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+++Reculsiam Painting Tutorials +++ [Step by Step Topic Resurrection]

Started by Thantos, December 14, 2013, 10:38:28 AM

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Thantos




Welcome to the Reclusiam, Brother. Here you will learn the myriad techniques of brush-mastery which will help set you on the path of achieving pretty painted miniatures.

Contents -

1. Dry Blending.
2. Advanced Human Flesh.
3. Edge Highlights
4. Layered Highlights
5. Blended Highlights and Shades
6. Washes for Shading
7. Drybrushing
8. True Metallic Metallics
9. Blacklining
10. Off Source Lighting
11. Bone
12. Standard Human Flesh
13. On Source Lighting
14. Non Metallic Metallics 1 - Blades
15. Fur
16. Tyranid Striated Carapace
17. Tabletop Tau Skin
18. Prepping Metal Minis
19  Gemstones
20. Pinning Models
21. TO House Chapter Rosen Knights TT Standard
22. Undead Flesh
23. NMM Blades - 2 White Metal
24. ...


Citadel Colour Sheet
Citadel / Vallejo Comparason Sheet

Ok so I'm going to do a sort of series covering a few painting techniques and methods, mainly aimed at the competent beginner or novice painter, but some more advanced stuff too. Things like drybrushing, wetbrushing, washing and glazes, blending, highlights, extreme edge highlights. Hopefully should help out anyone wanting to try something new or just re-cap old methods.





GW= Games Workshop
Mini= Miniature
VGC= Vallejo Game colour
VMC= Vallejo model colour
Reaper= Reaper master series paints
CdA= Coat d'arms paints
Mantic= Mantic Games Company
Vents= Small spines of unwanted metal on metal minis to be cut away.
Mould Lines= The small line that usually seperates a mini in half where the two pieces of the mould join.
Flash= Excess metal or resin due to imperfection in the mould or added by the casters to aid the casting process.
Tags= Tags are added to metal or resin minis to join small pieces together as one part. The small pieces should be cut off and the tag discarded.
TT= Table top
Kitchen Towel= Wipe away excess paint from your brush on it.
Brushes= To paint with .. nuff said. Buy a selection, sable hair mostly. The GW ones are perfect. Drybrushes can be synthetic if desired.
NMM= Non metalic metalic
TMM= True metalic metalic
SENMM= Sky Earth non metalic metalic
Striated= Small uniform lines or groves over the surface of an object.
OSL= On source lighting
SW Grey = Space Wolf Grey
OFSL= Off source lignting
SM= Space Marine
Pallet= Mix your paints with water and each other upon it.


1.[anchor]post_dryblending[/anchor]

Dry blending.
[anchor]#dryblending[/anchor]

Awesomeness: * * * * /5
Difficulty: * * * * /5





Dry blending is the easiest type of blending to do on your minis. With a bit of practise it can look really stunning on all sorts of minis. The real trick is the application of paint and having patience. Blending is subtle, its going to take a few layers of paint until you start noticing any real effects.
Ok first off lets get together your painting equipment. You don't need anything unusual for dry blending, just what you should always be using when painting.
Here is a checklist.

What you need:
Brushes; basecoat brush, standard brush, detail brush (if you are blending a small area). Don't use synthetic brushes, the Games workshop ones are great quality and value for how they perform. I'd recommend them to any mini painter.
Pallet. A pallet can be any clean surface that you mix paint on, I use a segmented plastic pallet, you can use a tile, old plate, piece of plastic or even the pallet that Games Workshop sells.
Water. A water pot of fresh tap water to water down and dilute your paints. You should never be applying paint directly from the pot, I know it covers well, I know watering down paints seems like a lot of hassle, but watering down paints means you can achieve much better quality miniatures and the sooner you get into the habit of doing so, the better. (It is also is essential when blending.)
Kitchen Roll. A piece of kitchen roll folded into 4 is perfect for wiping away excess paint on your brush, applying a saturated brush to the miniature will make the paint run where you don't want it, pool in the recesses and generally make you have less control over it.
Foam from a Blister Pack A couple of pieces of these are perfect for drying you brush with after you have washed it in your water.
Miniature. I recommend space marines ;) (because I love them) but I supooooose other armies will do as well :P.


