3 drops Vallejo metal color gold 2 drops Vallejo metal color copper 1/128th teaspoon Greenstuff World pure metal antique gold 1 drop flow improver saving for myself so I don't have to skim the video to come back to it. Great video!
I know this is an older video, but I just wanted to say that I finally got my antique gold in today and tried the recipe. It’s amazing. Cameras in no way do this paint justice. Cannot recommend highly enough
Just mixed up enough of this to fill it’s own dropper bottle. The color and coverage are incredible, its leagues above other gold paints. Thank you Vince!
It makes me just as happy to see GSW Gold Pigments being applied in a video as when using it myself. Best gold and copper products I have found so far. Great tip with the flow improver. I mixed it with metal gloss varnish as you have recommended and it dried out very quick on hot days. Will add a drop to mix from now on
That is exactly my experience. The original mix drying out faster than I would like. Some kind of retarder makes sense and the fact that flow improver can add a little glossiness is only a benefit in this case.
It will be helpful to look up gold leafing and antiquing tutorials, such as those used to reproducing antique gold art frames and moulding. Wood mouldings are typically underpainted with gesso primer, a red ochre or terracotta primer, and yellow ochre. The primers help with adhesion, and also smooth out the wood grain, so perhaps with miniatures they can be skipped, although I would try a thinned red ochre primer as it may help add warmth. Yellow ochre, though, is essential for disguising finely detailed areas in wood mouldings, where it can be tricky to place gold leaf. For miniatures, it would disguise streaking when used under gold paint. Similar to a tinted primer basecoat, like residential painters use under vibrant housepaints. Many, if not all, vibrantly coloured paints in all kinds of applications (including fine art, miniature painting, residential and commercial painting) benefit from a tinted undercoat. That is, an undercoat that is close to the final top coat, but made with an opaque base, usually white (tint) or black (shade), depending on the colour. The opaque base will not be as vibrant as the top coat, but is close enough that it will hide streaking. Then only 1 or 2 top coats of the final colour, thinned if necessary, can be used. The amount of pigment held in vibrant paints necessarily makes them translucent and prone to streaking. I'm curious if you've ever tried sizing and metal leaf, with sepia ink for aging, and what your results were. I've used metal leaf for jewellery, especially the tiny flakes, which are easier to apply than the squares. It's more annoying than paint, but much nicer results. I skip clear topcoats, as they just dull the finish. One project I did a topcoat for (ceiling medallion) ended up looking like spray paint in the end. I'm thinking of trying epoxy resin, but for miniatures, that wouldn't work.
I think it is important to remember that there is a difference between white, yellow, rose, and green golds, as well as differences between the karat. A 16 karat yellow gold will be more bright yellow, while a 22 karat gold looks more orange. All of these colors can be considered golds, just different karats or types. Seriously, look up pictures of the variants in real golds. Edited for typos.
This is so incredible. I usually avoided buying paints for specific recipe but this is something different. Only bad thing about this recipe is you can't mix it for future use. Mixed some and put it into bottle and after few months I got ground texture paint 😢
Hey Vince, any chance you can put a note in the description warning not to prebatch this stuff? I love the mix, but I just noticed that the bottle I prebatched explored and covered a whole row of my paint rack. Seems this is a behaviour noticed by a number of others and would be worth warning people about! Love your vids! You are great!
I was moderately surprised the ProAcryl ones weren't included, but just seeing the comparison of the others to the Metal Color had me go "yup, I'm just going to get some more Metal Color paints"
I knlw this is old but ive found if yoj cant get your hands on the pigment for the gold, use vallejo polished gold! Its almost the exact same pigment and its cheap as a one drop mixer. As always thanks Vince, making my hobby more enjoyable. Huge respect to you.
Wow, what an amazing result! Nice to have a literal golden nugget there to really showcase just how close (or not, rather) all these leading company "gold" products are. You'd think that someone, somewhere, somehow, one of these companies with all their resources, would have found a similar recipe or recipes to get a decent-looking gold paint on the market. I guess not! Great video as always, keep it up.
Ive seen alot of comments on here and Reddit where people are not getting the result they want with this mix, just a reminder you want to mix the Metal Color paints first, then mix in the Antique Gold pigment. This always works better for me and is what he did in the video.
Being unimpressed with the gold paint choices I was finding in my search today, I stumbled across this video. The two things that shocked me the most is just how bad some of these gold colors looked and varied right out of the bottle. The second thing that shocked me was the results of how gold this formula looks. Truly impressive and a real hidden treasure among youtube videos.
It's worth remembering that in a medieval/fantasy setting, the gold won't be high-purity modern metals, and different gold alloys do have fairly different colours. Not quite as different as _some_ of the paints there, but still worth noting.
