Easy Painting Tricks for Cool Knights and Armored Warriors

Fighting Knights

You can make variations with this method.

Many hobbyists are content to give their miniature knights’ armor a coat of metallic paint. There are easy techniques you can use to make better miniature knights and armored warriors. I learned this one

For knights and armored fighters: paint the armor flat black. You can follow up in several ways.

1) Paint the armor a flat black.

2) Dry brush lightly over the black with Silver, Aluminum or Steel color

3) Optional - you may paint certain details in a Steel color: helmet, elbow armor, atc

4) Go over the figure with Rub n‘ Buff silver or drybrush very lightly with Silver-colored paint to expose details.

For bronze-colored armor on Knights or others, here are some tricks

Bronze and Silver Knight

1) Paint the armor a dark bronze tone

2) Get Antique Gold and drybrush lightly, or use Rub N Buff Antique Gold.

Bronze and Silver knights using the above techniques. Knight second from left used a different method.

Optional methods for Bronze armor.: You can paint the armor  a very dark brown, then follow with moderately drybrushing a Bronze color. Finish by either: a) lightly drybrushing with a Gold tone such as Antique Gold, or b) apply Antique Gold or Gold Rub N’ Buff to hit the highlights.

Despite a poor photograph, these Greeks benefitted from this technique.

I usually apply Rub N’ Buff with a fingertip. First, I rub it on paper to thin it out, which makes a lighter coating. Practice with cheap figures to get the feel for it.

As the photos illustrate, these techniques allow a lot of variety. They are versatile. You can go from knights that are mostly black to others that are almost silver, and any shade in between. Bronze knights can range from dark bronze to almost gold. Practice with cheap figures to get the hang of varying the color.

For cloth, such as hauberks and cloaks, do as with other clothing. Paint the item a base color. Let it dry for at least 24 hours. The apply a wash of a darker shade of that color. You may follow up by touching up highlights - tops of folds, etc. -  with the base color.

Learn to paint some of the common Medieval heraldic objects such as birds, fleur de lis, stylized lions, etc. You can paint them on shields, hauberks, and horse gear.

Diagonal Pattern and Bird Motif