Mu 60/Tutorial - Scale75 Metal and Alchemy Steel Series + Inktensity

Good Morning Jungle Painters,

it's about time to bring up your choice from last weeks tutorial voting. Most of you voted for a closer look on Scale75 Metal colours. The MV-Team are using the Scale75's for a while now and Raffa and Roman will now bring you some thoughts about these high praised colours.

This article is mainly about the Scale75 Metal and Alchemy Steel Set, but also takes a little look on the Inkensity Set in the end of the write up. You can also spot the Flesh Paint Set in some photos, but this will be a different article one day as more tests are to be done.

This article is a bit a Material Unpacked as far as you can unpack colours without a big mess and gives tutorial guides here and there. Article is written by Roman, but thoughts of Raffa and him are to be found in this article.

Enjoy!
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Okay, let's get it on with the article. I told you I'd explain the colours on the recent model I have painted from Terrible Kids Stuff and I will do, but later on. First things first and I think it is important to look at the colours first.

I had my first encounter with the Scale75 metal colours back on my painting class in Blumberg-Achdorf, but before I dig deeper in my first expression let's say that the jungle is doing mucho experiments with metal colours as you can see in Raffa's article:

Metallic Colour Comparision Chart
A collection of the results by different metal colour brands! Huge!

Unfortanetely the Scale75 colours were published a good while after this article, so you won't find them on that colour chart, but I think you get the point I'd like to explain: We are no noobies when it comes to metal colours.

Ok, back to Blumberg-class where I did put a drop of the Scale 75's Black Metal on my wetpalette for the first time to test them right in the class. If you do not want to feel like an idiot in front of a full class prepare a toothpick as these colours will be delivered sealed and you have to break them open with your tool of choice.

My first impression was: Well, I'd call it a colour orgasm. From the first look on I was in love with this metal tone, its high number of fine pigments and its brilliance.

Pfffrrddd!

Since then we are doing tests and use them more frequently in the jungle HQ as we really like these colours. The metal tones are great and really well chosen, as a painter who paints eight hours a day since years I can say that you really feel that these colours have been developed with great thoughts and painting wisdom by the choice of the tones you find in the set (sorry, forgot the purple Alchemy in the photo!!):


The basic metal tones from left Black Metal to Speed Metal work really well if you work your true metallic metals from dark to bright. The White Alchemy is great for some shiny dots or edge highlights while you can use the Alchemy metal tones to bring some colour play in your metals.

Painting True Metallic Metal

An introduction into the theme of painting with real metal colours.

 

... but there is one big problem all Scale75 colours have: Their mix. It does not matter if it is the metal set or the skin or leather set. Their mix provides the colours - beside the metals - with a really matte finish when painted. And often if you used them not daily these Scale75 colours change in their bottles. The pigments descent to the bottom of the bottle while their binder is staying up, often all colour by Scale75 look like this:

This colour is in no state to paint with it as it is not mixed properly. Now it is shaking time and I wished that Scale75 thought about this problem and would have added Agigator Metal balls to their bottles for example those by PK-Pro. There are non and so shaking becomes a hard task to get these colours ready.

Raffa went straight forward and used the drill machine with a bend wire piece for this task:

Open carefully ... sorry, for the blurry focus:

 Dsccchhhhh!!!

Following you can see how a proper mixed Scale75 colour should look like (middle) compared to an umixed one (left):

Well, this is truely annoying, but unavoidable, if you want to use these colours right and with the power they got. We used some of the steel set and some of the gold set for example for the awards of the Forged Hope Program.

Well, ok. The matte dry some of the regular sets have is great as the colours really dry beautifully matte on your model and it is great to work on top of them. A quick jump away from the metals to show you another problem you might encounter with all paint sets by Scale75 (which also appears with the metal tones btw): They dry fast, even if you put them on your wetpalette. This comes from their mixture again. Something in it, that makes them so matte makes them fade away in about three hours on your palette and there is only dusty dry colour left:

This problem is solved easily: Paint them :)

And that is what we do right away. Let's have a look back on the metals. Black Metal is Roman's favourite colour, why? It is a great start for metals, dark and so fine pigmented that it leaves a great surfaces to work on top of it - have a look at this early WIP to see the effect Black Metal has on black prepared armour parts:

Now adding a little bit of Heavy Metal to it to get these first light situtation sketches up to the your basic metal tone:

Well, really cool for some minutes of work. Now let's head over to the "Vampire guy" from Terrible Kids Stuff. The base was build rather simple with the provided resin part and some wood parts I broke out of the plinth.

After this the model was primed grey with Vallejoy primer as there was no black one at hand - I prepared the head for painting on its own - why? You will see in the next step:

As that guy is full of armour I decided to spray some Heavy Metal on top of him with my airbrush. The Scale75 colours are thinned well with Scale75 thinner and so I did in my airbrush - everything silver now!!!!

Next was cleaning the airbrush properly and heading for black metal to spray shadows with it to the model - still looks like a silver trophy!

Next I decided to test the Inktensity black in my - again - cleaned airbrush. Make sure to really clean your gun well if you spray metal tones. And wow, first impression on the Inktensity Colours are: Damn, they are intense!! Have to take more care or thin them more...

I now went for some Vallejo Colours to bring in a little bit seperation in the project before I worked further. Fabric, base, skin and leather parts recieved their basic colours:

Now I went for the Inktensity again with the brush to give the metals interesting tones, really testing the Inks was my goal here and well, yeah they have power. If you want to achieve gentle effects with them use them thinned down with water properly. I did not in the initial start of my tests, but learned from it ...

I had to rework some of the metals again where the inks took too much focus, for example his leg armour:

Last steps included an overall general clean up, detail work and some blood splatters. It is definatly fun to work with the metal steel set and the Inketensity Set. Highly recommended if you avoid awkward painting moments by mixing them properly before use.

Let us know your experiences with the Scale75 colours?
Your thoughts on our explanations here?

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman and Raffa