Ok so now you are sorted, you have your equipment, you are sitting at your desk, music going, relaxed, mini's ready and eager to paint. Perfect.

Method:

Ok first off, prime your mini. You can do this with a spray paint (go outside, spray) or with a brush on paint. I actually prefer brush on primer for 28mm minis because its smoother, you only have to tidy up spray primer afterwards with a brush anyway, and I live in the UK where it stereotypically rains a lot – not great for spray painting outside.
I use grey primer most of the time, because my style of painting involves working with midtones (not the dark shades, or the bright highlights, but the mid colour) and then applying both shades and highlights. Many people use black primer and then gradually work upwards lighter. Some people use white. It depends on your army, I do use all three depending on what I'm painting. As a general rule, if you are painting a bright figure like a White Scars Space marine, it makes no sense to prime it black then spend 3 days adding enough layers to it to get it to white. SO PRIME IT WHITE TO START WITH! If you are painting a batch of troops with a darker scheme, most minis fit this category, prime it black. If you are doing a one off showcase piece and have a weird painting style like me, prime it grey. :D
Ok, so have we primed the mini our chosen colour? Good.

Mine is "Grey Primer" from Coat 'darms (the company that made Games workshops paints in the 90s).


You may have noticed I'm using a strip of plasti card rather than a model. This is so you can see what I'm doing more clearly; of course you are going to use a mini and not waste time painting plastic strips (although it is a good way to practise your blending skillz...)

Ok now take a selection of paints that you are going to blend with. Start by picking a midtone. I'm using GW Mechrite Red for this example.



Ok now pick a couple of highlight colours, in my case, blood red and blazing orange. (see the transition of colours going on here?) And also some shade colours, in my case bestial brown and scorched brown. If you cant think of a highlight colour, add a little bleached bone to your midtone, this will usually do. If you cant think of a shade, add a little scorched brown to your midtone.
Ideally however you want to pick colours like these above.
Some examples of colour choices.
Blue: Regal blue+ Scorched brown> Imperial blue > Ultramarines blue> Ultramarines blue+ Ice blue.
Red: Colours above.
Green: Dark Angles Green> Knarlock Green> Snot Green>Goblin Green > Scorpion Green.

Right, got your colours. More painting, less talking, I know, I know.
I'm starting with the midtone as a basecoat, this means I'll work upwards to the highlights, then backwards with the shades. If you undercoated black you can start with the darkest shade colour and work upwards from that, lighter. Not advise by me, but hey. You can also start with your brightest highlight if you undercoated white, and if you have a few marbles missing. Again not advised by me.
As I said before I like working with midtones, so that's how I'm going to show you this.

Water down your midtone to your as a basecolour first on your pallet, look at the consistency of mine.

Mmmm diluted.

Apply about 2 or three coats of basecolour, waiting for each one to dry in between, to the area of your mini that you want to blend.


Nice eh? A boring flat colour. Now we are going to start blending it up to the highlights. The next paint in my line (scroll up an check the line :P) is blood red.
So mix a bit of this blood red into your midtone which is already on your pallet (we don't want to let this dry up on our pallet as we are going to keep using it).



Mix that in so that it becomes ever so gradually lighter. Add water so that the paint is thinned down and diluted. Look at the consistency of mine on the plasticard. About the consistency of milk (does that make sense now?).


Ok now apply this to the upper part of the mini, the area you want to blend to a lighter shade. I have photographed the paint when it is still wet so you can see where it was applied.

Drag your brush up away from the join between colours, on that picture, drag brush from left to right so that the seam is as smooth as possible. You will notice a bad difference if you push the paint the other way toward the centre of the blend.

Ok let that stage dry, and mix some more blood red (or your highlight colour) into the mix on your pallet. Keep it diluted to a thin consistency.


It should be ever so slightly lighter.

Ok now apply it in the same way as before, to a smaller area of the mini where it is going to be lighter.

