Painting Tips

[Stevely]

Hi all, this is my first ever post in the Modeller's Forum. I haven't built actual military models since I was a kid, but I have started playing Warhammer 40k again and thus have an army of plastic/ lead miniature soldiers and plastic vehicle kits to build. I need some expert advice with certain painting techniques, so I hope you all can help .

 

Specifically: shading/ washing light colored regions. I do dark washes to darken in shadow areas and recesses on my miniatures (as well as dry-bush highlighting) and for the most part, it works well, but where I have real trouble is with light colored areas. I have some figures who wear very light beige/ khaki colored robes and when I try to do a wash on them, it just turns out looking hideous. I use water-soluable paints, so usually I shoot for a shade or two darker (I mix it by adding black or brown to the base color), then thin it out with water enough so that it flows easily over the robes. The it seems to pool up in the right places, but when it dries, it leaves odd blotchy patterns instead of a darker region. Does anyone have any advice for me here?

 

TIA

[EW]

I presume that you're using flat colors. If that's the case I can really understand the less desirable effects from the wash on the lighter shades. Any wash over a flat finish, regardless of how dark/light it is, isn't "pretty" but it gets emphasized (sp?) on the lighter ones. One way to solve this problem is to apply the wash only on gloss surfaces. So if your colors are flat, apply a coat of gloss varnish, let it dry and then apply the wash. After the wash have dried about for a full day, apply a flat varnish. This is the approach I use on my a/c. Hope this was of some help to you

 

EW

[Brad Sallows]

You need to work in the direction darker -> lighter. Washes over light colours (ie. lighter -> darker) tend not to work well, particularly with acrylics (the blotching you've noticed, which results from the way water dries). You could try enamels; Humbrol seems to be highly regarded.

 

I prefer not to bother with enamels just because I prefer to avoid the need for solvents. My preference is to start with a darker base colour and work up through a series of progressively lighter (force of application and colour) dry brushes. Another technique: while my preferred primer is neutral gray, I sometimes use a black primer over recesses / dark areas and white primer over high points followed by thinned (not true washes) colours.

 

The pre-eminent technique is probably blending (muddling two colours or shades into each other), but I suspect acrylics dry too fast - back to the enamels. (I haven't attempted much blending, but I have seen some good work and it really is the way of the masters.)

 

I do some some black / white mixing, but more and more I just use a darker or lighter shade of the intended colour. For this I have been willing to fork out the dough for an expanding paint library. I think the Vallejo paints are well-regarded, and they come in a real spectrum.

 

PS: Although I've read a lot about good techniques and tried to apply them, my painting skills are only fair.

[Stevely]

EW, Brad -

 

Thanks for the tips, I'll be doing some repainting this weekend so I'll let you know how it goes. I'll probably try Brad's approach of darker base coat with progressively lighter dry brushing first, if only because the scale of the models makes me a little leery of putting two varnish coats on it. They're smaller than most military scale models, and I've found too many coats of anything obscures the details because of the size.

[Brad Sallows]

A few other points:

 

1) Rather than dark wash everything, I realized it's cleaner to use a fine tip brush to run black wash into folds, along seams, and between the join of two differently coloured parts of the figure (eg. where jacket meets trousers).

 

2) For the 15mm figures I do in "production mode" (quantity vs quality) I use a simple two-tone technique (no fussing with multiple washes and dry brushings) and do just one application of a lighter shade over the high points (eg. along the edges of a backpack or shako, on high points such as elbows, shoulders, knees, outside ridges of arms and legs). I have seen this done on larger (25-30mm) figures, and if done by a good judge of colour shades it turns out well (ie. without looking blatantly like a two-tone paint job).

 

3) As with any model, a final very, very faint overall dry brush of white or an off-white (or very light shades of the respective base colours) before you varnish will help to better retain definition of the highlights.

[Jacques]

I use the following combination to good effect over such paint-schemes as desert finishes and such. I mix windsor and newton watercolor into future floor wax. As the wax dries, it pull the color in the nooks an crannies and does not leave the unwanted "feathering" you have noticed. It also helps to blend highlights into the base color. I use this to excellent effect on 1/35 figure (54mm) as well, right on the flesh tones.

http://saammodels.tripod.com/Pictures/othe...inter/index.htm

[ShotMagnet]

I've been doing a bunch of WH 40K miniatures for a friend, and have had some of the same problems. I own a set of artist's fine-tip felt pens, they help a lot for getting black into really tight corners. I can even do pupils on some eyes.

For shading you might want to try a 'pin wash' which is just flowing thinned paint into the recesses of the figure. I use a size 0 brush or smaller for this. Initially it goes on and looks awful, but if you dab the now-somewhat unloaded brush and maneuver the drop of wash, it should flow nicely. I tried this on an Italeri Sdkfz 234/4's undercarriage, it came out well.

Try a mechanical pencil with a soft or medium-soft lead. Much finer control can be gotten as opposed to using a wash, though the shading will have to be dulled with a flat coat and the color sometimes doesn't look right against warmly or brightly colored backgrounds.

If you can find one, get a drafting pen with a reservoir tip. I had one once upon a time and it facilitated pin-washing beautifully. A drafting or an art supply store should have them but on the other hand it's been a while since I've seen one in either local.

You might also try using artist's oils. They're more difficult to use, but they can produce remarkable results.

 

Shot