Blood blood glorious blood...!

[Brandlin]

Hmmm you know, i\'ve never painted a pool of blood before.... never been into the whole blood and gore look, but now for a friend i\'m painting an RPG mini holding a tiny rose dripping blood onto cobbles... (its symbolic - don\'t ask - she\'s disturbed )

I\'m trying to paint a small (8-10mm wide) pool of blood on the base. I want this to look thick and gloopy not just a red smear.

I thought of just mixing paint with pva and letting it set which gives the \'depth\' but i have 2 further problems.

1) I\'m using Foundry Paint and there isn\'t a natural looking blood colour. I keep trying to mix up a colour, but either adding small amounts of black or blue to a bright red i just get brown... hmm thught i was pretty good at colour theory!

2) I\'d like to make some drips dropping into the pool of blood. Any idea how i would make the drips hanging down before they fall in, and also the ringlet ripples in the pool below?

this might be a tall order, but i like the challenge....

thanx in adavnace for any suggestions.

Brandlin (Alan)

 

[Mosch]

For the colour, no idea if yours didn\'t work

For the pool, I have come to like Vallejo heavy transparent gel. I\'d paint the blood colour onto thew base and then spread a thin layer of gel over it. It has the consistency of hand creme, so it can be shaped a little. That\'s basically it.... alternatively you could try PVA, but PVA is thinner and tends to flow away, also it\'s hard to shape and some lines dry yellowish.

For the drops, take a nylon string, put a drop of superglue onto it and when it has the desired pear shape, splash it with cold water. it will harden at once; then I would paint it with a transparent blood colour.

Keep in mind that this is all theory, I never actually tried it before.

 

[kmdl1066]

For the blood color, I think you might want to try putting thin layers of the red over a dulling base color (brown maybe) to take the edge off the brightness rather than adding color directly to the red. Then brush on some gloss varnish to give it the glistening, liquid effect. I\'ve used nail varnish before to get a more liquid effect because it is a bit thicker than model paint varnish.

Although considering my skills \"good effect\" is a relative term.

Sean

 

[StarFyre]

well...

For the pool of blood....really, painting and a drop of ink on any small glop of glue (very small glop) should suffice for the base. Make sure it\'s not too big since blood won\'t piel up like bodies.

For the drip, the suggestion for the string and glue on it, has been suggested before. if you want a more styled shape, white glue or woodland scenics realistic water.

The nylon string/superglue idea is probably the best though.

Sanjay

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Brandlin
1) I\'m using Foundry Paint and there isn\'t a natural looking blood colour. I keep trying to mix up a colour, but either adding small amounts of black or blue to a bright red i just get brown... hmm thught i was pretty good at colour theory!

Hi Alan, blood colour first. Blood is a deep crimson, the red looks like it might be a little scarlet in hue and a dark scarlet is more brown than anything - you want to move the hue from red toward violet, crimson being between red and violet around the circumference of the colour wheel as I\'m sure you know. The reason you\'re getting browns with blue is that some blues are actually mixing complements for orangey reds believe it or not - practical colour mixing is a lot different from the theory I\'m afraid! - and with black you\'re just getting too dull a result.

If 17A is not a good colour (looks like it might be on screen) do you have 18A or 19A? One of these should mix a better blood colour with your Bright Red, better than with blue or black that\'s for sure, although the success of the result will vary depending on the pigments used in these colours. I don\'t know if you like a matt overall finish but the blood will look best with a gloss surface.

Originally posted by Brandlin
2) I\'d like to make some drips dropping into the pool of blood. Any idea how i would make the drips hanging down before they fall in, and also the ringlet ripples in the pool below?

If you want ripples I\'d sculpt the pool from green stuff.

For the drips I\'d probably use stretched sprue as the base, with drops of epoxy glue for the drops on the tips maybe - the medium-slow setting time should be ideal. I\'ve tried using acrylic medium and PVA glue for this myself in the past but you have to build them up in layers to get them to look right as they both lose volume as they dry. I\'d make a whole bunch of these in one go if I were you, many more than you think you need so you can pick and choose the best ones.

Hope it helps,
Einion.