Seems like that's what weathering, washing, chipping, and blending is for. To me, you should have a "pure" gold as a base to work from and then tarnish it or add inks etc to change it into a less pure gold if that's the look you're going for, rather than settle for a crappier paint that doesn't cover well and doesn't look like anything, let alone even an "impure" gold.
The Romans frequently changed the purity of their silver. Were all societies as advanced as the Romans? No. But ancient/ medieval societies did indeed know how to smelt metal and among those they were best at were gold and silver. Could they reach our 99.99% purity? No. But they could reach very high purities. Gold and silver melt at low temperatures. Iron and the making of steel are different that requires heat that acients and medieval metalsmiths would struggle to attain and maintain.
I have grown to despise all the trims and runes on various GW models that I would otherwise love, with passages of non stop brown basecoats on each and every model for the metals. This is just what i needed as always thanks a ton Vince
Love the new video format Vince and this was a great one. I think you’ve mentioned before that you just typically mix this to order, but do you think there would be any issues with mixing up a batch in a dropper bottle (for ease of airbrushing)?
Seconding for visibility, I considered the same thing. Not sure if the pigments would rust, they should be the only problem. Could do the other steps and add the pigments each time but thats the main part you'd want to avoid so...
I've pre-mixed them and they separate quite fast. Vortex mixer seems to do the trick here. Not sure about rusting pigments though. My mixes are quite fresh
@@1killer911 I've come to the conclusion that the GSW pigments inevitably rust and ruin the paint within a few months. Tried making a bottle of Vince's recipe a few times, tried just mixing a bottle of GSW pigments + Metal Color Medium, each just turned kind of reddish brown and dull after a while.
Finally had a chance to use this recipe and that shine is amazing! However the gold colour I get is not as warm as what is shown in the video, even after a few tries. I guess I have to try variations in the ingredient amounts.
Thanks for this! I've been finding my gsw metal pigments quickly get a bit gooey as I paint with the various mediums I've tried (master medium, gloss varnish, pure metal color paint) so hopefully the flow improver is the missing component!
Question: Would it be possible to premix a bottle of the stuff used at the end of the video? There's a reason why the pigments are sold without a medium?
I got my pigment in the mail earlier in the week and you are right, the coverage and color is amazing. I've been having fun trying different ratios of the VMC Gold, VMC Copper and GSW Antique Gold to find the hue that I like before I brew up a big batch. Thanks again for putting out amazing videos.
Your videos are great and I learned a lot watching them. But this time there is something I must remark. Gold is never used pure, because it is to soft to work with. Therefore Gold has different colours depending on the precise alloy. Grey Gold even looks like silver. But yes, you made the gold look in a way everyone would recognize it.
Im thinking of using this for my tomb kings would you bother to shade and highlight this combination? Im gonna follow through the older tomb kings guides the but the pre shading layering on the golds feel a little bit intimidating as a beginner painter.. :)
damn.. saw it in diff video where they said this is best gold. Had to look it up and daamn.. this is the gold. Had to order 2 vallejo colors and now need to wait and I am glad for it because tomorrow I wanted to pain gold on my minins but now I need to wait because it would be crime not to use your gold recept on them.
Vince, how would the pro acryl gold stack up to these? I just bought a big chunk of that line thanks to your previous recommendations and my perpetual paint lust including two metallic paints and I have to say the coverage for the gold is even better than Citadel's retributor armour which was my go to
Pretty much every acrylic metallic paint that isn't VMC or the newish GSW pigments compares poorly to those paints in one facet or another or multiples. The pro acryl metallics have good opacity but they look much worse than VMC/GSW. Think they're still using mica in the mix for the sheen and it's just too big a particle to get that next level sheen.
I bought a bottle of Vallejo Gold. If I mix everything, the values should be approximately: Vallejo Gold bottle: 32ml (640 drops) Ration to Copper 3:2 so (32/3*2): 21.3 ml Copper Gold pigment 1/128 tsp (640 Drops Gold are 213 runs) 213/128 tsp => 1.664 tsp so 1 tsp, ½ tsp, 1/16 tsp (213 Runs => 213 Drops flow improver)
Seems about right, but I would say I generally don't like mixing up too much, it will expand over time once mixed potentially unless the bottle is really air tight.
Retributor armor is still my go to for basing gold. Its color for a base for other golds, is all round good, and since I mostly do base, layer, highlight, rather than just basing one color; it really just fits my personal needs. But when I do go for a good gold: Gehenna’s gold is my out right favorite. Its a rich cherry red-gold, with a really nice glisten. Sure, its a layer paint, so its thinner than another paint by xyz company, but it’s color is not one that hasn’t been matched yet. Thank you for the vid! I still really liked your mix, may give it a try when I go to restock my paints!
At first, when you said you had to return the gold nugget brooch, I was like "okay PLOT TWIST this is where Vince pulls out his pigment grinder and puts it on the desk!" I have been using the 3 drops of VMC gold + 2 drops of VMC copper since I learned about it from you, so good. This pigment puts it over the top!
