Demihuman
Active member
This is a kick-ass article:
http://chestofcolors.com/about-driving-and-contrasts/
The other day there was a thread about "improving" a paint job on a space marine. EVERYONE said 'more contrast'. There was a lot of back and forth on this and it made me think that maybe more contrast really is what is needed to improve my own painting I looked around for tutorials and I found the article above on Chest of Colors. I tried to post over there but the CofC site didn't seem to like me
Basically Mahon says try painting everything shaded all the way from white to black. Do it on a through away mini, it's just for practice. Then idea is that when you go back to painting normal you will feel more comfortable painting at a higher level of contrast.
I did the exercise and it was really fun to totally ditch realism and just paint bright popping highlights and dark drow-at-night-in-a-tunnel shadows. This is what I came up with when i did the exercise:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/340370
Still a "7" but look at the highlights on his hood, pure white right next to pure black. I would have never ever even tried that. Of course the paint job does have some other issues. Like where is the light coming from and my OSL is still a little weak but as far as an exercise goes I am pretty pumped!
Edit: the CMON picture is a little duller than in my minds eye, I have to fiddle with the file compression a little. but you get the idea!
http://chestofcolors.com/about-driving-and-contrasts/
The other day there was a thread about "improving" a paint job on a space marine. EVERYONE said 'more contrast'. There was a lot of back and forth on this and it made me think that maybe more contrast really is what is needed to improve my own painting I looked around for tutorials and I found the article above on Chest of Colors. I tried to post over there but the CofC site didn't seem to like me
Basically Mahon says try painting everything shaded all the way from white to black. Do it on a through away mini, it's just for practice. Then idea is that when you go back to painting normal you will feel more comfortable painting at a higher level of contrast.
I did the exercise and it was really fun to totally ditch realism and just paint bright popping highlights and dark drow-at-night-in-a-tunnel shadows. This is what I came up with when i did the exercise:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/340370
Still a "7" but look at the highlights on his hood, pure white right next to pure black. I would have never ever even tried that. Of course the paint job does have some other issues. Like where is the light coming from and my OSL is still a little weak but as far as an exercise goes I am pretty pumped!
Edit: the CMON picture is a little duller than in my minds eye, I have to fiddle with the file compression a little. but you get the idea!
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