eowyn WIP - blending cloak

[scottjames]

hi all, I\'m hoping I can get some well aimed help. I\'m new to blending, and my wet palette. Previously I\'ve always applied a base coat, shaded with a wash, and applied several thin layers of increasing brightness to get a highlight effect.

This is what I\'ve done on eowyn\'s cloak here.

Now some questions:

- I\'ve added fortress grey to scab red to get three highlight colours to apply to the raised parts of the robe. The highlight colour is turning pink now. How do you mix good red highlights without it going \"chalky\" or \"pink\" - like it is here, Im sure you\'ll agree? (Not that I wanted the cloak red, I was going for a dark crimson regal kind of red, but now I\'ve added grey for highlight it\'s turning pink and going \"chalky\"...?)

- What do you advise for my next step on the cloak here? I\'d like to try for some really smooth blending but dont really have much idea how to do it. I\'ve always added successive thin layers of increasing brightness, working towards the areas I want most highlighted. I am unsure this is how I should be doing it.

- Looking at the pic, any general comments/advice/suggestions?

Many thanks for your help! =)

 

[Monkeysplitters]

well One way to get nice red highlights is to use flesh colors. I personally haven\'t tried it yet but I recently read an article about it, sorry I don\'t remember where it was, maybe someone else knows it was by Vincent Hudon and was really easy to understand. Its about zenith Highlighting and glazing, specifically with red, but was extremely well written.

I think if someone could wrangle that up for you it would answer both your questions on smooth blending and highlighting red.

 

[Monkeysplitters]

k well that was easy, found the article.

http://ca.games-workshop.com/Community/Games_Day/blog/feb_19/painters-VH.pdf

 

[mickc22]

well first you could try a search; \"painting red\"


look here:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/viewthread.php?tid=27855

or here
http://www.tinysouls.com/tspaint/tshints/paintingreds.htm

If you don\'t want it looking orangey, then red (blood red?) is as high as you can go, so you need to shade down to the darkest red you want. Red down to scab red for example ( I\'d add some dark blue and go a little darker in the deep recesses my self)

 

[PrawnPower]

One of the best ways I\'ve found for shading red is to use thin glazes of a dark green, or to add a little dark green to the red. This uses the colour wheel idea of opposite colours which should also help the shading by adding some contrast.

 

[sg2009]

i think because your layering your paints at the moment i think you should try feathering.


basically its the same as layering but basically thin your paints more, add tiny amounts of the highlight colour, making it that you have more layers.( that in itself should give you a better blend) but to make that blend even better once you paint a layer on to the mini, use a moist brush and feather the edges into the previous layer.

and also doing a couple of glazes might help the layers to blend better

hope i helped

 

[scottjames]

thanks for the advice, I tried to make use of everything you said. I should try different colours in my shades, instead of just black, I need to learn some colour theory.

I have pretty much finished her now and wanted to post some shots for critique as I am enjoying pushing myself and trying to do better with each mini I paint for display now. =) and you are all so good so I know I can learn alot by posting for discussion instead of just for voting..anyway..

Is there anything I could do to improve her at this stage?

What can you see that I could do better next time?