Feathering

[SQuacke621]

Hello all. I have tried the feathering technique on several minis and have had very frustrating results. Basically, rather than a smooth transition from one color to the next, it ends up looking like a layered highlight with a lot of smudginess spreading out of it onto the darker color.

I have followed instructions in the guides that I have read as closely as I can (at least I think I am), but the poor results lead me to believe that I am doing something wrong. Has anybody run into this problem?

Thanks.

 

[daemon boy]

hi there any pics of your problem, maybe we can help more?

 

[Einion]

Hi and welcome.

Originally posted by SQuacke621
I have followed instructions in the guides that I have read as closely as I can (at least I think I am), but the poor results lead me to believe that I am doing something wrong.

It might merely be that you need more practice - getting smooth blends from one colour to another (using whatever technique) is for most people not something that they can do first time and get it down pat.

Lots of mini painters struggle to master techniques of one kind or another for months and months (even years!)

Einion

 

[Gussy]

Do you have to pre-mix all the shades on the palette or you do one shade as each one dries?

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Einion

Lots of mini painters struggle to master techniques of one kind or another for months and months (even years!) Even Decades, in my case

Einion

 

[Amazon warrior]

I\'m still working on one this myself, but keeping the paint thin, the colour changes gradual and applying a light wash of the base colour before re-highlighting all help the layers to blend together better, I\'ve found.

 

[mattrock]

Your paint may be to concentrated too. I know that seems to be the answer to everything paint related, but I use feathering/layering almost exclusively for my color transitions and always get a very smooth result. I struggled with it until I got very patient, thinned my paint close to 10:1 with water and made sure to wick off as much as I could on a towel (or in my case an old t-shirt) before painting tons of very thin layers. It builds the opacity over successive layers so you just paint your coats smaller and smaller working from low concentration to high (like on a highlight color your brush stroke would directionally be from dark to light and a shade from light to dark.) In that sense, the feathering is at the beginning of the brush stroke rather than at the end where a lot of people leave it. The problem with doing it that way is that if you end the brush stroke at the feathering stage, you are bringing too much paint to the transition and will end up with a lot of contrast at that point which you don\'t want.

Hope that helps.

 

[SQuacke621]

Thanks for all of the advice everyone. It looks like my problem is simply a lack of patience...bummer! I know this technique is supposed to be quite time consuming, and I think I am trying to rush it too much by leaving out intermediate shades and such. I do thin down my paints quite a bit, but perhaps still not enough (usually at least 4:1, but I\'m not really sure...I do a test stroke first to make sure I can see through it before I start. Looks like I should go for more transparency). So I take it that this is a technique that I may want to reserve for higher-end display work rather than my Eldar army ?