Painting Metal

Ancient and medieval armies typically carry a wide variety of metal objects, ranging from body armor (helmets, shields, greaves, plate armour, mail armour or ring mail, scale armor, the Roman lorica segmenta, etc.) to weapons (swords, halberds, spear points, arrow points, etc.) and miscellaneous buckles, chains, and other personal items. Metals used include steel, iron, bronze, and other metal types (including rust). Painting realistic looking metal can be a challenge depending on how particular you are about your figures appearance. Plate mail, for example, wouldn't necessarily look the same as chain mail. You can certainly buy enamel and acrylic paints in metallic colors that do the job just fine. Or you may want to experiment using various paints, washes, and techniques, such as the following:

Joe Mann: I drybrush bright metal colors (silver, copper, gold (for bronze) directly onto black. This leaves exaggerated shadows on mail, scale, in creases, and some black in texture lines which I find to be be to my liking. The black shows through the bright metal, where it is a thin coat, dulling it down to an iron, steel, bronze kind of color which looks like I expect it to look, with brightness on the blade edges, hard edges of armor, etc.

Chris Brantley: For my Early Burgundian Knights, I used a craft store acrylic silver (a bit bright) for their plate armor (and the plate barding on their horses) and then did a wash of sorts using Tamiyka's Smoke, a special paint used by military modelers to "dirty up" their World War II airplane and tank models. It worked quite well. The darker smoke flowed into the cracks creating some contrast and toning down the silver. Be careful when applying since it can darken up your figure to the point of turning it black, but usually you can rescue it if you go overboard by rinsing your brush in clear water and then daubing the figure, which dilutes the smoke.

For chainmail, I've tried two techniques. One is to paint the chain with Foundry "Iron" acrylic paint, which is also good for spear points, swords, etc. Then I use the Tamiyka Smoke or a black wash to flow into the indentations in the chain. A second technique is to prime or paint the chainmail black and then dry brush Iron or Silver lightly over the links so that they are highlighted.

David Kuijt has a unique technique for painting metal armour, which takes advantage of the fact that miniatures are made of metal.

Douglas Barker: For armour, paint it with silver and allow to dry. Then use either undiluted black ink (chainmail) or diluted black ink (plate armour, helmets, weapons) to provide shadow. It is usually unnecessary to touch up armour. I haven't tried doing bronze armour, so I don't know if a brown or a black ink would be best.

Painting Bronze

Jonathan Lim: Bronze is harder to paint than iron. It just doesn't cover properly, for some weird reason. Here are some techniques:

Drybrush it over black. Sadly, this wrecks brushes.
Undercoat area in yellow or brown first. This can be fairly effective, but it just doesnt look bronzey enough in shadow, only yellow or brown. Try giving it a black wash to discourage this effect.
Add brown or chestnut ink. This works very well, even over white undercoat. Sadly it also makes the bronze look too dark. Ancient bronze looked a lot like brass, so the dark look is rather unrealistic. However, this is probably the most effective techmique.

David Tan: What with weathering and some oxidation, it does not take too long for bronze to look grubby and dark. In fact, many bronze statues can be seen to be darker in colour and some even show tinges of green oxidation depending on the original mix of metals. I paint Ral Partha bronze on my cannons over a dark brown metal primer, followed by a black wash and light drybrush with the bronze again. For a pic of the final result, please check out: http://www.karoo.net/barr/erm/grumpys.htm.

GenHansen: Craft stores like MJ Designs (some recently closed) and Total Crafts carry two different bronze paints in the acrylic paint squeeze-out bottles. "Classical Bronze" #2355 by Accent Country Colors and "Pure Bronze" by Plaid can be found on sale for 88 cents (U.S.). Both are water based. The antique bronze is a dark,weathered, brownish green and the pure bronze is bright. Using them as highlight or basic in a judicial manner gets either a dark or bright bronze.

Top of Page | Newbies Guide | DBA Resource Page

Last Updated: July 22, 1999

Comments, questions and additions welcome. Send them to Chris Brantley at brant@erols.com.