A few weeks ago, Darkstar Hobbies kindly sent me a set of their Molten Metals paints to try out.
The range consists of 27 water based metallic paints as well as 8 Precious Stones, 4 Shades and a thinner so you can use them through an airbrush if you want to. The paints are supplied in 17ml dropper bottles with chunky, easy to grip lids and come pre-loaded with agitators to help ensure smooth consistency without having to shake them until your wrist cramps up.
The metals have been designed to work in triads, with a Core colour that you use as the main colour of the area you are painting, a Shade colour which is for areas where there will be lower light and a Highlight colour for the edges and lighter areas of the metallic areas.
This is a system that will no doubt be familiar to a lot of painters and the tones in each triad complement each other brilliantly.
In this triad, Blue Steel is the Shade, Baroque the Core and Bright Steel the Highlight. This is a nice simple system and coupled with the Midnight Shroud shade, they give a lovely silver Steel finish.
In picking something to try out the Molten Metals for the first time, I wanted a miniature that would allow me some freedom to experiment and an Across the Realms Plate Armoured Foot Knight I'd picked up recently seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
Darkstar recommend using Molten Metals over a black undercoat for best results, so after priming the Knight with a rattlecan, I broke out the paints and got stuck in!
As a lot of the armour plate would be silver, I started out by basecoating all of it with Blue Steel. I was really impressed with the coverage of this paint as I had a smooth and even basecoat with just a couple of thin layers.
Once I was happy with the basecoat, I applied a shade of Midnight Shroud over the whole miniature to get some definition re-established and dull down the metal for the next steps I had in mind. Now, I'll say up front that what follows is purely down to operator error and not a fault with the paints, but it was a good lesson to learn early in using them so I figure it's worth passing on.
Once the shade had dried, I drybrushed the armour plates with Blue Steel, then Baroque and then Bright Steel but I was a) a little heavy handed and b) not using a soft enough drybrush so the finish I worked up on the armour was rather grainy. I was able to correct my mistakes by thinning down some Baroque with water and using it to smooth the transitions out before using Bright Steel to pick out all the edges of the armour.
Lesson learned, I thought I'd try out another colour, starting with the bronze gorget and besegews using the Bronze Triad.
The Blackened Bronze went over the silvered area perfectly and the opacity being such that a couple of thin layers was all it took before I was ready to move on to feathering on a layer of Copper and then highlighting the edges with Antique Gold. Rather then using it as an all over shade, I used Murky Mire to dull down the area near the bottom of the gorget getting a very pleasing finish really quickly.
Having played with a couple of the Molten Metals, I figured I needed to get some other colours in play so I could get a sense of where the mini was going, so set about blocking them in and working them up using Citadel Paints ‐ other paint ranges are available of course - I had absolutely no trouble painting over the Molten Metals as I did this and it's worth mentioning that Darkstar specifically note that because they are water based acrylics you can use and mix them with acrylics from any other manufacturers, which means you can slot them in alongside your existing hobby supplies to suit your painting style and tastes.
The final triad I tried out on this mini was the Graphite, Pewter and Silver one which I used for the silver metals on the musket and was really pleased with the slightly blued finish.
Although I haven't used any of them yet, I think it's worth calling out the Precious Stones paints - while the obvious uses for them might be gemstones and jewels, I think they could be great to use on the armour plates of robots and automata or for metallic schemes like Thousand Sons Space Marines. I'm definitely looking forward to giving them a try on a future project!
So, what are my thoughts on the Molten Metals overall?
As a painter that regularly uses metallic paints in projects, I have to say I'm very impressed by the thought that's gone into the design of the range. The design of the dropper bottles means that you'll get well mixed paint every time with minimal wastage.
The way that the triads have been put together means that whatever metallic finish you're looking for, you'll be able to achieve it and all of the tones can be freely mixed so you can create your own tones incredibly easily. The paints thin well and the pigment is very fine so they dry to a smooth finish and they can easily paint over or be painted over other acrylic paints all of which make the Molten Metals a great addition to the 'hobby toolbox'.
From a price point, (which can always be a bone of contention among hobbyists) Molten Metals will set you back £3.99 a bottle at the RRP. For comparison, Citadel 12ml pots RRP is £2.75 while Army Painter 18ml bottles RRP is £2.50 and Two Thin Coats 15ml bottles RRP is £3.95, so I think Darkstar have priced them pretty competitively, especially when you take into account the built in agitators in the bottles and the volume of paint you get.
Would I recommend picking some up? If you regularly use metallic paints then absolutely, just like any hobby product they'll take a little experimentation to find a way to integrate them into your painting repertoire, but they're forgiving enough that even that will be enjoyable.
If you fancy trying out Darkstar Molten Metals yourself, you can order them here. At the time of writing you can get a wee saving on triads and sets over buying individual paints.
Until next time, thanks for reading and happy hobbying!
Comments
Post a Comment