Painted gold visor effect

I have a lot of sci-fi miniature infantry to paint and many of them have closed visors. Inspired by Halo's Master Chief, my initial idea was to paint the visor gold. With a few images in front of me I soon realised that needed more thought.

I stumbled across an easy method that I think works to produce an acceptable visor at a distance.

To be clear, I am sure there are more attractive solutions with layering and blending, but that is time consuming to do for a tabletop army.

Step 1 - base coat in black

Step 2 - sepia wash

I apply a fairly generous layer of sepia wash. It is likely that other watery paints could be used to achieve the same effect.

The wash must be completely dry before going on to the next stage.

Step 3 - gold lines

To get an initial reflection effect, I paint two vertical metallic gold lines. They both have a gap between the top of the visor and the start of the line and end before the lower edge of the visor. The first is about a third of the way round the visor facing the assumed light source. The second is shorter and between that line and the centre line.

Step 4 - gold dry brush

Next, I dry brush the same metallic gold very gently over the whole lens.

The effect usually looks effective at this stage. The next step is optional.

Step 5 - gloss clear coat

Adding a gloss clear coat is not essential. I usually clear matt coat the entire model to protect it for handling. The gloss clear coat is added only to the visor area, after the matt coat has dried.

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