Coloured / painted armour in fantasy fiction?
It's an actual thing in fantasy literature. Even just in Arthurian legend, you had The Black Knight, The Green Knight, and if I recall correctly, Mordred wore red armor in his final confrontation with Arthur. If I recall, there were colored armors in the Dragonlance novels (it's been thirty years and change since I read any of them). And it's not uncommon to see (non-GW) minis with colored armor...it's not the norm, no, but I've seen it on plenty of occasions.
Historically? I don't know how common it was. Enamelling is an old practice, but it would take a lot to cover an entire armor suit...it was typically only used for decorative touches, as far as I know. I can't think of any medieval paints that would stick to metal very well, but I've seen a lot of SCA people use brass, copper, and alloyed steel sheets to add some color accents to armor (not to mention dyes on leather, which can easily be attached to the metal.) If it was decorative armor for a special event, the issue of paint sticking to the metal is a minimal concern...if it was for battle, I don't know that it would matter much, either...
So, I say go for it...
This message was last edited by the user at 07:13, Thu 04 Oct 2018.