Tips on how to better drybrush metallics?

Hello, all,

I generally avoid dry-brushing unless I feel it's absolutely necessary. When feasible, I will thinly paint on the textured surfaces, because I really like my colors to "pop."

Recently, there have been times where I have had to dry-brush some metallics, and I have about every brand at my disposal. I find, generally, that Reaper Pro and Master series are FAR superior to other paints, but for metallics, I have tried everything to get a paint that will:

1. Adhere to the brush, and not spread metallic dust all over the miniature.
2. Adhere to the mini. I think that #2 goes hand-in-hand with #1.

I have tried different brushes. I have use everything Reaper and Vallejo has to offer, and even the GW stuff (whose primary accolade is "most unintuitive paint pot design," ever).

Fundamentally, my problem is that it's flaking (or basically, dusting the whole mini with silver/gold/copper flakes), or not adhering to the raised area.

I always use flow improvers for normal, non-metallics, and love highlighting/shading. For these metallics, I am not using anything at all, hoping that I can do whatever I can to make them remain viscous (the metallics seem fundamentally watery, anyway).

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

OS

To start off with, Here are some thoughts from Jakob Rune Nielsen.

Then we can move on to Jarhead's philosophies on the subject of painting metals Here.

In my experience, GW's metal paints are actually really good. I've never had the chance to try any reaper paints, but GW's metallics beat the shit out of P3 and Vallejo.

My usual method for points is to start from mithril silver (or start pig iron/boltgun metal and highlight up to mithril) then glaze my way to whatever metallic tint I'm after. Doesn't matter if the planned end result is shiny mithril, gold or rusted and abused old iron.

Can't say that I've seen what you're talking about. Any chance we can put the blame on the surface you're putting those metallics on? Would be pretty funny if you've gloss-varnished before trying to drybrush

Those links are nice, but it's less about painting metallics, and more about drybrushing them on when it's necessary. Very good tutorials, though.

Thank you!