After some second guessing my choices, and my bad luck, I think I'll be buying the stuff you listen for this recipe. I bought 2 gold colours and a silver from other brands. NONE looked like the picture on the website(s), they were anything but gold (all more green-ish brown and barely any shine) and I do not have much finds just to waste them on 'test buying'. XD The few things I will need to paint gold in my sculpting and painting adventures will definitely be few, so I'd rather invest in an actual gold-looking recipe than gambling the few funds I have away for useless crap. Thank you SO much for your help!
No doubt this is the best looking gold I've seen by a mile. However I'd prefer not to have to buy several different products to make one paint (costwise) Time for Vince to release a metallic paint range guys?? 😃
Excellent work. Can't wait till you cover copper. I love the particular vibrancy and shade of Screaming bell but it takes 3 god damn coats and on Chaos thats a lot of trim to go over 3 times.
Vince the Alchemist. I wonder how long it takes until one of the manufacturers asks you to become their consultant. You save everyone so much time and trouble. I can't express my gratitude enough and hope I'll be lucky enough to attend one of your courses in person in the future.
When I first cracked open my Model Color metallic paints they seemed to work like a champ. Now not so much and I am considering taking them out of my paint collection.
Great video! Its not as good as your mix but sometimes if I just want something super quick for a small area, I cheat and use the gold Sakura pen touch paint markers. Its a pigment ink so it levels out very nicely if you put it on wet enough.. I’m not sure if it’s acrylic ink, but I’ve used it w/o any problem on top and beneath acrylic paint/primer and even with acrylic based varnish on top. The reflectivity is much higher than the acrylic paints, so it looks more real, but wouldn’t be a good choice if you’re going for a matte look.
Brass next? Lots of "gold" coloured armour accents were brass/latten. I'd love to see what the best single coat brass or brass recipe you've found. Thanks for your work on this.
Vince ive been watching your HC videos since you were in the high 90s and your production quality has gone such a long way. It has been a fun and very educational adventure and im very much looking forward. Over the past years ive learnt so much from you and ive grown as a painter. Thanks for your effort and i wish you all the best!
I just got my greenstuff world order of antique gold to use with the other ingredients, I have to say, You got the perfect formula right here. This gold is amazing.
I do wish my computer allowed me better visuals of the different golds, it's likely my settings combined with well metal colours. Still a very lovely video and helpful as anything. I truly think "Balthasar Gold" is just bronze - that's what I always use it for, or a type of bronze anyway. Really glad you mentioned the GS pigments that's exactly what I was wondering about when you started making your own gold. And holy god is that such a difference. It's absolutely gorgeous. I don't think I'm every going back (well except to lacquer golds in airbrush, but that's way different). It's just amazing, my jaw literally dropped at the end. Thanks so much once again!
I just tried this after waiting a couple weeks waiting on shipping and holy smokes does this look so good! Thanks again vince my stormcast eternals are going to SHINE
This will definitelly help on the Protoss color scheme I'm gonna try to do, all the other gold are so dull and boring, this will make it so much better, thank you very much
So I've been using the gold+copper approach, and it has the advantage, I think, that you can adjust the mix to get that reddish effect on the insides of creases. I guess that still applies to the new recipe. About the colour-others here have noted that (of course) “gold” comes in redder, whiter and greener varieties, but-I get the feeling that some of the paint manufacturers may have spent less time polishing the silverware and, well, being thankful that they don't need to put so much effort into the gold and gold plated pieces than some of us (speaking purely as a clergy kid, here ;) ).
I was afraid to check how expensive must be the pure metal antique gold powder... It turns out that it is rather cheap, so this recipe suddenly got much, much more interesting!
Hey Vince, I've mentioned it some other places, but I put the antique gold in molotow liquid chrome. Works for a super shiny light gold, and I know you like shiny. Expensive and a bit impractical though.
Thank You Vince, I have been using the Retributor Armour for edge details on my Sisters of Battle and it has not been as I would have wanted, always looks "too thick", so I will give this a try
Funny, I just picked up some VMA copper for my Death Guard (and I'm beyond impressed by how good it is) but now I can mix some VMA gold that isn't green, great for Custodes. Thanks for the tips!
more secrets from the book of Vincent! I may have to order the Metal Colour gold/copper and the green stuff pigment from overseas, always very difficult to find in NZ. The shift to metal colours as even just a base makes life so much easier. Generally I find the Scale 75 golds good for blending etc, but I usually start with Necro gold for the base, and build up with some of the other golds.
