I'd add that in addition to reducing the black on the mini, the weathering made the armour look non-reflective (scuffed and worn) so my eyes don't read the blue patches as reflections in the way they nornally do.
Real problem with producing black armor is the light reflection do not work on acrylics.. As soon the pain dry ,doesn't look metalic anymore.. Solution is simple ,to use OIL paints that simulate much better reflective surfaces.
Awesome! Also love the fact that a guy with a shelf of Golden Demons is able to use his own work to point out mistakes. Your humbleness is equally as impressive as your skills.
This is why comics tend to use dark blues and purples instead of black. People consider Venom to be in a black suit, but really look at art of him and see how often he is actually blue.
I think your discussion on black is directly on point. Black is never just black. Thanks for explaining the technique and reasons for the color in total.
The mock up (especially the helmet which is the area I thought looked most blue) immediately reads as black to me so I think your analysis of why the weathering sabotaged the black effect is dead on. Would the solution to keeping the weathering be to shrink the blue highlights?
Not the poster but I think part of it is blue and orange (brown) are very clashing colours so they draw each other out. Maybe try high lighting the black with a more earthy or green highlight like he showed earlier in the videos, and they'll blend in more with the weathering to preserver the "blackness" of the model? Look at the armor on display at 2:41 ruclips.net/video/mKmi0SW3fco/видео.html
The way you have to think of black is not as "shades of black", like a blue black, brown black etc., but as black as a dissolver of light but not a TOTAL dissolver of light, so they're literally just reflections of colours from all around that have had most of the light stripped out of them. That's why his "blue black" doesn't work, because it's not just a small amount of the light being reflected, it looks like a vast amount of the light is being reflected. It also doesn't work well with NMM (non-metallic metals).
Reminds me of a guy shining black shoes when he put a layer of dark blue on top, he explained that the eye will perceive the slight blue of the shine coming off the shoe as even blacker than having just black polish.
Honestly just now coming across this video and oh my god this has definitely helped my conundrum with the perception of the color black in general. The fact that you went into details and even showed examples, used a previous model and explained how you could've improved definitely shows your extreme hard work and practice, you've definitely earned a Golden Demon from me!
Valid points well presented. I got into the hobby at the start of the pandemic and decided to paint Iron Hands. I spent a lot of time thinking about what colours to use to achieve this black armour (wrought iron) effect and decided early on not to add a blue hue. I settled on Abbadon Black, Corvus Black, Eshin Grey and edge highlighted/drybrushing with Iron Warriors. All recesses were touched up with Tamiya Panel Line Accent Colour Black. Red lenses, brown leather holsters, blue plasma OSL glow and cream coloured/ dark red tabards were the splashes of colour I used to balance the grayscale tones of the armour. I was really happy with the results.
Commenting for the algorithm, this vid is excellent, and why you're the best mini painting channel out. I learn something every time, love this short, easy to digest style, and I'll watch as many of these as you care to make
One of the most inspiring things about you is the drive that you have for learning and growing. Despite being such an accomplished competition level painter you still recognize things you can improve on and actively seek answers to how. Amazing.
Anyone giving grief online at any of your awesome artwork is just jealous of what you create. You have a idea and you put it on the mini. I think it looked great and would love a kill team painted in that style. I could go on, but I just wanted to give you praise for your content. Good job.
This makes sense. Not going to adapt this to my paintjob, because I am hardly a master painter to the point of trying to make my miniatures look realistic, but I see the reasoning behind your technique and learned to appreciate it.
The analysis and conclusion are on point, after the edit it reads as black much clearer than before. Weathering seemed to indeed be too heavy/light in to, so in combination with the blue highlights, the model did not read as black anymore. Very cool to fit this all in a three minute video, hope the youtube algorithm won't disadvantage it because of that. Great job mate!
Before I watched this video I figured you were probably going to talk about the brown weathering. It really seemed like you did everything right like you normally would, but the rust spots just covered the darker areas, so as to not allow for the dynamic color range that it normally would have. Cool video I learned something
Great format addition to your content portfolio! I like and watch your long form content both here and on patreon but sometimes it's hard to stay focused for over an hour or more. So this is a nice change of pace and I don't have to go diggin for the nuggets of wisdom that are randomly spread out in your longer videos.
3 minute Tuesdays seems like a fantastic series to really invest into for the community outhere, you put a lot of high level concepts for colour theory into a simple and digestible format that is really going to help some people out. Hopefully people can support the format enough to make it viable for you :)
As a person struggling to convert a black legion legion army and having having no clue how to highlight this was great. very good insight into using blues where i would have done greys or a drybrush white
My comment to the “Black or Not” picture was “What could have been done to make it read more as black?” And now, an incredibly informative but digestible answer!
