What's the best method for painting white clothing?

[Bako]

Hello all, I'm wanting to paint up some of my scientists and a few people that have white shirts soon. For the longest time I've painted nothing but greens, khakis and all manner of military color schemes. Now however I'm wanting to know what some of the others would suggest. Perhaps a light grey base colour, followed by a diluted white, and then a pure white for highlights?

Best regards.

[Mancha]

The way you paint white depends on what you're trying to achieve.  Before we get to that, however, I think you're better off without painting highlights.  As Shep Paine says of white, there are no highlights, just shadows.  So paint your object white, and then paint in the shadows. 

The question is, what color will you paint the shadows?  For a nice, pure WHITE color, I go for tones of lightest blue (or grey blue), rather than grey.  This gives a pure white, just-out-of-the-wash look.  For a white garment that's been around for a while, I tend to paint the shadows in tan (or Vallejo smoke mixed with white).  This makes the garment look kind of sandy dirty.  For grimy, you can go for grey shadows.  I've painted some minis where I've put some of these together in different items of clothing, and although most of the tones on the mini are white, it's amazing how much variation the different shadow colors produce.

Just for fun, you might paint up three white shirts, and then paint one's shadows in grey-blue, another's in tan, and a third's in grey.  In the following picture I used the tan shadows for the men, and the grey/blue for the woman:



In the following picture I used the tan/smoke technique in every case:

[Hammers]

The way you paint white depends on what you're trying to achieve.  Before we get to that, however, I think you're better off without painting highlights.  As Shep Paine says of white, there are no highlights, just shadows.  So paint your object white, and then paint in the shadows. 

The question is, what color will you paint the shadows?  For a nice, pure WHITE color, I go for tones of lightest blue (or grey blue), rather than grey.  This gives a pure white, just-out-of-the-wash look.  For a white garment that's been around for a while, I tend to paint the shadows in tan (or Vallejo smoke mixed with white).  This makes the garment look kind of sandy dirty.  For grimy, you can go for grey shadows.  I've painted some minis where I've put some of these together in different items of clothing, and although most of the tones on the mini are white, it's amazing how much variation the different shadow colors produce.

Let me just say, as a comment to that, that Shep Paine is God.

[argsilverson]

Yes the "blue" shadows produce the best white.

Some of us, might remember before the super market eras and lots of cleaning consumables, people used to use indigo as a cleaner/whitening agent in their clothing. nowdays some brands of domestic cleaners advertising containg blue or green substances for better white appearance indeed have indigo.

by the way indigo is a blue dye from a small plant. frenc made lots of use of it to dye their blue uniforms.

[anevilgiraffe]

Foundry Whites and clean water... lots of clean water....

[Gluteus Maximus]

There are some great-looking whites here!

It's always a tricky one to do right, but the blue-grey and tan shading both give the right effects for their subjects.

Elvis is fantastic too 

[Orctrader]

I don't know about the "best" method, but this is how I do it.

From dark to light on a black primed figure

Dark grey
Light grey
Ivory
White
Titanium White - proper acrylic paint out of a tube - for the extreme highlights.

Examples below.

[Gluteus Maximus]

That's a very pristine white - perfect for medical staff or secret agents having a night out at the casino... 

[Bako]

Thanks for the input, one and all .