Black armour is one of the hardest surfaces to paint well, and the reason is structural. With any other colour you build form using both shadow and light. With black you have almost no room below the base colour, so every bit of readable shape has to come from highlights alone.
That constraint is what produces the two classic failures: armour so dark it reads as a featureless silhouette, or armour so heavily highlighted it has turned grey. This guide is about finding the space between them.
Why black is different
On a mid-blue model, you can shade down towards a dark blue and highlight up towards a pale blue. You have range in both directions and the midtone sits comfortably in the middle.
Black sits at the bottom of the value scale. There is nowhere darker to go. So the entire illusion of form, panel edges, curvature, depth, has to be built upward from black using progressively lighter greys, while somehow keeping the armour reading as black rather than as dark grey.
The resolution is proportion. Black armour looks black when most of its surface area remains genuinely dark and the lighter values are confined to narrow, deliberate places.
Do not highlight everything grey
This is where most black armour goes wrong. The painter highlights every edge, then adds a second highlight, and by the end more than half the visible surface is some shade of grey. The model reads as grey armour with black recesses, which is a completely different material.
A rough guide: aim to keep somewhere around three quarters of each panel at or very near true black. Highlights occupy the remaining quarter, concentrated on upper edges and the parts of curves that face the light.
If you step back and the overall impression is grey, you have gone too far. Glaze a thinned black back over the panel faces and re-establish narrower highlights.
A recipe structure
Colours described generically, because the principle matters more than the specific paint:
- Base: black, or a very dark near-black. Two thin coats over primer.
- First highlight: a dark grey, applied to upper edges and the crests of curves. This should be clearly lighter than the base but still unmistakably dark.
- Second highlight: a lighter grey, applied as a narrower line on top of the first, only on the most prominent edges.
- Optional spot highlight: a small amount of a much lighter grey or off-white, on corners and the sharpest points only. Four or five places on the whole model.
Each stage should cover less area than the one before. If your second highlight is as broad as your first, you are painting grey armour.
Note that shading is largely absent from this list. On black armour, a wash usually does very little except dull the highlights you just placed. If you want deeper recesses, use a very dark colour applied specifically into them rather than an all-over shade.
Cool, neutral and warm black
Pure neutral grey highlights are the obvious choice and also the least interesting. Biasing your highlight greys towards a hue gives the armour a character, and it is one of the easiest ways to make a black scheme distinctive.
| Variant | Highlight bias | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Cool black | Greys mixed towards blue or blue-violet | Clinical, cold, slightly sinister. Reads well under white lighting and pairs with cool accents. |
| Neutral black | Pure greys | Honest and understated. The safe default and the most obviously "black". |
| Warm black | Greys mixed towards brown, or a warm grey | Softer, more organic, suits weathered or field-worn armour and warm accent colours. |
Pick one and keep it consistent across the army. Mixing cool and warm blacks between models makes a force look inconsistent even when nothing else changes. Our guide to choosing an army colour scheme covers making that decision alongside your accent colours.
Edge highlighting black armour
Edge highlighting is the primary tool here, and it needs to be more restrained than on any other colour.
Keep lines thin. On a mid-tone colour a slightly thick highlight is forgiving; on black it immediately reads as grey. Use the side of the brush along panel edges rather than trying to draw with the tip, and trim the line afterwards by running thinned black along either side of it.
Be selective about which edges get treated. Upper edges yes, downward-facing edges rarely, and undersides almost never. Our guide to edge highlighting covers brush control and the trimming technique in detail.
Volumetric highlights
Edge highlights define where a surface ends. Volumetric highlighting defines the shape of the surface itself, and it is what makes a curved pauldron look round rather than like a flat shape with a bright rim.
The concept is straightforward even if the execution takes practice. Instead of confining your lighter grey to the very edge, allow it to spread slightly across the part of the surface that faces upward, fading out as the surface turns away from the light. On a shoulder pad lit from above, that means the top third of the curve is subtly lighter, blending down into black at the bottom.
You do not need blending skill to approximate this. Apply the grey as a soft band, then glaze thinned black over its lower edge until the transition softens. Two or three glazes will do it.
Weathered black armour
Weathering suits black particularly well, because chips and dust introduce the lighter values that black otherwise lacks, without turning the panels grey.
Keep it restrained. A few small chips along the edges most likely to take impact, painted as a tiny irregular shape in a mid grey with an even smaller lighter mark inside it, reads convincingly. Dust or mud concentrated at the feet and lower legs adds value contrast where it makes sense.
The failure mode is uniform chipping across every panel, which reads as texture rather than damage. Damage should be concentrated where damage would actually occur.
Black armour and metallic weapons
This is the pairing that causes the most trouble, because a bright steel weapon against black armour has enormous contrast, and the weapon takes over the model visually.
Three ways to manage it:
- Darken the metal. Shade the metallics substantially so they sit closer in value to the armour. A dark, heavily shaded steel reads as metal without shouting.
- Separate by hue rather than value. A brass or bronze weapon against cool-highlighted black armour separates by warmth rather than brightness, which is much easier on the eye.
- Use the contrast deliberately. If you want the weapon to be the focal point, let it be bright, and then keep everything else on the model restrained so there is only one focus.
Our guide to painting metallics covers shading and controlling metallic brightness.
Frequently asked questions
Should I prime black for black armour?
It is the obvious choice and it saves time, since the base coat is largely done. The trade-off is that any other colours on the model, particularly light ones, will need more coats. If the model is mostly black, prime black. If black is only part of the scheme, grey may serve you better overall.
Do I need to wash black armour?
Usually not. An all-over wash on black has little to darken and mostly succeeds in dulling your highlights. If you want deeper recesses, apply a very dark colour directly into them instead.
My black armour looks flat. What is wrong?
Almost always insufficient highlight contrast rather than too much. If the surface reads as one undifferentiated black mass, your first highlight is too close in value to the base. Go one step lighter, but keep the area narrow.
My black armour looks grey. What is wrong?
Too much highlighted area, not too bright a highlight. Narrow the lines and glaze thinned black back over the panel faces.
Is black armour good for a first army?
It is fast to base coat and forgiving of coverage errors, which helps. It is unforgiving of highlight placement, which does not. A reasonable middle path is a very dark grey base rather than pure black, which gives you a little room to shade downward as well as up. Our guide to painting white armour covers the mirror-image problem.
Independent guide published by Blubbercove Ltd/WarSplay. This article is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, authorised by or licensed by Games Workshop Limited. Warhammer 40,000 is a trade mark of Games Workshop Limited.