The way I learned to understand black armor was by looking at cars. If you Google black cars, you'll quickly see the highlights are predominantly blue, that gets closer and closer to white as you approach the point of direct reflection from the sun, and the ground reflection in most natural environments is a greenish tan. In general, they're rarely what we think of as black.
Love the quick and easily digestible format used here, its informative and punchy so sticks with you. Also love how you talk about whats gone wrong for you and why, its as important to know how to analyse your own work and correct it and you really help show that off.
The way I paint Templars is I do a bright silver zenithal highlight, then I go over it with Pro Acryl transparent black. This gives the impression of black, but with metal shining through the black in the highlights. Afterwards I dry brush a little silver on top just where some edge highlighting is needed. It's my favorite way to do black on an Astartes, and I've never seen anyone do it on youtube.
@@samgray4777 possibly yes, because I use Pro Acryls transparent paints to make my own contrast paints just by doing 50/50 with some flow improver. I say grab a test model and give it a try, because I bet it would be very similar to my method.
A friend of mine dose something that for his iron hands. I think the only thing he dose differently before the clear black is under coat with an oil/grease wash.
@@jamesdenison7773 Thats super cool. I like it. It's very different than how I do things, and I would just say thats a lot more work than I do, especially if you need to paint a whole army. Great effect none the less. The whole point of my style is that its quick and easy for good results. Prime black, zenithal silver with an airbrush, then hand paint the transparent black over the top. I can knock out batches of ten fairly quickly, then just add the needed details. I use Trovarion's stippling technique to do the white on the shoulder pads.
Please do more of these. Sometimes (like now) I'm looking for a specific answer to a specific question and don't want to sift through a 30m video for a short answer.
I guess a further complication is the snow base. Snow is very reflective and you would get almost as much light from below as above. Particularly on an overcast day. When skiing we call this flat light and it can be almost impossible to read the terrain as there are now shadows and the snow looks flat.
This is a great format, it fits really well alongside your longer videos. I'm sure you do anyway, but just ignore the haters, the world is full of toxic people venting through the internet. The majority, the silent majority, of people who watch your videos love what you do.
This was a great way of presenting color theory and a concept in a short amount of time. Regarding black paint, i think this is just it, the ratio between reflective colors and the base tone black. It is one of the trickiest things i've encountered in mini-painting. Not making the miniature look like a silhouette but also not make it shift tone and read as the highlight color. Thanks for the clarification, and also the example where you tone down the highlight digitally. You can clearly see the effect that it goes back to read as more of a black. I will try to push my highlights even higher on my minis but still be thoughtful about the ratio.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on (and approach to) painting black. I’ve been working on my 30K Raven Guard for about four years now, and began just like you showed, solid black with a blue and then lighter grey edge highlights. But as time went by and I got more experience under my belt (I’ve only really been painting for about six years), I began trying out new techniques and colour highlights. While they look nowhere near as impressive as yours, I can see a definite improvement in my work. My main problem now is having to go back and undo the older paint job of the hundreds of infantry that now look like they come from the movie Tron, and make them look more weathered and appropriately “grimdark”. Thanks again for the video- you always inspire me to do better. I hope that you and your loved ones stay safe, happy, and healthy, and have a great holiday season!
Absolutely great video. I loved the concise and very factual 3minutes. I painted my first Black Templar following your video on Saturday. It was the very first Grim Dark model I've ever painted (I'm relatively new to painting) and I have to say I'm absolutely over the moon with it! Thanks so much for your video. I really enjoyed painting the miniature and adding a story along with it! Thanks
Really interesting video. I did watch the original and thought, it's more blue than black, but I never realized that there is a lot of blue (and other colours) on black fabric & GW art work. It was good that you demonstrated this with pics and artwork in this video. It's made me like/appreciate the original mini you painted in your last video a lot more.
That's because all black pigments are actually blue or brown consumers can get. No such thing as actual black pigment when it comes to paints. You get blacker colors by hyper micronization of pigments when it comes to things like mouso or black 3.
Excellent work Trovarion. This format works. I really liked the concise breakdown. I’d like to see more of these. They compliment your longer format work nicely
I love the 3-minute video concept. The video gives condensed information on a subject without cutting into my painting time. Lol. A 3 or even a 5-minute video that gives this kind of information is perfect. I am a fan of this concept.
And this is why I'm a subscriber! More and deeper insight in three months on one mini than I've had over several years on many. And with a real feeling that I can use most of what's being discussed in my own painting. Thank you, Christoph.
This 3 minute format is baller. Please do more. You also convinced me to try and add some blue, just a bit, to the black parts of my miniatures, let's see how that turns out. Cheers.
Love your advice! As someone, who also often tries out new things, including a lot of "colored metal armours", I learned, that to let sth be readable as a certain color, the base color (e.g. black) should still cover 50%++ on a miniature. This might not match with reality, but a 28mm scale model ain't reality either.
