Since sigmar has hit, a lot of the models published by gw seem to have an extreme highlight on the main armour plating, particularly shoulder pads and then a gold/silver trim. (E.g. Blood warriors) I can't make up my mind whether I like it or not and my attempts to replicate have been a bit too thick. Has anyone got any thoughts or alternative ways to make the colour look less flat without going for a line highlight which seems out of place.

[cb_rex]

If I understand you correctly you are talking about the fine line highlights on the flat colours adjacent to the trim similar to how a Space Marines shoulder pad is painted.  These lines pretty much have to be freehand painted on to follow the trim and if they're too thick it doesn't really work.  

My suggestion would be to paint the trim first with your metallic for example and then get a strong edge highlight on this part, you can even catch the inside edge with the side of your brush to get a nice edge highlight there as well. Then when you paint the inside areas choose quite a vivid colour to contrast against the trim and get a couple of thin layers of it down.  Then rather than painting the fine edge lines on the interior areas, you can use the relevant shade mixed with Lahmian Medium to create a gradient effect on the flat areas, so you'd apply this to just the top half of the area, then let it dry, then apply then reapply to the top quarter.  This is a lot easier that freehanding on the fine line highlights and still makes the flat colour look a bit more interesting.