Let it dry.

Add in some more blood red, and even a little blazing orange now into your mix. Add another highlight stage.


Add more blazing orange to the mix and apply to the lightest part.


Ok so now we are done with highlights, we are going to repeat this with the shade colours on the other side of the blend. Mix up some of the fresh midtone on the pallet, mix in a small amount of your shade colour (beastial brown in my case) to darken it slightly.


Let that dry then add in more brown to the mix, keep it diluted. Drag the brush away from the centre of the blend when applying paints.

Add in some scorched brown to the mix now, apply this to the darkest edge of the blend.

You can see here the stages of paint used in the blend, from 1-10 and where they were applied.

Ok on large areas which are difficult to blend (like 1 inch squares of plasticard.... ) you need to glaze at the end to bring all the colours together.
Mix some of your midtone on your pallet with water. Water it to a very thin mix.

See how thin that is? Very thin. That's how thin.
Now apply this all over your blended area, if it ruins all your work you just spent the last 20 minutes working on ... your glaze was too thick. So its better to have a glaze that has too much water in it, than not enough – you can always apply another one afterwards if it was too watery, but you cant take it off if it was too thick.

So now you should have a lovely blended area on your mini. Or if it's your first attempt at this – a streaky sort of blended area. It takes practise to get it right, so go stretch your legs, get some fresh air and then try again. After about 10 attempts your colour blends will be as smooth as a James Bond chat-up line.



Remember, smaller areas are easier to blend, but larger areas are better to practise with.


Conclusion:
This basically sums up why blending is so awesome. It's a great skill and with a bit of practise it will become second nature, you will not even realise you are doing it.
It may be slightly more difficult that standard highlights or glazes but its well worth taking the time to become proficient at it.







Narric

Seems the "Anchor" code doesn't work anymore Thantos.

Unfortunately, my current paint collection probably wouldn't work for any of the tutorials, but they're definately a useful and insightful read ^_^

Thantos

2.

Advanced Human Flesh

Awesomeness: * * * */5
Difficulty: * * */5




Flesh and faces can be quite daunting for painters. And this is because it has alot of depth to it as opposed to like a plate of powerarmour or a lasgun.
Due to this depth the only real solution is lots of overlapping layers to create an artificial depth. Im sorry there is no way around it, a coat of bronzed flesh and a wash is just not going to do here, young iniate. ;) Here is a tutorial on how to paint decent fleshtones my way. (I will do a basic flesh method later).

What you need:
Brushes; basecoat brush, standard brush, detail brush, and fine detail brush (the detail brush is what we will be using mostly here). Don't use synthetic brushes, the Games workshop ones are great quality and value for how they perform. I'd recommend them to any mini painter. ;)
Arclyic Medium. Its not essential but its going to make your life easier. Its cheap and its sold in art stores. Used for thinning paints and making your own washes.
Pallet. A pallet can be any clean surface that you mix paint on, I use a segmented plastic pallet, you can use a tile, old plate, piece of plastic or even the pallet that Games Workshop sells.
Water. A water pot of fresh tap water to water down and dilute your paints. You should never be applying paint directly from the pot >:(, I know it covers well, I know watering down paints seems like a lot of hassle, but watering down paints means you can achieve much better quality miniatures and the sooner you get into the habit of doing so, the better.
Kitchen Roll. A piece of kitchen roll folded into 4 is perfect for wiping away excess paint on your brush, applying a saturated brush to the miniature will make the paint run where you don't want it, pool in the recesses and generally make you have less control over it.
Foam from a Blister Pack A couple of pieces of these are perfect for drying you brush with after you have washed it in your water.
Miniature. Something with flesh i guess would be good here.




Method:

Ok so dont get put of by the amount of steps here. They are quick ad easy, i promise.
For this mini i added in a small amount of liche purple to each stage for my flesh - this is because my guy is chaos and needs an evil unhealthy look to him ;) This is why your results may vary.