I had a cataract operations as well as other surgery to both eyes, my goodness the change in my perception to see colour real natural God given colour . Your eyes see very well enabling you to see what's there not just what a sentence says should be there . Carry on with your own style it hasn't been treating you so bad .😉👍
Your approach on the latest video inspired me to paint some stone/marble affects for my Kroak. Easy as a couple of black coats, some Dadk Reaper stippling, Ulthuan Grey stippling and gloss varnish
I'm glad you addressed the issue of you not having enough black for the miniature to read as black, as that shows you learn from your mistakes, and there aren't any other painting content creators that call out their mistakes when it comes to techniques. The brown never made sense to me on that Black Templar though, because it overtook the entire miniature. Space Marine armour is also made from ceramic material, so it wouldn't ever get rusty. What you could've done instead is paint concaving battle damage like chips, cracks, and blast holes with cracks coming out from the middle of them to represent the ceramic armour's flat panels having more depth. Personally, I never read it as an Ultramarine, it felt more like a stippling exercise where the highlights went overboard, with random brown thrown in there for no actual good reason. Black glazes would've helped a lot.
Black and White are some of the hardest to paint in ways that both look good and work for the mini. There are also the extremes where materials also matter heavily for the color, more so than a lot of others. The three main ones are for Cloth, Leather, and Metal...though stone and "glass" tend to pop up a decent amount in different things (It took me forever to come up with something that looks right for a white stone for terrain work). For me, a black cloth tends to be the easiest, and it actually seems to work best for not working in other colors...unless you want translucent cloth which is an entirely different kettle of fish. I tend to go with a dark grey for the base, then a black ink wash, then work back into the base color and to a lighter grey...leather tends to work similarly, but you need to do a lot more in getting the highlights positioned right or there are more issues. Black armor tends to be easier to do with a wider variety of metallic paints than anything else though there are some times when you need to do something else... I've got a fantasy force that's closer to a historical force with a few things that stand out such as a bit more gold to them, but the big thing is the black and white shields. They're relatively simple in the heraldry for the army...a black shield with a white stripe at an angle across it. Highlighting the black up at all tends to make it look off and takes the entire thing into a grey because the white tends to make it look off, but I can use a simple highlight to get the stripe to read as white...I just use a cold off white as the base and move from there with a pure white. All three colors on that part of the shield are glossy and they still read as metal for those looking at it, especially with later weathering added to it. The hardest thing with Blacks and Whites is when you have them up against each other...white next to white was also something for an RP mini that I was painting where the shields main colors were a cold and a warm white that I wanted to keep distinct...
Great video. I don't really paint miniatures, but the length of the video was just right to teach me something and make me interested in watching some of the longer ones.
Hi, you are right about everything, the problem its if we see space marine with some blue our brain tell us its a ultramarine, maybe if was other miniature... For me the problem its the hightlights being blue, maybe others like pastel green-> pale sand, pale sand->ivory or deck tan->ivory will be more "colour neutral" Dont know how to make grimdark black, its really hard make even darker the darkest colour. For me your black templar looks awesome 11/10 but for grimdark ultramarine (the best one i saw ever) you are the expert i barely can do glazes so... thats my opinion. Love your vids.
Love this format. Thanks. Actually really helpful technique to put a photo into Photoshop or another app to check corrections before ‘correcting’ on the model.
This is such a great length and really covered something that I see, but cannot explain or translate to my minis. So interesting how you showed the different examples. :)
This was really helpful. I have just recently finished painting a mini in black armor, and my brain is filled with ideas on what could have been done differently. Thanks for your insight on this!
Thanks for this video! Looking at black through this perspective really shows how you can use techniques similar to NMM painting to show light reflecting.
I love this! Short, concise, and to the point. The valuable information sticks. And I appreciate the follow up. I can understand how varying tones are picked up in black armor, but you are painting such a small media. I think your take on the grim dark would have been received better, and actually read more as black on a larger model. As you had stated, you didn't have a lot of space to work with along with the weathering. Feel like it was trying to fit too much into such a small space and not a means to add such detail into a small space.
I like the short format too. Like you said, forces you to focus on the point. Also makes it much more appealing for me to watch between meetings! It's funny, the one use I see for painting proper black isn't used that often: Painting holes! People fill them in with washes a bit or paint a brighter color around them to make the whole seem black. But why not just drop a little bit of Black 3.0 in it or something?
I actually prefer your grimdark approach :D, im looking for a less clean look for my black templars, although something less intense for making an 1k battleforce. This screams hype realism and i love it! Weathered battered, reflecting of light…beautiful!
Brilliant concept for the video and it succinctly covered a thought I had regarding your previous work. While still an amazing paint job (certainly far better than I'll likely ever achieve) I do think that the mock up you presented at the end better represents how I would perceive a black surface that isn't high gloss.
