Painting Tip: Black Fabric...

Thought I might throw out a nugget of my painting wisdom (such as it is) today. I'd like to offer up my favourite way of painting black fabric.

Black is a difficult colour to paint well as you'll have all kinds of fun choosing a highlight colour to mix into the black. White or grey is the obvious choice but it gives a very flat look to the black and I rarely use it. Too dull for solid items such as armour and underwhelming on cloth. I'm going to pick out cloth today. For me cloth needs a certain soft flatness to it but with a little something to lift it from the obvious grey route...

I start with a good few thinned coats of Chaos Black, usually over black primer. The coats of black paint give a nicer surface to work over than just using the primer as the basecoat (though that's a handy timesaver if painting armies). Then I layer on the highlights with thinned paint. My paint of choice for this purpose? Dwarf Flesh! Yes, it may sound a little odd but flesh tones are great for highlighting black. On the first few layers they're not noticeably different to using grey though it's perhaps a little softer. As you add more and more a warmth enters the mix and gives the fabric a faintly worn quality without making it look tatty. Give it a try, even if it's just on your paint palette.

You can see the effect on my Empire Greatsword above.

Oh, and bonus feature. For a deep and fantastical, cold black try highlighting by adding Hawk Turquoise.