 

[Brandlin]

Thank you

Thanx for all the quick responses...

@Mosch : thanx for the nylon idea... i\'ll give it a try. to give you a sense of scale the blood will be dripping from a rose stem held in the hand of the spyglass figure inge...... small..

@kmdl1066 : I was thinking of mixing paint into a medium that sets to give the deth of coour, rather than just painting it... but then you gave me another idea...Nail Varnish! of course, and it comes in such a wide variety of reds!. You can imagine the conversation with my wife... \"no dear thats not quite right - do you have anything that looks a bit more like frexh blood that on\'es a bit pinky!\" lol

@Einion : Thanx for the blood colour tips.... violet eh? seems a little counter intuitive, but i\'ll go have a play. Yes i have the set of paints (nice xmas present to get me back into the hobby - aint my wife cool!). Thanx for the tips on the blood drips too. I\'ll give them a go.

Thanx to all, if this gets off the drawing board i\'ll be sure to post some WIP pics...

Brandlin (Alan)

 

[Primeval]

The drips can be easily achieved with the nylon wire (bracelet wire from a craft store, the thinnest you can find, is what I use) and Woodland Scenics Realist Water. The water stuff is pretty thick and will run down the wire a bit and hold its shape at the tip to create the drop look; I just color it by mixing in some paint and brush it on (usually does take a few coats though and you shape the coats after the first better). Here are a few examples (hmm, I seem to have a thing for dripping blood now that I realize I have 3 examples!):

http://www.coolminiornot.com/70478

http://www.coolminiornot.com/60224 (didnt quite get the bracelet wire lined up correctly here)

http://www.coolminiornot.com/58312

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Brandlin
@Einion : Thanx for the blood colour tips.... violet eh? seems a little counter intuitive, but i\'ll go have a play.

Hi Alan, blue + red not making a violet I can well understand as being counter-intuitive, especially if they mix a neutral grey/near-black at the balance point, as is the case in some examples - yeah, I know, what\'s up with that?

But why is violet + red mixing crimson not what you\'d expect? As you go around the colour wheel it\'s yellow, orange, red, magenta, violet (broadly speaking) so this is pretty much exactly like red + yellow = orange but in the opposite direction

Einion

 

[Broke n English]

For the red I\'d start with maroon,through to red,I understand all that adding brown and black muddy tones business,been there lol after the red a little highlight to the edges,not too exterme though.For the sheen just many many coats of gloss should give a beautiful depth and sheen/shine/stickyness!

 

[black_rage]

ripples?

No idea how this will work, but I\'ve used PVA a little thickly before, and found the skin drying and pressing into this has nicely ruined what I was working on - namely a nice, flat suface. You might be able to use this, by pressing in to shape your ripples, then bleeding off the excess PVA underneath to make sure it\'s not too thick. Not sure if it\'s a good idea, but it might help!

 

[vincegamer]

my advice here is purely theoretical as I have not tried this particular experiment, but I suggest corn syrup.

If you have ever made candy, you know that cooked sugar or syrup becomes very sticky and can be stretched incredibly thin while still holding together and even forming drips, and that once cool it is rigid as can be. So I\'d try bringing corn syrup to a froth for a minute while stirring with a spoon, remove from heat and lift the spoon. You will create a thin string between the spoon and pan. Then as it cools, the string will stiffen and you can let it harden and cut bits the length you want. They should be nearly invisible if thin enough and still strong enough to hold shape.
The other plus of this experiment is you can suck on the sugar-coated spoon when you are done!

 

[Sophia]

I put some slime drips on this guys blade, but the same technique can be used for blood. I love using this effect, and it has a great effect on people! http://www.coolminiornot.com/88114

Pretty much as was stated earlier: I just get a tin peice of wire, and dollop a large gob of any color paint mixed with white glue. Keep it suspended in one direction, while the gob of gluey paint dries into a drip shape. Do a few of em, and yer set. Get a pin vice and stick em to whatever is doing the dripping.

Try bending the wire, so the blood is making a \"spurt\", or make multiple beads of blood on the same wire. You can even sculpt a t-bone steak and have some bbq sauce or marinade dripping off! Mmmm, I just got snacky.