1.28.2012

Possible Speed Painting Discovery

Normally, I wouldn't tout a discovery until I was sure it was going to be viable, but this is one that requires some input from the community, so a serious caveat emptor on this one.



As you may know from reading this blog, I am a proponent of both tabletop quality painting and speed painting. It's not that I don't love CMON-style painting pyrotechnics, and I am a diligent and careful painter, but if you want to actually play with painted models, something's gotta give.

So I was looking at my latest bit of impulse insanity yesterday: 5 boxes and 3 blisters of Grey Knights. My Blood Angels are not done, my Tyranids need to be finished, and let's not even mention my CSMs. But hey, Grey Knights are a low model count army and [insert various justifications here].

I was out of spray primer, so I visited my local hardware store for black and white Krylon, when this caught my eye:

This is spray paint is intended to be applied DIRECTLY to chrome. The cap is as shiny as a mirror. My Blood Angels are painted to look gritty from battle...lots of Devlan Mud, if you know what I mean. I do like that look, but as I looked at this can, I thought of a small cadre of Grey Knights as shiny as the first picture. But if I sprayed this as a primer or even a basecoat, would I be able to paint over it with other colors? If not, this would take a hell of a lot of masking or filing, and PAGKs and GKTs have a LOT of fiddly details.

I was not brave enough to try this on a $10.00 model. This stuff is meant to last on car bumpers, so I bet stripping it away would be a bit of a chore. Instead, one of my CSMs volunteered for the task. I just gave him a quick once over, and he looked pretty good. I did a quick wash of Asurmen Blue and then Badab Black, and then I used some Chaos Black to pick out some details. The intent was to see how this stuff took washes and paint. 

Click to Enlarge
Again, I apologize for the picture quality. I'm simply too tired tonight to get out the photography rig. But even in this bad photo, you can see that the silver looks OK. As a comparison, his gloves are painted Chainmail, and the bolter is Boltgun Metal, both with a Badab wash. The Chaos Black seemed to adhere fine, but watering down the paint would probably not be advised in this application.

So, people, anyone try this? I find metallics extremely difficult to do properly...I invariably resort to a drybrushing technique for anything larger than a bolter, especially with gold. How do you guys and gals do it? And has anyone tried this paint before? 

And as for my brave volunteer I'm thinking about adding some yellow striped to his shoulder and starting an Iron Warriors Warband. This Legions Codex cannot come fast enough. 

2 comments:

  1. thats why i use army painter navy blue on my storm wardens. spray them, then i just wash and highlight and done...extremely easy

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  2. For these sprays to work well, you usually need a very good smooth gloss black undercoat.

    So typically:

    Black Primer > Black Gloss (or Gloss Varnish) > Chrome spray.

    You also have to be super-careful of humidity, spray distance and anything else that could affect the final finish.

    I mean, if you're going to use a Chrome spray for GK, it should look as flashy as possible!

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