Learning Curve...black

So about nine months ago I discovered Roman and his group of talented painters over at MassiveVoodoo. After spending quite a bit of time reading his blog and the articles he had, I decided it was time for me to change my approach to painting.

My technique before the switch could best be described as make a mess and spend time fixing it. This often left me with results that were sub par and blending that was not quite good. So after reading Massive Voodoo I decided I would change to many, many, many, extremely thin layers. Along with this I have forced myself to use higher contrast start to finish with my blends. Roll all this together with a two color Zenithal Lighting priming. This has been rather successful for me so far, but some of my fall back recipes require reworking. Up to this point I have managed to figure out what to do to create the blends I need to get the colors I am happy with.

Here are some models that are in an extremely early stage.

 Cut to my Black Templar. I have found with my recent models that I really like this new style. The problem is it does not suit every color the same. The technique require you to start with your base color, darken that quite a bit for shadows, and then lighten it quite a bit for highlights. As with most colors this works well and is fairly easy to pull off. This is not entirely the case with black. I know many people use a simple lining technique, but I want to see what I can do.

Lets take a look at the model above. First off I have only really worked the leg closest to the camera, and the lights make it look a bit brighter than it is. As you can see if you apply the same thoughts and technique to black it tends to look like a dark grey instead of black. This is the problem I am dealing with. How to get more contrast from the lightest to darkest areas with out washing out the black and making it look grey. This is still a work in progress so I will toy with it a bit more and see if I can bring it down a bit more. I just thought it would be interesting for you to see what I was working on and my thought process. Maybe as I go though the test with black you can get something that may help you.