Hello everyone,

Not being a good painter, I have got problems with painting the white details on the shields and banners of Dol Amroth. It takes me lots of time to make them covering and not get in the gaps. If i am finally done, my surface is lumpy... Can someone help me? I am using a mix of vallejo and citadel.

And: English is not my first language.

When I paint things like that, I start with a dark grey, move to light grey, and then white. White over the undercoat is unpleasant to work with. Thin your paints more if you're getting lumps, if you continue to get lumps then thin even more! Better too thin and several layers than too thick and lumpy.

I find that rather than starting with a darker colour, a better method for avoiding lumps and bumps is to slowly build up really thin layers of white on top of a slightly off-white.

My suggestion would be undercoating with either Ulthuan Grey (for a cold white) or Screaming Skull (for a warm white), and then just layering three or four times with a diluted Ceramite White. By diluted, I mean you want the consistency of the paint to be similar in thickness to milk. All those are Citadel colours by the way.

As a former High Elf collector, I learned painting lots of white areas the hard way. This method will take a little longer, maybe a total of 5 minutes per shield depending on the intricacy of your motif design.

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Wise Old Elf

In addition to the methods here of making your paint thin, which is good advice, but being that you are 'not a good painter' then trying to keep thin paint in control will be an issue. So, be messy. Paint the white parts first, and don't be overly neat about it, just make sure it is right and with a smooth finish, using thin white paint. Then using a very watered down second color (whatever your background is, blue for dol amroth for example) you can edge in around the raised details. this should dry with a slight separator line for blocking in your other color where you will want to be neat but it will be more forgiving. Don't forget to keep a clean brush handy so if you make a goof, you can wet it quick and swipe it off with the clean brush.

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http://www.sithious.webs.com

I use a similar method to Sithious.
Basecoat with white primer then I apply Vallego Ivory as my white. It is so much better to apply in thin layers than any other White. You also cannot tell the difference between Ivory and a pure white.
Now I apply thin layers of a dark colour to pick out the detail. I will also apply glazes to the shadows so only the top part of the areas is pure ivory.
This picture isn't great, a bit too bright but here's the result
You get the idea better when you look at the cloak.

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