Up until recently I've hated most of the Citadel metallic paints. Mithril Silver and Boltgun Metal have been the two exceptions. Why? Because, aside from the two mentioned exceptions, their metallics just don't cover well at all. Even when you give them a good undercoat color and just want the golds to provide a bit of a shine they just can't seem to get the job done without multiple coats and cajoling. Normally, I just skip their colors all together and use Privateer Press' P3 Brass Balls as my base gold and then color to taste - usually with washes. Brass Balls covers very well. Like a gold version of Boltgun metal. But since I'm trying to follow the studio colors for the Dreadfleet project I have found myself forcing myself to use Citadel gold colors and have found out something surprising. Their are situations where they not only work, but work really, really well!

Following the color suggestions in White Dwarf does save some time. You might be surprised at how much painting time is actually spent coming up with colors before the first bottle of paint is cracked open. Anyway, the big problem of course is that they use their own paints - and they seem to be overly fond of those damned metallics. One thing that I noticed right off, though, is that they always (and I mean every time) suggest a base coat of a color mixed with the gold as a base coat before moving to the metallic on its own. I do this sometimes but with the other metallic paints that I use it's a choice rather than a requirement. Even with the undercoat it can be tough to bring the Shining Gold up to its full gold strength.

So, while struggling with their golds and creating these undercoats I discovered that some of the undercoats that I was creating were far more interesting than the metallics themselves. My big "eureka" moment was when I created a copper color using Dark Flesh mixed in almost equal proportions with Shining Gold. With a little Ogrn flesh wash and edge highlighting with Shining Gold I ended up with a very convincing metallic color far better than any other copper color that I've seen on the shelf. I was so excited by this discovery that it has put their metallics into a whole new light for me. I still think that they're worthless straight from the bottle, but now I know that they can work extremely well as the basis for a custom mixed metallic. I plan to explore this discovery more in the future.

If you want to see that metallic copper just start the video below. It shows up very quickly.