RUclips recommended me this video again just as I was about to depart on my black legion paitning journey, and this is now exactly what Im gonna try. I am not a fan of sharp mono edge highlights and Your artist visionnary ass always delivers techiniques, styles and ideas department, thank you!
I also paint RAF WWII night heavy Bombers that have a black underside,I use at least 4 different shades of black,From normal black to rubber black to really dark greys,then blend them with a highly diluted coat of the original base coat.
This is a great format and instructive. Trying to suggest both weathering/dust and reflective qualities convincingly on a surface that small is mostly beyond my talents.
Great video Christoph, just wanted to say I enjoyed this 3min format. It gives us some concise but valuable information to keep us going inbetween streams.
This was one of the greatest and I guess hardest videos to make. To go into a public space and say you made a mistake. Nothing a politician, entertainer, athlete or professional dare doing. So hat of to you Trovarion. And I agree, it read as dirty blue and after you added the darker parts in photoshop it transformed into black.
Great explanation! That reminds me the importance of keeping the chroma in the far brighter part of the gradient when painting really dark tones. I loved your grim-dark take on the Blood Angel by the way. I recently tried the same grim-dark technique on a Space Wolf color scheme, and it got my paining skills exploding with new possibilities!
One trick i learned off a youtuber was to dry brush leadbelcher over the armor, then black contrast over that. Gives a nice metalic yet matte black armor.
I really liked this style of video, i enjoy your content but with work and kids i dont always have time for the longer format(which i do enjoy alot). I look forward to seeing more of these
Love the format! I think more creators need to be comfortable with shorter videos, if you cant explain something simply you probably need to understand it a bit more yourself. This video was really informed but not overloaded and i think you made a lot of good points. Please make more of these!
btw, if you look at Trovarion's black templar from some distance (or if you make the image smaller), it looks were more black that when you look at the detailed zoomed view of the miniature. And, well, it is a miniature, so if you hold it in your hand is going to be quite small.
This format is amazing! I tend to go back to videos a lot for stuff I've forgotten and just want a refresher on. So a shorter video I can consume and get back to painting helps tremendously! Unfortunately it's time to paint black armour for me. So this is good timing also. ^^
Damn, that was a lot of useful information jammed into 3 minutes. Love the format. Though I am biased and could listen to you talk about painting for hours.
Totally agree, never stop learning. I liked both the original and the photos hopefully edit, but yeah the photos hopefully edit definitely reads as more black
I really like this format! Short deep dive into a subject, super helpful! Keep it up! Also, the scheme is awesome in my opinion, still reads as black to me even without the touch-ups you propose in this video. Especially on the tabletop, your original scheme ”brings more light”, making it read better than if you would push the midtone more ”true black”.
What a great vid and point well made. I thoroughly enjoyed your black templar vid and was amazed how a model painted using very little black paint so read as black in my eyes. I still have so much to learn about painting and colour theory and your expertise is perfect . Thank you for these incredible vids.
I really liked this short form video - really informative and to the point without being rushed. I'd love to see a similar video on red, and how to make interesting red armour anc colours, as I really struggle with shading and highlights Reds without changing the hue entirely
I've heard that both black and white miniatures shoul be at least 50% black or white so the highlights don't overpower the final impression of black or white. This was a great self-reflection an breakdown of your thought proceess. I'm looking forward to move of this format.
I'd add that in addition to reducing the black on the mini, the weathering made the armour look non-reflective (scuffed and worn) so my eyes don't read the blue patches as reflections in the way they nornally do.
Real problem with producing black armor is the light reflection do not work on acrylics.. As soon the pain dry ,doesn't look metalic anymore.. Solution is simple ,to use OIL paints that simulate much better reflective surfaces.
Awesome! Also love the fact that a guy with a shelf of Golden Demons is able to use his own work to point out mistakes. Your humbleness is equally as impressive as your skills.
This is why comics tend to use dark blues and purples instead of black. People consider Venom to be in a black suit, but really look at art of him and see how often he is actually blue.
I think your discussion on black is directly on point. Black is never just black. Thanks for explaining the technique and reasons for the color in total.
The mock up (especially the helmet which is the area I thought looked most blue) immediately reads as black to me so I think your analysis of why the weathering sabotaged the black effect is dead on. Would the solution to keeping the weathering be to shrink the blue highlights?
Not the poster but I think part of it is blue and orange (brown) are very clashing colours so they draw each other out. Maybe try high lighting the black with a more earthy or green highlight like he showed earlier in the videos, and they'll blend in more with the weathering to preserver the "blackness" of the model? Look at the armor on display at 2:41
ruclips.net/video/mKmi0SW3fco/видео.html
The way you have to think of black is not as "shades of black", like a blue black, brown black etc., but as black as a dissolver of light but not a TOTAL dissolver of light, so they're literally just reflections of colours from all around that have had most of the light stripped out of them.
That's why his "blue black" doesn't work, because it's not just a small amount of the light being reflected, it looks like a vast amount of the light is being reflected. It also doesn't work well with NMM (non-metallic metals).