Prime your mini. As you do normally. I use grey (CdA grey primer:Tamiya flat base:Flow enhancer 70:25:5). If you are primeing in black now is the time to paint your areas of flesh grey (doesn't have to be perfect coverage).

Ok now i just painted everything apart from the flesh on my part that im painting.


With your basecoat brush, basecoat all the flesh in VMC Foul Green (GW Jade green:Goblin green 50:50) Yes you read correctly - green. Look at your colour wheel. We basecoat in this because green is dead opposite our pink fleshtones on the wheel. It is a complimentary colour and will contrast drastically when placed alongside pink. This contrast will give the illusion of greater depth. (Its the same reason that you can shade gold with purple. Look at your colour wheel iniate! :P)
I added some flow enhancer into this to make it cover better. To be honest the green doesnt have to be exact, goblin green will do.


"SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSMOKIN'!" - The Mask  ::)
Ok we can now roughly add a bit of brown to certain raised areas. We do this by wetbrushing (drybrushing without the dry part) Reaper Ghoul Skin: VMC Foul green 70:30 over the flesh. Knarlock green will do. As long as its a bit darker and browner. Hurry hurry, nobody is going to see this part at the end stage anyway ;)


Right so we have a nice contrasting base. Now lets mix up GW/CdA Dwarf Flesh:GW red gore 75:25, mix this with acrylic medium [or water] and glaze the flesh lightly about 3 times. (Let it dry in between).
We are still being rough, still using our basecoat brush here.


Time to start adding extreme shades. Water down Reaper Dark Shadow/ GW scorched brown:GW red gore 80:20 and use a standard brush to paint it into the darkest recesses of the face (eyes, nose, ears, mouth, lines... my guy has lots of lines...)


Let that dry and repeat with a lighter shade, slightly more heavy, but more dilute - of Reaper ghoul flesh/ GW Snakebite leather:Knarlock green:scorched brown 70:5:25.


Ok so now we are going to bring all the colours together a bit more. Wash everything in a light (watered down) wash of GW devlan mud.


So now for a bit of actually painting that takes some care. Its been very rough and non precise up until now.
Highlight time! Detail brush out! Pick out all raised areas of the flesh with GW/CdA Dwarf Flesh:GW Red gore 90:10. Have a watered mix as always. Ignore where areas of shadow would be. Just highlight everything raised.

Looking a bit better now? :P

Another highlight now, just apply again with the detail brush like before. Dwarf Flesh: VMC Light flesh/ GW Elf flesh.


And with same colours again 60:40 now. But if we really want to make it look nice we are going to add this highlight in streaks following the contours of the characters muscles.
Check the pictures first.

This only really works on such characters as the one i am painting, it would look odd on a female high elf for example. Imagine you have taken the skin off your character, follow those muscle lines.

Or you can always just highlight normally.
Now we need to bring those highlight together again (especially the last one). Wash your flesh with Dwarf Flesh mixed with acrylic medium or water to make a wash. Simples.

Ok We are going to focus on shadows now, artificial ones created by the lighting on the character. Make a load of your previous "dwarf flesh wash" on your pallet. Now add in some shadow grey to a part of this. Shade this mix under the chin, eye sockets, under mouth, nose. Where natural shadow would fall from top-down zenith lighting.

Starting to get subtle now, these images will look pretty similar. =/

Use the same dwarf flesh wash mix and add in Reaper Linen white (GW Bleached bone:Skull white 50:50 will do). Now hit the areas of artificial highlights. Nose tip, brows, cheekbones, Chin, ear tips.


Again with the same wash mix, add in red gore, wash over the lips (not too much or your character will look like they are in drag). Add in below they eyes of certain characters (once who are old or half dead), the ears and the nostrils.


