Having trouble painting yellows on your minis? Check out a very easy way to paint yellow on almost anything by starting with browns and oranges first.
Today we are painting Warlord Titan armor plates with some yellow paint after previously adding our base coat and shades. Get your airbrush ready to build up some rich yellows without even using yellow paint at first! Yellow can be a very tricky paint to work with, but with a little work you can really make it pop!
Let’s start off by talking about our paint recipe for the some of the best yellows out there!
Brown Basecoat
The perfect combo of paint that makes your yellows really pop uses a recipe adapted from Kenny Boucher using Reaper Paint Harvest Brown and Orange Brown. This yellow combo utilizing brown paint has been used on Rob’s Iron Warriors to great effect, so it will work great for our yellow Warlord Titan armor.
Load up your Reaper Brown mix into your airbrush and get started laying down a base coat of brown first.
Yellow Highlights
Now add about 50% Citadel Flash Gits Yellow to the brown in your airbrush pot, and hit the major areas of the armor plates but leave a little of the darker brown yellow showing in the recesses. Then add a little bit more of Flash Gits Yellow to the pot for more yellow richness and re-apply the mix to the more raised areas of the armor plate only.
Start by painting around the front face of the armor plate, working well around the Titan heraldry. You want a nice build up of paint, so don’t be afraid to get in there. After finishing this step, your yellow base coat is finished.
Don’t be afraid to do two coats of each step in the yellow recipe because sometimes if your spray it too translucent the fade will look at bit “flat”. Also be careful of applying straight Flash Gitz yellow, as it is a very overpowering shade once applied at full strength over a build-up of basecoats.
Time for Orange
Clean out your airbrush paint pot and get ready for your next paint highlight of the Orange Brown. Paint it around the edges of the trim, and the Opus Titanicus as well.
This layer will look at bit “stark” so you will then want to clean out your pot and mix up that last round of yellow you did, (probably about 75% Flash Gitz 25% Harvest Brown) and “cut back” the orange a bit with some targeted spraying. If your yellow highlights look a bit off after your cutbacks, continue to add more yellow to the pot until you hit the right color match to fix your highlights of yellow.
Control is the name of the game here, be brave, but don’t be afraid to mess up and try again as well. We used an H&S Infinity 2 in 1 Airbrush for this model with a .20 needle.
Try following along with these airbrush techniques and you will be well on your way to getting your yellows brighter and better looking in no time!
Painting miniatures can be secretly easy, so stay tuned for the latest hobby and painting tips from the Spikey Bits Twitch channel. You can catch the archived tutorial and Quick Reference guide below on our Patreon Page as well if you missed it LIVE on Twitch
Orange-Yellow Painting Titans Tutorial Starts at 38:44
Quick reference color chart sheets for $10 pledges and higher.
