Painting ancient bronze?

[Tim Haslam]

I’m painting in 28mm but it’s been a long time since I painted ancients, I’ve mostly been painting WWII.

As I understand it, classical bronze is very similar in appearance to modern gold?
In the past I’ve base coated in a bronze colour, applied an ink wash then highlighted in gold.

Do any of you guys recommend another method?
Just not sure if better methods have been tried.
Incidentally, I’m starting with EIR auxiliary troops, so mostly helmets?

Thanks

[Cubs]

If you're talking polished bronze (helmets, armour and weaponry), yes, I'd say you'd have a hard time distinguishing it from a rich gold colour and your method sounds a-okay to me.

[Jjonas]

Hi Tim, long time!

I prefer a darker tone bronze to 'brassy bronze.' However the brassy bronze may be more accurate in many cases.  My problem with brassy bronze is it makes contrast with gold and silver designs less pronounced. Your technique as stated is exactly what I do. I use a Ceramcoat bronze that I love. Then I do a dark wash- smokey or more brown depending on my mood. Dark gold for polish. Sometimes I will add some gloss medium to make the washes shinier. Also you can brush the bronze with a handy old tooth brush to buff it up if it gets too dull with washes. Metallic paints often polish up quite nice.

(Note Tim has a cool Indian army on ancientbattles.com)
http://www.ancientbattles.com/Indians/indian_army_tim_haslam.htm

Elephant armor is probably the largest area to showcase the technique, again my warm tone bronze is a personal preference, not an absolute.

Good luck with your EIR.

[Tim Haslam]

Thanks for that guys.

Jeff! You’ve still got my Indian army on your web page!!!
I’m flattered.
It must be noted that the army was speed painted in 15 days if I remember?
So not my best work, but looked good on the wargame table.

I’m still waiting for some brave soul to release a new plastic range of Indians, hopefully Victrix or Wargames Atlantic?

 

[DinoTitanedition]

I've painted my Bronze by mixing Gold with Brown. The advantage at mixing is, that it will result in various nuances of the Bronze color, which would be pretty normal for those times.

The Bronze got a highlight by adding a bit of Gold into it, and was shaded afterwards with Devlan Mud. A second highlight was applied by mixing a bit of Chainmail Silver into it (but you can use any Silver at that point). A final highlight was then placed gradually on the furthest edges, like corners or "the highest point on a curve".

As I mentioned, you can vary tonality at pretty much every point. If you prefer a brighter Bronze for example, use less Brown in the mix.

[DinoTitanedition]

Oh yeah, I forgot - if you want to paint rust on Bronze, what I did here, was mixing Jade Green with Grey. That was thinned down a lot and placed on spots where water would gather if the mini was a statue. Afterwards a lot more Jade Green went into the Mix and was applied to the same spots, but covering much less of the previous surface.

[Michi]

Whenever I am supposed to paint bronze, I use the same simple recipe:
Paint it Copper.
Mix Copper and Gold and paint it over, leaving the copper base coat for shading.
Paint it Gold for true colour in outstanding areas.
Mix Silver and Gold and paint highlights.
If needed pick out some extreme highlights in Silver.

That way:










 

[v_lazy_dragon]

I usually use a mix of bronze tones - from gold to effectively copper (i.e. working through the GW bronzey/brassy colours ). Nowhere near as detailed a method as the others, usually it's metal base tone, light or dark brown wash, then highlight with the original colour.

[Mad Doc Morris]

My recipe is quite simple: 1) Retributor Armour, 2) Agrax Earthshade (both by GW), 3) highlight with base colour. For a more polished surface I add Liberator Gold (love GW's metallics, if not their weird names). After matt varnishing the figure you can bring back the 'shine' with a thin (!) coat or just a few dots of gloss varnish. This results in a somewhat dulled (or silvery) golden finish, in contrast to a reddish, actual fire-gilded look (for the latter substitute Agrax Earthshade with Reikland Fleshshade, again GW brand).

I should say, though, that I like to think of ancient bronze often imitating gold on purpose. Arms and armour were often tinned to appear as made of silver, so polished 'golden' bronze was likely to complement that precious look. A guess, of course.

[Mad Doc Morris]

Double-post, to be removed.

[SteveBurt]

Paint Gold. Wash with sepia ink.

[Corso]

I believe you've got very good advice already 

What I would add as my suggestion is to never do an extreme highlight of silver, light gold like Liberator Gold would be better.

[WuZhuiQiu]

I use a Ceramcoat bronze that I love.

Jeff, thanks for that very helpful post. Which Ceramcoat bronze is it?

[Jjonas]

Jeff, thanks for that very helpful post. Which Ceramcoat bronze is it?

It has lasted over a dozen years. Stays fresh. Vallejo Game Color 72058 Bronze Brassy Brass is my next choice. But I reckon the Ceramcoat will last longer than me.

Adding to above- I also mix a bit of silver in gold highlights to make things brassier at times.

Copper is also a good starting point.

One thing I left out is the areas of bronze are usually painted Burnt Umber first, that allows some shade and volume.

Another bronze heavy thing is Scythed chariots- I need to do some touch up on this by adding highlights, some repairs, and better photos.

http://www.ancientbattles.com/antiochus_ptolemy/SC_GrippingBeast_01small.jpg

[Mammoth miniatures]

Bronze is a wonderfully diverse metal, it can go from a dull brown (literally the colour of old wood) to  a shiny cherry red, to silver and gold, and everything in between.

We also have very little knowledge about what kind of patina or finish ancient bronzes might have had - we know ancient Greek bronze sculptures were sometimes painted and patinad in certain areas and I believe there's some evidence of Armour having been painted or patinad.

One thing to consider is that bronze dulls from contact with the oils in skin, But it doesn't rust or oxidise like pure copper, so you might have warriors on campaign fighting in armour the colour of tree bark with only recent weapon scratches or areas of heavy use being shiny.