Reminds me of a guy shining black shoes when he put a layer of dark blue on top, he explained that the eye will perceive the slight blue of the shine coming off the shoe as even blacker than having just black polish.
Honestly just now coming across this video and oh my god this has definitely helped my conundrum with the perception of the color black in general. The fact that you went into details and even showed examples, used a previous model and explained how you could've improved definitely shows your extreme hard work and practice, you've definitely earned a Golden Demon from me!
good job mate, I like the format, maybe do it as a serie for all colors
Valid points well presented. I got into the hobby at the start of the pandemic and decided to paint Iron Hands. I spent a lot of time thinking about what colours to use to achieve this black armour (wrought iron) effect and decided early on not to add a blue hue. I settled on Abbadon Black, Corvus Black, Eshin Grey and edge highlighted/drybrushing with Iron Warriors. All recesses were touched up with Tamiya Panel Line Accent Colour Black. Red lenses, brown leather holsters, blue plasma OSL glow and cream coloured/ dark red tabards were the splashes of colour I used to balance the grayscale tones of the armour. I was really happy with the results.
Commenting for the algorithm, this vid is excellent, and why you're the best mini painting channel out. I learn something every time, love this short, easy to digest style, and I'll watch as many of these as you care to make
One of the most inspiring things about you is the drive that you have for learning and growing. Despite being such an accomplished competition level painter you still recognize things you can improve on and actively seek answers to how. Amazing.
Anyone giving grief online at any of your awesome artwork is just jealous of what you create. You have a idea and you put it on the mini. I think it looked great and would love a kill team painted in that style. I could go on, but I just wanted to give you praise for your content. Good job.
This makes sense. Not going to adapt this to my paintjob, because I am hardly a master painter to the point of trying to make my miniatures look realistic, but I see the reasoning behind your technique and learned to appreciate it.
The analysis and conclusion are on point, after the edit it reads as black much clearer than before. Weathering seemed to indeed be too heavy/light in to, so in combination with the blue highlights, the model did not read as black anymore. Very cool to fit this all in a three minute video, hope the youtube algorithm won't disadvantage it because of that. Great job mate!
This was super interesting, and changed how I think about black as a whole. Thank you.
Before I watched this video I figured you were probably going to talk about the brown weathering. It really seemed like you did everything right like you normally would, but the rust spots just covered the darker areas, so as to not allow for the dynamic color range that it normally would have. Cool video I learned something
Great format addition to your content portfolio! I like and watch your long form content both here and on patreon but sometimes it's hard to stay focused for over an hour or more. So this is a nice change of pace and I don't have to go diggin for the nuggets of wisdom that are randomly spread out in your longer videos.
3 minute Tuesdays seems like a fantastic series to really invest into for the community outhere, you put a lot of high level concepts for colour theory into a simple and digestible format that is really going to help some people out. Hopefully people can support the format enough to make it viable for you :)
When you started coloring the picture of your mini it was amazing how fast it read as black with a little touching up.
As a person struggling to convert a black legion legion army and having having no clue how to highlight this was great. very good insight into using blues where i would have done greys or a drybrush white
My comment to the “Black or Not” picture was “What could have been done to make it read more as black?” And now, an incredibly informative but digestible answer!
My understanding of painting is taking leaps and bounds every time this dude uploads
The way I learned to understand black armor was by looking at cars. If you Google black cars, you'll quickly see the highlights are predominantly blue, that gets closer and closer to white as you approach the point of direct reflection from the sun, and the ground reflection in most natural environments is a greenish tan. In general, they're rarely what we think of as black.
Love the quick and easily digestible format used here, its informative and punchy so sticks with you. Also love how you talk about whats gone wrong for you and why, its as important to know how to analyse your own work and correct it and you really help show that off.
The way I paint Templars is I do a bright silver zenithal highlight, then I go over it with Pro Acryl transparent black. This gives the impression of black, but with metal shining through the black in the highlights. Afterwards I dry brush a little silver on top just where some edge highlighting is needed. It's my favorite way to do black on an Astartes, and I've never seen anyone do it on youtube.
Sounds awesome you think Black Templar Contrast paint could sub for pro acryl?
You might like this if you’ve not seen it already.
ruclips.net/video/yxxilu-vZZA/видео.html
@@samgray4777 possibly yes, because I use Pro Acryls transparent paints to make my own contrast paints just by doing 50/50 with some flow improver. I say grab a test model and give it a try, because I bet it would be very similar to my method.
A friend of mine dose something that for his iron hands. I think the only thing he dose differently before the clear black is under coat with an oil/grease wash.
@@jamesdenison7773 Thats super cool. I like it. It's very different than how I do things, and I would just say thats a lot more work than I do, especially if you need to paint a whole army. Great effect none the less.
