Welcome back to the Colour of the Month, an article where we take a look at not a particular paint, but rather an entire colour family. This month we explore everyone’s favourite yellow metallic—gold. Perfect for fancy filigree, terrific treasure, or arcane armour, you can’t go wrong with gold.
This simple idea of a colour actually branches out into many of our paint ranges, providing you with plenty of opportunities and options to choose from when it comes to painting your minis.
Colour Primer
It’s the one, the only, Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeedy Goooooooooooold Colour Primer! When it comes to gold primer the crown clearly rests on the brow of Greedy Gold. Not only is it a close match to both our Warpaints Fanatic and Warpaints Air range’s counterparts, but there’s no better way to basecoat some of the fan favourite armies out there. Collecting a cohort of the Emperor’s best buds and bodyguards, the Custodes? Greedy Gold Colour Primer. Preparing to deploy a Stormhost of Stormcast Eternals to the Mortal Realms? Greedy Gold Colour Primer. You get the idea.
Warpaints Fanatic
While our metallics fall outside of the traditional Flexible Triads that structure the rest of the Warpaints Fanatic range, it still boasts a triumvirate of golden paints to choose from. As mentioned above, you can’t go wrong with the OG gold of Greedy Gold. When you’re thinking gold, this is most likely the colour you’re imagining. A rich, vibrant, and most importantly, shiny gold, you’ll often be turning to this paint for all your fanciest painting projects. Want something a little brighter? Well, step on over to Bright Gold. Adding a bit more yellow into the mix, this paint does what it says on the label and offers you a gold with a bit more brightness to its sheen. Perfect for your most fastidious of minis that need that ultra clean look. One of the most interesting paints of the group is Tainted Gold. This colour leans colder and also has a slight green tint. Not only is it great for when you want something to look ancient and aged, but it’s also a fantastic choice for more malefic minis with a bit of malice to them. While not a true gold, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention True Brass as well. This colour is the perfect choice for highlighting your golden paint jobs, acting as an almost white gold to its darker hued cousins. All of these paints share the same unique blend of Aluminium and Mica flakes for that perfect combo of shine and coverage.
Warpaints Air
Do you want a bit more speed to your basecoat application? The same golden trio as above also makes an appearance in our Warpaints Air range. Formulated to go through your airbrush with no muss or fuss, you’ll be able to basecoat your golden minis in no time at all. Greedy Gold, Bright Gold, and Tainted Gold can also be used here for some sick fades when combined with paints from the brassier side of the metallics family.
Speedpaint
Looking for something even speedier? Well, it is in the name. The Speedpaint Metallics range, the first of its kind, features four golden examples of auric might. Golden Armour is closest to its Greedy sibling in the Fanatics range, offering a more robust, vibrant hue with a hint of orange. Meanwhile, Glittering Loot sticks closer to the traditional yellow gold, while Hoplite Gold leans a bit colder and neutral. To finish out the quartet, we have Aztec Gold, complete with a bold, green hue, perfect as the darker counterpart to Tainted Gold. All these paints work wonders over a light basecoat, providing you with the same 3-in-1 properties as the rest of the Speedpaint range, but with a little less dramatic of a differentiation between the shadows, midtones, and highlights. The tradeoff for this though is that they still cover very well over darker colours, including black! They all come in a portable marker format as well with the new Speedpaint Marker range.
Warpaints Historical
While Shin Gunto Gold features in the World War II Imperial Japanese set, it’s actually a colour match to Warpaints Fanatic Greedy Gold, so not a new or unique colour. It doesn’t appear that there were a lot of golden clad warriors in World War II. I’m afraid we’ll have to go a bit further back in history before we reach that.
John Blanche Masterclass
Grimdark and gold may feel like two ideas that wouldn’t go well together, but you would be mistaken. Emperor Gold from the John Blanche Masterclass Volume 1 set takes gold and puts a decidedly more menacing twist on it. Turning down the brightness and adding a bit more brown into the mix, this paint is perfect for your grimdark mini, as well as a great basecoat for any of the lighter golds above!
Combat Se7ens: Auric Gold Relic Armour
When it came to crafting a Combat Se7ens set around gold, there was no more tried and true combo than red and gold. Greedy Gold forms the basis of the set, with the vibrant Dragon Red there to complement it. Mithril provides the perfect highlight colour for the gold, making it appear extra shiny, while Shieldwall Blue jumps in for a splash of something different to draw the eye. Oak Brown and Agate Skin round out the non-metallic colours, and of course, Strong Tone from the turnstile to deliver that all-over shade for the entire set. When you think gold for an army few minis come to mind more often than the Adeptus Custodes, so we just had to put it to the test on these awesome auric armoured warriors, as you can see in the tutorial above.
Not one to rest on our golden laurels, we’ll be back next month with its favourite playmate—silver!
