How to Paint Brass / Gold

Full transcript of the video

Welcome to the Hobby Nomicon. We’re back working on our monolith bearer. When I was sculpting this helmet, I was thinking it would be raw iron or pig iron—nasty metal. But now the vision in my head is brass, almost golden, like this wasn’t a punishment but an honor of decoration.

Base Coat: Copper to Gold

My goal isn’t to go full grim dark. I’m starting with a Vallejo Copper base coat, then coming in with Vallejo Gold on top. These paints are all super old—I’m just trying to work my way through them before I replace them. Standard drybrushing technique: big flat soft round brush, get the excess off on the paper towel. You’ve seen it a hundred times before. This is the oldest recipe in the book for brass.

Tonight we’re laying foundations; tomorrow we’ll come back after everything’s locked in and really kick it up a notch.

Washing with Reikland Fleshshade and Carroburg Crimson

These washes are so old they could literally drive. They’re pretty gummy, so I put a lot out. I’m slobbing this on pretty thick because of how much paint we’re going to put on top. I’m applying in a stippling motion because I don’t want it to pull and I don’t want brush strokes. If you’re using newer washes that haven’t been sitting for over a decade, yours will flow better.

I used a heat gun to speed drying, which caused all the wash to push to one corner and pull. Very easy to fix though—get your brush wet, wick it off, and feather the wash out around the problem area. Then drybrush over it again.

Sketching in Highlights

Now I’m using Vallejo Steel on all the nails holding the mask in place, and sketching in where I want highlights on the mask itself. Think of this as painting scratches in the material—maybe spots where the patina got scraped off, or where light hits it. I’m going on vibes. It’ll definitely be brighter where the light hits, and down lower I’m working in scratches.

Glazing True Metals

This is where it gets tricky. I’m using a mixture of our base copper and bright brass, glazing over those silver scratches. With true metals, if you add too much water it breaks the pigment up, so I’m being very careful. We’ll build up more layers of this scratch effect tomorrow once everything’s dry and locked in.

The silver will still peek through a bit, and that’s what separates this from a typical base coat, drybrush, wash, drybrush again approach. It adds way more character and definition.

Discovering Historical Gaming

While the wash was drying, I want to mention—I’ve officially hit that age where it’s time to start looking at historical gaming. I met some cool guys at the LGS today. I got the core rulebook and two packs of miniatures. One guy wrote the whole rulebook, used all his own painted models and terrain for the art inside, which is pretty cool.

The rulebook is about $40, and each pack of minis is around $30. You’re paying less than a dollar a model—almost cheaper than 3D printing when you count time and effort. I’m going with Normans. I’ve officially turned 36. Got to start playing historicals.

End of Night Results

Here’s where we’re at by the end of the night. There’s a lot of values going on and it’s not just a boring mask. Is that blood settled in there? We don’t know. My goal with this whole model is to make it creepy and unsettling without jumping straight into grim dark. I might still do an oil wash on the skin because it’s so much easier, but I want to make it unsettling without being typical grim dark. That’s going to be a challenge.