The whole point of my style is that its quick and easy for good results. Prime black, zenithal silver with an airbrush, then hand paint the transparent black over the top. I can knock out batches of ten fairly quickly, then just add the needed details.
I use Trovarion's stippling technique to do the white on the shoulder pads.
Please do more of these. Sometimes (like now) I'm looking for a specific answer to a specific question and don't want to sift through a 30m video for a short answer.
I guess a further complication is the snow base. Snow is very reflective and you would get almost as much light from below as above. Particularly on an overcast day. When skiing we call this flat light and it can be almost impossible to read the terrain as there are now shadows and the snow looks flat.
This was a great format for explaining a detail of something that you did a particular way in a previous video and I would love to see it continue.
This is a great format, it fits really well alongside your longer videos. I'm sure you do anyway, but just ignore the haters, the world is full of toxic people venting through the internet. The majority, the silent majority, of people who watch your videos love what you do.
This was a great way of presenting color theory and a concept in a short amount of time.
Regarding black paint, i think this is just it, the ratio between reflective colors and the base tone black. It is one of the trickiest things i've encountered in mini-painting. Not making the miniature look like a silhouette but also not make it shift tone and read as the highlight color.
Thanks for the clarification, and also the example where you tone down the highlight digitally. You can clearly see the effect that it goes back to read as more of a black.
I will try to push my highlights even higher on my minis but still be thoughtful about the ratio.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on (and approach to) painting black. I’ve been working on my 30K Raven Guard for about four years now, and began just like you showed, solid black with a blue and then lighter grey edge highlights. But as time went by and I got more experience under my belt (I’ve only really been painting for about six years), I began trying out new techniques and colour highlights. While they look nowhere near as impressive as yours, I can see a definite improvement in my work. My main problem now is having to go back and undo the older paint job of the hundreds of infantry that now look like they come from the movie Tron, and make them look more weathered and appropriately “grimdark”. Thanks again for the video- you always inspire me to do better. I hope that you and your loved ones stay safe, happy, and healthy, and have a great holiday season!
Absolutely great video. I loved the concise and very factual 3minutes.
I painted my first Black Templar following your video on Saturday. It was the very first Grim Dark model I've ever painted (I'm relatively new to painting) and I have to say I'm absolutely over the moon with it! Thanks so much for your video. I really enjoyed painting the miniature and adding a story along with it! Thanks
That mock up in the end really show's what you mean. Thanks for the concise explanation!
Really interesting video.
I did watch the original and thought, it's more blue than black, but I never realized that there is a lot of blue (and other colours) on black fabric & GW art work. It was good that you demonstrated this with pics and artwork in this video. It's made me like/appreciate the original mini you painted in your last video a lot more.
That's because all black pigments are actually blue or brown consumers can get. No such thing as actual black pigment when it comes to paints. You get blacker colors by hyper micronization of pigments when it comes to things like mouso or black 3.
Excellent work Trovarion. This format works. I really liked the concise breakdown. I’d like to see more of these. They compliment your longer format work nicely
The idea of a 3 minute video as a follow up to one of your 15 minute videos is amazing. Its like a QnA only better!
I love the 3-minute video concept. The video gives condensed information on a subject without cutting into my painting time. Lol. A 3 or even a 5-minute video that gives this kind of information is perfect. I am a fan of this concept.
And this is why I'm a subscriber! More and deeper insight in three months on one mini than I've had over several years on many. And with a real feeling that I can use most of what's being discussed in my own painting.
Thank you, Christoph.
This 3 minute format is baller. Please do more. You also convinced me to try and add some blue, just a bit, to the black parts of my miniatures, let's see how that turns out. Cheers.
Love your advice!
As someone, who also often tries out new things, including a lot of "colored metal armours", I learned, that to let sth be readable as a certain color, the base color (e.g. black) should still cover 50%++ on a miniature. This might not match with reality, but a 28mm scale model ain't reality either.
I had a cataract operations as well as other surgery to both eyes, my goodness the change in my perception to see colour real natural God given colour . Your eyes see very well enabling you to see what's there not just what a sentence says should be there . Carry on with your own style it hasn't been treating you so bad .😉👍
Your approach on the latest video inspired me to paint some stone/marble affects for my Kroak. Easy as a couple of black coats, some Dadk Reaper stippling, Ulthuan Grey stippling and gloss varnish
I think you are genuinely the best mini painting channel on youtube. I hope that some day I can come close to what you do.
Technique is welcome, but provoking thought about the mechanics is even better. Thanks, love the format.