I guess you won't read a comment from a year old video, but just wanted to thank you, Vince, for this recipe. Finally a gold paint that looks great! The search is over. Other than that, thank you also in general, because you have been my virtual mentor for quite a long time now. Your channel has been my main source of mini painting knowledge :) I did enjoy your older unedited video format better, though. Less views, i suppose. I get it. But nonetheless... ;)
Well that was for a typical yellow gold but depending upon what it is mixed with Gold can be anywhere in color from white to red. Gold is too soft to be used as pure so it is usually mixed with copper or zinc or silver.
TBH I've always just achieved gold with a 3 layer strategy. I mix a light copper with gold and yellow, then yellow and the gold, then finally just the pure gold. I've achieved some decent shading doing this in addition to fixing the weaknesses of the gold. Another strategy that I've seen some success is to simply use a wet pallet, put the gold on and over time let the medium evaporate, leaving just gold pigment and water, gives much better coverage.
Finally got all this crazy Gold making Denmark Paint in!!!!! Time to prime and paint this weekend!!!!! Wish I could send you pics 😂. An entire Warhammer army has been bought, built, and about to be painted just because of this video 😂🙏🏽
Balthazar Gold - An explanation! This paint is a base coat, intended to be paired with a second layer paint Gehenna's Gold on top. The effect isn't too bad. This was the paint generation before Retributor, liberator, Auric etc. So technically this wasn't a fair comparison except your goal is a single layer so it may not qualify in the first place. Thank you for the video, I think your home made paint is great. Of the premades who was the winner in your opinion?
Good to know, I was not aware of that history. :) - My honest answer is I don't really like any of them. That being said, the closest were the Dark Star and the Green Stuff World.
Can I just say how relaxing I found this video, I have watched it only RU-vid knows now many times. I have some questions if you don't mind. 1) how dose the gold recipe you used with metal color + pigment compare to the gold pigment + varnish recipe? 2) will these destroy good brushs (even with soap) as what I want to use it on the lots of intricate details on my model. 3) could you paint over silver and add a bunch of flow improver to make it act like a contrast? 4) how dose puting a wash over this effect its finish? and is there a best type, I.e citadel, inks, oils. 5) will you get better results painting over painting over gloss black? If so could you paint over metal color black steel instead and how would it affect the result? 6) the gold is my base colour and one of the colours I will be painting over is white, any advice for how to go about this?
1) I think it's better and easier to work with, but both are good. 2) Yes 3) I have never tried that, but I doubt it, it's quite opaque so that will be a challenge. 4) I never wash this, mediums over the gold ruin the finish. I apply careful glazes and targetted shading. 5) Won't make a difference. 6) Paint an opauqe mid-tone grey over those areas first and then build up to the white.
You can get the pigments from GSW directly, works out at a comparable cost to buying in the UK when you take into account postage. Took about a week to arrive for me, no tax/fees.
i remember you did the video on the green stuff gold pigment, i purchased 3/4 cuz the store was sold out of the antique gold. Only one store in Canada caries them and they're still sold out. but i find it works really nice. You gave me an idea to mix the gold with the copper pigments and the vallejo metal varnish.
This video inspired me to do a little experiment of my own. Instead of expensive GSW pigment, I tried some cheap, but still very finely ground Amazon generic pigment. The result of just adding a tiny bit to some otherwise low coverage Testors airbrush gold was absolutely amazing. This technique is a keeper!
Thanks for going over these paints, I've tried a whole lot of different paint brands looking for good gold and silver metallic and I've definitely found them to be really hard to find. Your mix looks perfect, I'm definitely going to have to try it out for myself. In my experience the best gold paint I've ever used so far is model master gold enamel paint, and the best in acrylic is Golden Iridescent Rich Gold, they're fantastic. I do have a bottle of Army Painter greedy gold for comparison and it's awful compared to them. Regarding the colour inaccurate golds they can still make sense for fantasy since gold alloys can vary significantly in colour from pure gold. It would be interesting to see if it would be practical to actually gild a miniature, the fine details might make it impractical since applying gold leaf works best on a smooth surface, but it would be cool to have a true gold comparison.
Retributor armor is my go to for a tarnished looking gold that's easy to use for power armor or other types of armor filigree. I've not come to an insance where I'd need a really clean and true looking gold. I know what I'm going to grab in order to do it though I'm hesitant to give greenstuff world any money because I don't like their practices as a company
So, straight from the pot/bottle I agree with you. But I would consider the Proacryl golds + flow improver. It's a simpler recipe and the results are great (works for their copper and bronze too). Great vid as always Vince.
@@VinceVenturella I thought they were garbage at first, but 50/50 with flow aid won me over. I still use metal color for steel/silver of course (thanks for that tip btw)
This video is amazing. I also thought the Vallejo metal gold doesn't look quite right, but I never thought to mix in copper. I may have to buy that pigment powder and mix a bottle of gold! Thank you!
I have been trying out mixing my different gold and metal paints for so long trying to make a nice gold... Thanks for the video I will switch to your mix. Looks super nice.
