hey everyone,

for my dio i am up to painting my figs, and i want to paint their helmets however i am stuck, i have been doing dioramas for a few years now and i have never mastered the art of painting helmets good. i want to make them look like they are actually metal, i dont just mean getting some grey lead and making a few scratch marks, is there thing i can add to the paint to make the helmet actually look like metal and not just cast plastic painted with humbrol paint?

thnx

Matt

Hmmm. Not too sure what you mean but Humbrol Metal Coat works for me. Just paint (with a very fine brush) along the edge of the helmet, wait a few minutes until dry then buff up with a spare short bristled brush. Looks a treat!

Matt

Hi Matt,

If I understand correctly you want to give the grey paint on the helmet that shine it gets because it covers metal. Not the effect of bear metal because the paint is scratched off.

This can be achieved by coating the gray paint in satin varnish (humbrol 135)

Cheers,

Pascal

You could try using some enamel based steel paint like model master as a base coat. Let that dry, then cover the helmet with a second coat of an acrylic based grey paint. once the grey paint is dry, take a scotch brite pad or some fine steel wool and gently "scratch" around the rim or other areas to expose the base color steel paint. You can finish it off by drybrushing whatever kind of dust or pigment you like based on what the ground color is in your diorama. Im not sure if this is what your looking for, but hopefully it helps. You could be humorous and even add a spot of bird doodoo. As Forest Gump said "it happens" LOL

When you have painted the helmet in any humbrol color you prefer let it cure and rooll it a couple of times between your fingers. The grease of your fingers will leave a semi gloss sheen on the helmet and then it looks just like a metal helmet

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

You can rub the painted surface with a little of your skin oil to kill the dead flat finish, or just polish the painted surface with a cotton tee shirt for a few seconds--much easier than spraying different varnishes, and you will get the slight sheen seen on most painted metal surfaces. On the other hand, the fabric of the uniforms should be dead flat, as the weave of the coarse fabric scatters light (exceptions would be silks and satins, but they weren't generally used for miltary uniforms, at least not in the 20th Century). This will look like the varying reflectance you see on real military gear, and eliminate the sense that the entire figure is just painted plastic. And of course, NEVER paint a metal object the same color as a piece of cloth, even if they are supposed to match the same color standard. In the real world, a paint pigment is simply never going to match a batch of fabric dye. So a Field Gray helmet will never match a Field Gray jacket, and an Olive Drab helmet will never match an Olive Drab shirt. In fact, the varying articles of uniform almost never came from the same batch of fabric (unless it is a privately tailored officer's uniform), so each item of clothing can be painted a subtly different shade--just a drop of black, white or any primary color will change the color slightly for each jacket and trouser, for instance. If you look at the color photos of reenactors in full gear, you'll see just how much variety there was (Europa Militaria publishes a series of photo books which include original period uniforms worn by live models--they're worth investing in).

thnx guys, yes hut , thats exactly what i mean and i have painted them and given them that shine and they look great.

however a friend of mine (lestweforget) once showed me some of his us troops and he painted their helmets in a way that they really did look made of metal, they were the same figs as mine and he had his helmtes looking made of metal without even having that shine effect, and he just said he got lucky.


anyway, they look just as good and convincing, so thank you guys.

Matt

Matt,

You can also use painted chips or drybrush the edges with a dark metal colour.

I have had good results using the sponge method, using a piece of the scouring pad that is on the back of a sponge, when dipped in some dark metal paint , the excess blotted off on kitchen roll and then touched to the surface of the helmet, or indeed a vehicle. This produces a myriad of small sratches that can look really good, especially if you polish afterwards to the satin finish.

Try some ideas on some scrap helmets and parts of kits from the spares box sprayed the appropriate base colour.

John