Fascinating look into black despite only being 3 minutes. Hopefully you do more of these 3 minute vids
I'm glad you addressed the issue of you not having enough black for the miniature to read as black, as that shows you learn from your mistakes, and there aren't any other painting content creators that call out their mistakes when it comes to techniques. The brown never made sense to me on that Black Templar though, because it overtook the entire miniature. Space Marine armour is also made from ceramic material, so it wouldn't ever get rusty. What you could've done instead is paint concaving battle damage like chips, cracks, and blast holes with cracks coming out from the middle of them to represent the ceramic armour's flat panels having more depth. Personally, I never read it as an Ultramarine, it felt more like a stippling exercise where the highlights went overboard, with random brown thrown in there for no actual good reason. Black glazes would've helped a lot.
Black and White are some of the hardest to paint in ways that both look good and work for the mini.
There are also the extremes where materials also matter heavily for the color, more so than a lot of others. The three main ones are for Cloth, Leather, and Metal...though stone and "glass" tend to pop up a decent amount in different things (It took me forever to come up with something that looks right for a white stone for terrain work).
For me, a black cloth tends to be the easiest, and it actually seems to work best for not working in other colors...unless you want translucent cloth which is an entirely different kettle of fish. I tend to go with a dark grey for the base, then a black ink wash, then work back into the base color and to a lighter grey...leather tends to work similarly, but you need to do a lot more in getting the highlights positioned right or there are more issues. Black armor tends to be easier to do with a wider variety of metallic paints than anything else though there are some times when you need to do something else...
I've got a fantasy force that's closer to a historical force with a few things that stand out such as a bit more gold to them, but the big thing is the black and white shields. They're relatively simple in the heraldry for the army...a black shield with a white stripe at an angle across it. Highlighting the black up at all tends to make it look off and takes the entire thing into a grey because the white tends to make it look off, but I can use a simple highlight to get the stripe to read as white...I just use a cold off white as the base and move from there with a pure white. All three colors on that part of the shield are glossy and they still read as metal for those looking at it, especially with later weathering added to it.
The hardest thing with Blacks and Whites is when you have them up against each other...white next to white was also something for an RP mini that I was painting where the shields main colors were a cold and a warm white that I wanted to keep distinct...
Great video. I don't really paint miniatures, but the length of the video was just right to teach me something and make me interested in watching some of the longer ones.
Hi, you are right about everything, the problem its if we see space marine with some blue our brain tell us its a ultramarine, maybe if was other miniature...
For me the problem its the hightlights being blue, maybe others like pastel green-> pale sand, pale sand->ivory or deck tan->ivory will be more "colour neutral"
Dont know how to make grimdark black, its really hard make even darker the darkest colour.
For me your black templar looks awesome 11/10 but for grimdark ultramarine (the best one i saw ever)
you are the expert i barely can do glazes so... thats my opinion.
Love your vids.
Loving the three minute format, one small topic is really easy to digest
Idk anyone else but watching him paint over minis in Photoshop is so satisfying.
Love this format. Thanks. Actually really helpful technique to put a photo into Photoshop or another app to check corrections before ‘correcting’ on the model.
This is such a great length and really covered something that I see, but cannot explain or translate to my minis. So interesting how you showed the different examples. :)
As I am about to attempt this in the coming weeks; returning to this quick review has been very helpful, thanks!
This was really helpful. I have just recently finished painting a mini in black armor, and my brain is filled with ideas on what could have been done differently. Thanks for your insight on this!
Great format! Gives you a chance to make quick vids to add to your regular weekly/biweekly one and stay relevant in the algorithm. Love it!
Great one. As black templar painter, I'm always looking into getting a more realistic black metal look.
I enjoy the short videos just as much as the longer ones! Great format!
Thanks for this video! Looking at black through this perspective really shows how you can use techniques similar to NMM painting to show light reflecting.
Great format, the concise topic makes it a truly worth wile watch. Would love to see more
I love this! Short, concise, and to the point. The valuable information sticks. And I appreciate the follow up. I can understand how varying tones are picked up in black armor, but you are painting such a small media. I think your take on the grim dark would have been received better, and actually read more as black on a larger model. As you had stated, you didn't have a lot of space to work with along with the weathering. Feel like it was trying to fit too much into such a small space and not a means to add such detail into a small space.
I like the short format too. Like you said, forces you to focus on the point. Also makes it much more appealing for me to watch between meetings!
It's funny, the one use I see for painting proper black isn't used that often: Painting holes! People fill them in with washes a bit or paint a brighter color around them to make the whole seem black. But why not just drop a little bit of Black 3.0 in it or something?
I actually prefer your grimdark approach :D, im looking for a less clean look for my black templars, although something less intense for making an 1k battleforce.
This screams hype realism and i love it! Weathered battered, reflecting of light…beautiful!
I really enjoy these small appetizer videos!
Brilliant concept for the video and it succinctly covered a thought I had regarding your previous work. While still an amazing paint job (certainly far better than I'll likely ever achieve) I do think that the mock up you presented at the end better represents how I would perceive a black surface that isn't high gloss.
