Zoxe 101: Standard Colors

Hi!  I am getting ready for Adepticon.  I'll set this to robo-post.

As time goes on, the tools and methods we use continue to evolve.  Sometimes it's a desire to try some new trick you read or saw, or sometimes it's a desire to try a different product to see what the fuss is about.

With every project, however, there seems to be a set of colors that you just can't get away from.  Here's a quick post about 3 of them.  I'll do a few more down the road.

Standard Colors, Round 1 - Reaper Black Wash (yes, this counts as a color), AP Necromancer Cloak, and AP Gun Metal (aka Pistol Metal in the Brimstone kit)

• Reaper Black Wash - This wash has found its way onto nearly every model that I've worked on in the past 14 months.  I count it as a 'color' because it's that distinctive.  Despite the name, the "Black" wash actually has a lot of BLUE in it, so don't mistake it for a clone of other products.  It makes blues and grays pop like nothing else.  It is quite dense; if I'm actually using it as a wash I tend to thin it at least 1:1 with distilled water or else it will overpower all your hard work.  Where the product really shines, though, is as a shader for nooks and crannies of your model.  If you have a place that needs to be dark but would look odd if it were pure black, grab the Black Wash and add a layer or two.  Sometimes I use the product both ways on the same model - for the KDM Watcher, I washed the entire model with thinned Black Wash and then I went back and put shadows in the folds of his cloak with unthinned.  The only complaint I have is that it really doesn't like 2 brush blending.  Apply it, but don't touch it again, don't try to move it or 'erase' it with a wet brush.  If you do, it will ball up and get gritty, and/or leave ponding marks.
• AP Gun Metal - AP products have their haters online, but I really love their washes and their metallics.  For this silver, the metallic solids are fairly fine (can be airbrushed reasonably well). It's pretty thin coming out of the bottle, but can be thinned further and still cover well.  Unlike some other metallics, it doesn't cure too quickly and get goopy on the palette. In terms of the color, it's a neutral, fairly dark, and chewy silver.  It has a fair amount of black in it, perfect for worn metal or something that has seen some weather.  It is not going to look right on a larger surface (an entire robot, or something) but is the perfect complement to most color schemes and looks great applied as a basecoat with a colored ink over it.  (Bonus points: I typically use AP Chainmail Metal as a highlight color; which 'feels' the same but is brighter and less black). When finishing the DFC Fleet, I used Gun Metal as a dry brush over the entire model; it dry brushes exceedingly well and gave the ships a very worn, lived-in look.  I have tried other silvers (Reaper, Scale75) and always come back to my trusty friend.
• AP Necromancer Cloak - I've written about this color before.  It is used on every (every!) one of my models somewhere, if only as a shadow color.  This is a charcoal gray that's very close to black - but isn't - so you can have it stand in for black when you need it to (black boots, black robes) and still have some room to provide shadows.  When I am basecoating with an airbrush, I almost always use this as the first color in the stack, and spray from below to provide shadows.  For KDM, this is the base layer of shadows for both heroes and monsters.  For Brimstone, it's the 'black' in cloaks and the Nun-with-a-Gun's habit.  For Dropfleet, it's the base layer, some panel lines, and some accent panels.