Flames My Way - Step by Step

[Stewsayer]

Hi,

Bloodhowl asked me to write up an article on how I have been doing the flames on the Forgeworld Bloodthirster and Demon Prince models I am currently working on.

First up here's the finished product on some bits of the minis.

The green circle is a bit I'm not happy with the progress of and will be repainting for these posts.

Next up what I use.

 

[Stewsayer]

What I'm using for the scheme.

P3 - Skorne Red, Heart Fire and Cygnus Yellow. Any darker red, bright orange and bright yellow will do it I think.

VMC - Black Glaze, Transparent Red, Transparent Orange and Transparent Yellow. It will probably work with very thin glazes of the standard colours but I'm not sure having not tested it that way.

Brushes are a W&N series 7 miniature 3/0 and a Raphael No.1. I like the mini 3/0 for the flames as my brush control with the larger brush I usually use isn't that good for fine lines at the moment.

I also use a wet palette (home made).

Well onto the process.

I'm going to start by base coating the area in question with a 50/50 mix of VMC Black and VGC Black Ink.

Next I put some Skorne Red on the wet palette. The P3 paint is fairly fluid straight from the pot so I'm not going to thin it down. I start building it up in streaks. On this section I want the flames along the toothed edge as on the larger section of the blade. Try and vary the direction a little and keep them curvy. You can see I'm not doing that great a job of it on this bit still. Keep them a little broad at this stage as later we want to refine some of the edges, that combined with the next step will help create an illusion of a little depth. try and keep the layers thin but don't be to concerned about keeping it tidy at this stage.

The next stage is to apply several layers of very thin black glaze over the whole area. I think I have done six or seven here. I'm looking for the red to start fading a little. Hopefully that's visible in this shot.

 

[Stewsayer]

Next up is to go back to the Skorne red and reinforce some of the tongues of flame trying to keep the areas smaller this time. Also don't be afraid to add new bits and to vary up the directions and size of the curves (note the lack of this in my example). Also if you really don't like something come back with your base coat and erase it. Do it at this stage as it will get harder to do later on.

Next up is a bit of back and forth. Black Glaze a few layers and then refine some edges with Skorne Red basically until you feel happy with what you are getting.

and a bit more

and here is what it looks like on something with a little more detail

Hopefully you can see (bottom left of the khorne symbol) how some of the flames are starting to look like they recede from the surface.

Thats all for now more to come in a couple of days.

 

[Bloodhowl]

Bloodhowl asked me to write up an article on how I have been doing the flames on the Forgeworld Bloodthirster and Demon Prince models I am currently working on.

Oh, sure. Blame me! You know you wanted to publish a how to! :rotfl:


Thanks for taking the time to write this up Stew! The flames look brilliant!

 

[Stewsayer]

Hi,

I've gotten through a few more steps. I mentioned before correcting with the base coat black before moving from red for the flames into orange. Thinking it over you can bring the base coat black back in at any time in small areas. The transparent paints and glaze build up in layers over the black and create a kind of glow effect. Using the base coat at later stages will reduce this in places and add perhaps a more natural looking variation to the whole thing.

Anyway on to the next bit. Once I was happy with the appearance of the area, (I did another two rounds of skorne red and black glaze). I started to add in the Transparent Red (TRed) as a glaze. This was watered down a bit more than 50/50, until I could see the surface of the palette through the paint. I apply it from just beyond the tops of the flames down toward their base. While the TRed is still wet I apply some black glaze from just below the tops of the flames up toward the area I left black. After two or three layers of this

Again I work back and forth maybe three times Skorne red on the flames followed by Glaze layers. The Skorne Red is applied a little randomly maybe adding new bits, reinforcing previous bits that look good but have faded due to the glaze, Or in very small areas to bring up an edge or tip of a lower layer that looks good faded but will look better with that bright bit. Its a real feel thing and something I'm only just getting a handle on after 15 or more panels of this stuff over two models. Damn forgot to grab a photo of that. Sorry.

You can sort of see the result of the last little stage in this next shot. However I have moved on and started into the flames with the Heartfire orange. This time being pretty picky about where and how fine the lines are.

This is followed by two or four layers of the TRed and Black Glazes applied as before.

Then back and forth again using he heartfire and then the glazes. I think I went through twice more to end up with this. The flames are gaining a little shape and depth and a nice haze is building up in the spaces between them and it gets brighter toward the bottom of the flames.

I was also working on the Leg plates while doing the axe.

OK so happy with that I continued reapplying the Heartfire but I now have added in the Transparent Orange (TOrange) to the glaze layers. Again watered down a little more the 50/50 until the surface of the palette is visible through the puddle. I apply this to about the bottom third of the flames. While it is still wet I pull the TRed glaze from the top of the flames to just inside the orange area an a little back up as well at times. Then black out ward from the flame tops to the areas left black. Again 3 or 4 layers of glazes to one layer of Heartfire. After maybe four times through this rotation I have these

Thats all for now. Nearly at the end. One more full stage to go and some optional bits.

 

[Stewsayer]

Final stage then,

Doing the same again but substituting Cygnus Yellow for the Heart fire and making very small areas and concentrating them toward the lower portion of the area. Followed by you guessed it more glazes of TOrange, TRed and Black Glazes as before.

One last touch is to go back with the Cygnus Yellow one more time and pick out some very small spots to reassert and there pretty much you have it.

Of course more can be done if you want. In the last few photos I've been back over with some glazes of yellow dayglow paint applied very sparingly. Not sure how well it shows up in the pics but IRL those spots pop quite well. On the Deomn Prince I'm working on I used orange dayglow paint too. But I prefer it without.

You could also introduce some transparent yellow glazes lower down further on the flames to make the whole thing look a little hotter. And bring in some very small points of pure white (glazes these in yellow) over the yellow to further enhance that effect. I have done this on the Khorne symbol on the leg plate where the lines cross.

Or you could ad some thin lines of violet at the edges of existing flames. This gives a very nice look.

And that is it for the way I am doing flames.

 

[Bloodhowl]

:claply: :claply: Well done, Sir! Well done! :worship: :worship: