Greetings

I am about to paint a few Morannon orcs. I intend for the armour to be black-ish metal. My problem is that I do not know how to achieve that in a practical way.

In my opinion Leadbelcher is way way too bright to be used as the darkest colour, even if you add a few layers of Nuln Oil. You may have to add a lot of Nuln Oil layers, or perhaps using a Leadbelcher/Abaddon Black mix for the darkest colour. It might be hard to get a consistant colour that way.

I guess that I in theory could use a drybrush layer on black for the first, darkest layer. However, I do not like mixing drybrushing and layering on the same areas. If you mess up a highlight you can just paint over it with a darker colour as it would give another texture appearance than the drybrush.

I am also considering using Vallejo metal colours, which I hear are darker. I wonder how much darker than Leadbelcher they are. I am also curious what those paints are like to work with. Are they similar to the citadel paints, or are they more oily?

I am thankful for any advice.

Hi!, I had the same problem with my uruks and morannons. Leadbelcher with Abaddon Black works well. I've been happiest with Leadbelcher followed by a wash of Agrax Earthshade.

Ýou mean a mix of Abaddon black and Leadbelcher? Leadbelcher followed by Earthshade does sound a little too brown for what I have in mind myself. Would you by any chance have any pictures to share? In any case I thank you for the advice.

If you're worried about having a consistent colour across your army when painting many figures with a mixed colour, simply get an empty pot and mix up a large batch of the desired paints. Should see you through a fair amount of minis, without having to create the right balance every time.

As for painting dark armour, a mixture of black and metal for most of the surface and having brighter colours only on the very edges tends to look good.

Thanks for the advice!

I think I will use a mix of abaddon black and leadbelcher then, with some nuln oil just to create som 'free' contrast. And then leadbelcher and even brighter metal colours on edges.

I don't know if you were happy with the result you managed to get, but a modern approach would be to use a metal basecoat, covered in Black Templar Contrast Paint. I plan to do this for my Star Wars Legion guns (although I'm doing it over Stormhost Silver, so it shows a little more prominently, but over Leadbelcher will keep it dark). You can always Nuln Oil over the top or use two coats of Black Templar too - a little experimentation to find your exact preference.