Painting Bone - How?

[paladin7221]

Right.

 This yet another in the great list of 'Projects that will fall flat utterly.'

I have it in mind, when I have sufficient funds, to buy a Knight kit and do him up as a Khornate Now, to do this properly and in a little twist I want to paint the armour plates in bone. Mainly because this'll show the blood splatter off superbly. So, since my painting level is a cross between 'bloody awful' and 'mediocre' does anyone have any relatively easy to copy recipes for painting bone?

 Gw do their own 'Bone Paint' set comprising 5 or 6 colours for £12. But is this even viable? Their choice is (in descending order from basecoat):

 Zandri Dust, Seraphim Sepia, Ushabti Bone, Screaming Skull and Praxeti White.

I did think about the old skull white undercoat/sepia wash route but although it wworks okay on Termies, I'm really looking for something with a bit more depth to it.

 Opinions?

[Max_Dammit]

I just use bleach bone and coat it in a sepia wash and call it a day

[badfang]

For something the size of a knight you probably will need a bit more variation, the titles of the paints you listed don't mean squat to me but if you start burnt umber in the shadow areas, blend in more and more yellow ochre as you come out of the shadows and then blend white as you get to the highlights, let it dry, varnish it and finally wash with sepia you should be in with a chance - are you spraying or brushing?

[paladin7221]

Most likely brushing, don't have an airbrush and can't afford one, so was thinking of doing each plate separately and then a wash over the lot once assembled to tie them all together.

[Geifer]

For depth I'd recommend a basecoat of dark brown Dryad Bark is pretty cool for this) followed by a layer of medium, earthy brown (I used Graveyard Earth, no idea what the new equivalent is called) that paint on the inner part of an armor plate, leaving the dark brown visible between the metal trim and the inner area. So as not to get a simple line between the two browns, feather out the medium brown where the two colors meet (in the most simple way, drybrush it lightly, drybrush more heavy as you move into the inner section of the armor plate, and then put on paint regularly after that for the center).

I would then use Bleached Bone (or its new equivalent, what is it? Ushabti Bone?) to drybrush over the medium brown you painted on regularly, with a fainter border area and a more heavily drybrushed rest. This should give you a somewhat uneven bone color that has depth by having parts where the underlying brown shines through. After that you can pick out detail such as the edges of armor plates with undiluted Bleached Bone.

Frankly I'd stay away from a white finish because I find it to brighten the look too much, and I find it quite hard to put on without this effect since white is, well, very white.

Essentially, the good thing about this approach is that you only need three paints and still get a good bit of texture and depth, and it does not require any fancy painting technique.

[paladin7221]

Danke, mein Herr!

[Lord Draconiroth]

I do something similar. Base with Mournfang Brown, then layer Ushabti bone and highlight with white. It works well for random skulls but not so much for larger areas...

[Harkon Greywolf]

Personally for a large area I'd go with a Dheneb Stone base coat, washed with thinned Gryphonne Sepia from one light wash at the highlight areas to three or four (or more) washes at the "lowlight" areas. No idea what those paints ate in new money though.
The benefit of using thinned washes is the layering is easier and far more blended than actually feathering etc, and to my mind a heck of a lot easier. If you want variation in the undercoat, Dheneb Stoneand bleached bone, thinned, are good bone effects, prior to the very thin washes.

[Harkon Greywolf]

You can also layer a thinned coat of Agrax Earthshade for the shadows too.

[Harkon Greywolf]

Just thought also, you might want to look for a bone spray can for that smooth all the same look for all the armour pieces. GW used to do a bleached bone spray can, doubt they still do, but Army Painter probably have one. All the benefits of a smooth air brushed base coat without the hassle and cost of a gun!

[Lord Draconiroth]

GW only do: White, Black, Ultramarine Blue, Space Wolves Grey and Mournfang Brown, as spray cans now.

[Stretch]

Told you buddy. Give me a shout and I'll bring the airbrush to you. Get all your pre heresy world eaters done and now your knight

[paladin7221]

That's very kind, but wwaaaaaayyyyy in the future - have been building stuff for the local GW store's manager in lieu of being able to buy any stuff for me!

[Stretch]

Is he paying you in models?

[paladin7221]

Nope, I'm just doing it for something to kill time when I'm at the store. Seem to have lost all enthusiasm to do anything else, at the moment; even the super-heavy is on hold.