RUclips recommended me this video again just as I was about to depart on my black legion paitning journey, and this is now exactly what Im gonna try. I am not a fan of sharp mono edge highlights and Your artist visionnary ass always delivers techiniques, styles and ideas department, thank you!
I also paint RAF WWII night heavy Bombers that have a black underside,I use at least 4 different shades of black,From normal black to rubber black to really dark greys,then blend them with a highly diluted coat of the original base coat.
You have become probably my favourite content creator when it comes to painting. Cheers mate, keep going!
This is a great format and instructive. Trying to suggest both weathering/dust and reflective qualities convincingly on a surface that small is mostly beyond my talents.
Great video. The mockup at the end made so much sense. Like the short format
Great video Christoph, just wanted to say I enjoyed this 3min format. It gives us some concise but valuable information to keep us going inbetween streams.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This was one of the greatest and I guess hardest videos to make. To go into a public space and say you made a mistake. Nothing a politician, entertainer, athlete or professional dare doing. So hat of to you Trovarion. And I agree, it read as dirty blue and after you added the darker parts in photoshop it transformed into black.
This format is fantastic trovarion. Keep the good work
Love this new video format, although I also really enjoy the longer form content too!
Great explanation! That reminds me the importance of keeping the chroma in the far brighter part of the gradient when painting really dark tones. I loved your grim-dark take on the Blood Angel by the way. I recently tried the same grim-dark technique on a Space Wolf color scheme, and it got my paining skills exploding with new possibilities!
This is why i loved the old midnight blue citadel color. It was the base for everything black i ever painted.
One trick i learned off a youtuber was to dry brush leadbelcher over the armor, then black contrast over that. Gives a nice metalic yet matte black armor.
I really liked this style of video, i enjoy your content but with work and kids i dont always have time for the longer format(which i do enjoy alot). I look forward to seeing more of these
Love the format! I think more creators need to be comfortable with shorter videos, if you cant explain something simply you probably need to understand it a bit more yourself. This video was really informed but not overloaded and i think you made a lot of good points. Please make more of these!
That's why I enjoy Zumikito
Facts. If you can’t explain it to a child and make them understand. You don’t understand.
Awsome! Great idea for a video, very digestible and straight to the core.. your RUclips powers are growing more powerful by the day!
Just want to say that your videos help inspire me to become better a better painter. Thanks for all that you do.
I like this video format a lot. I would watch a hundred of these for every colour!
btw, if you look at Trovarion's black templar from some distance (or if you make the image smaller), it looks were more black that when you look at the detailed zoomed view of the miniature. And, well, it is a miniature, so if you hold it in your hand is going to be quite small.
Love this format, short and concise covering of a topic...
Glad you liked it!
This format is amazing! I tend to go back to videos a lot for stuff I've forgotten and just want a refresher on. So a shorter video I can consume and get back to painting helps tremendously!
Unfortunately it's time to paint black armour for me. So this is good timing also. ^^
I started trying to do this earlier this year and it's great to see I wasn't too far off with my approach. Thanks, great to-the-point video!
Great video and the short format of theoretical thoughts is amazing. Exactly what i was looking for on youtube.
nice because i always hated painting just black and just avoided it outside of like small moveable bits and gloves this helps.
Damn, that was a lot of useful information jammed into 3 minutes. Love the format. Though I am biased and could listen to you talk about painting for hours.
Totally agree, never stop learning. I liked both the original and the photos hopefully edit, but yeah the photos hopefully edit definitely reads as more black
Now a challenge, do a grimdark white that doesn't read as brown or beige or grey!
You did a great job covering a lot of ground on a very complex topic in a very short time
I really like this format! Short deep dive into a subject, super helpful! Keep it up! Also, the scheme is awesome in my opinion, still reads as black to me even without the touch-ups you propose in this video. Especially on the tabletop, your original scheme ”brings more light”, making it read better than if you would push the midtone more ”true black”.
You sir are a gentleman, and a painting scholar! Stay awesome!
What a great vid and point well made. I thoroughly enjoyed your black templar vid and was amazed how a model painted using very little black paint so read as black in my eyes. I still have so much to learn about painting and colour theory and your expertise is perfect . Thank you for these incredible vids.
I really liked this short form video - really informative and to the point without being rushed.
I'd love to see a similar video on red, and how to make interesting red armour anc colours, as I really struggle with shading and highlights Reds without changing the hue entirely
I've heard that both black and white miniatures shoul be at least 50% black or white so the highlights don't overpower the final impression of black or white. This was a great self-reflection an breakdown of your thought proceess. I'm looking forward to move of this format.
S tier reflections, its enough to put the ideas out there so one can start thinkihng about it in our own hobbying and dive deeper should we want to.
Absolutely down for more of these "Page notes" videos. Quick, understandable, efficient.
Very good format, helps give a lot of info in a short time. Would love to see more of these!
It was definitely too much blue on the mini, but great to get a retrospective on the process. Love to see more