Lastly with the same mix, add in GW adeptus battlegrey. Then mix this 50:50 wtih GW badab black.
Use a stippeling brush (wow these things have a use? :o) or an old brush with the bristles half cut off.
To stipple areas of stubble lightly where they would occur.
Paint the eyes your normal method. (I did, Reaper Linen white, Babdab black wash, red gore iris, blazing orange iris highlights, chaos black pupil, Light badab black wash)


My guy is quite ruddy, pink and flushed because i added a bit more red gore into that method than stated. Along with Liche purple in most stages to create the chaosy tone ;)

 

Conclusion:
This method is one way of painting flesh using a contrasting colours technique. Of Course its not suitable for all types of mini (elves for example will need to modify this method)
Although this mini i also painted using a pretty similar method on the flesh:
Spoiler
It also takes about an hour. I will post up two more flesh tutorials soon that cover more basic fleshtones. And Female / Elf fleshtones.



[anchor]post_edgehighlights[/anchor]
3.

Edge highlights

Awesomeness: **/5
Difficulty: */5




Extreme edge highlighting is the main way of jazzing up those solid pieces of armour or other hard coloured surfaces. It adds good depth and definition to the areas which is needed at 28mm scale.
Basically, if you are not doing this on your crisis battlesuits, I'm going to shoot you in the head with my plasma pistol, regardless of you skill level. ;)
This is just one type of highlighting, i will cover blended highlights in another post.

What you need:
Brushes; basecoat brush and a standard brush ( perhaps a detail brush if the part you are highlighting is very small or intricate). Don't use synthetic brushes, the Games workshop ones are great quality and value for how they perform. I'd recommend them to any mini painter. ;)
Pallet. A pallet can be any clean surface that you mix paint on, I use a segmented plastic pallet, you can use a tile, old plate, piece of plastic or even the pallet that Games Workshop sells.
Water. A water pot of fresh tap water to water down and dilute your paints. You should never be applying paint directly from the pot , I know it covers well, I know watering down paints seems like a lot of hassle, but watering down paints means you can achieve much better quality miniatures and the sooner you get into the habit of doing so, the better.
Kitchen Roll. A piece of kitchen roll folded into 4 is perfect for wiping away excess paint on your brush, applying a saturated brush to the miniature will make the paint run where you don't want it, pool in the recesses and generally make you have less control over it.
Foam from a Blister Pack A couple of pieces of these are perfect for drying you brush with after you have washed it in your water.
Miniature. Something with armour, easily accessible hard edges. You can even practise on a piece of sprue.




Method:

So we have our mini. We have undercoated in black/white/grey and we are ready to start.
Take your basecoat brush and basecoat the area with the main colour. So if you are painting Ultramarines, Ultramarines blue.
Im painting a hatch from my drop pod i need to finish. So i basecoated in GW adeptus battlegrey. Foundation paints are good as you only need one coat.
Remember to water down your paints in your pallet.
Let this dry.


Ok so now we are going to pick a highlight colour. For my grey, i picked codex grey, see picture above.
Your highlight colour should be once stage lighter than what your basecolour is. For citadel paints you can check the chart below.
[INSERT CITADEL SHADE AND HIGHLIGHT CHART!]

So get your standard brush and mix up some of your highlight colour with a very small amount of water (don't overdo it). And load your brush.
Load your brush NOT like below.


Use the kitchen roll to wipe away excess paint, until your brush has no nasty blob on the end and looks like the one loaded below.


Much better no? ;)
Ok so now to the actual highlighting. Take your brush and run the SIDE of the brush gently along the edge in soft sweeps. You can always go over it twice to build up the layers, but putting too much on in one go makes it look awful.


That's basically it. Simple no? (Nothing like the last post, no? :P) You can even take the next colour up and highlight again for even more definition. (So in my case fortress grey)
Make sure you highlight all the sharp edges. Obtuse edges should be left until last, highlight them with even less paint on your brush to make it easier.

Ive highlighted the horizontal decking parts too now.

And you are done.
Highlighting works well when used with Shading. Ill cover shading later. ;)

A tip when choosing your highlight colour: If you dont have a suitable paint to highlight with, mix a little bleached bone into your basecoat colour to make a perfect colour to highlight with



Conclusion
Very easy once you get the hang of it. The hardest part is loading you brush with just the right amount of paint. Once you get that right, its simple. ;)
I will cover drybrushed highlights in the drybrushing section, and blended highlights in another section later.