Help with highlighting

[Ratcals]

Okay so I\'ve read quite a bit of information on how to hightlight and I\'m ready to tackle it for the first time. The part I\'m not too sure about is what parts should be highlighted. I\'ve showed the pictures below to my wife and she suggested the parts that were naturally highlighted by the camera. That seemed to make sense to me. Is that about how everyone else does it?

 

[Modderrhu]

What to highlight... everything?

Before you start to highlight, those washes are pretty strong. Perhaps take some of the base colour that you washed over and paint again, leaving the recesses (real and imagined) washed as they are. It\'s a general rule with washing, that you put the base colour down, do your wash, and then your base colour again to neaten up the wash.

Then to highlight, take some elf flesh (or a suitably light flesh) and go over his knuckles and the upper surfaces of his hands with it. The same with his nose, his bottom lip and his cheeks.

With a mixture of bone and white, do the tips of his horns, with more emphasis on the upper surfaces. Then just white on the extreme tips and upper edges.

For the armour, take some silver and drybrush that over his chainmail. The edges of the armour and helmet can get some chainmail. Over the bronze bits on his helmet, shining gold.

The axe gets some silver too - after a black wash. Streaking silver along the sharp edges emphasises the edges and makes them look sharper. The rivet on the axe can also be accentuated by a touch of silver on its upper surface.

His beard is very red, so you won\'t be able to highlight that with a light brown, so perhaps go with a fully red beard, and highlight it with blazing orange.

Well, that\'s a simple start - nothing amazing, and you, or others, will well have other ideas and colour choices. But me thinks that if you start off with those, the concepts behind highlighting will be a little more obvious to you.

 

[Ratcals]

Originally posted by Modderrhu
What to highlight... everything?

Before you start to highlight, those washes are pretty strong. Perhaps take some of the base colour that you washed over and paint again, leaving the recesses (real and imagined) washed as they are. It\'s a general rule with washing, that you put the base colour down, do your wash, and then your base colour again to neaten up the wash.

I thought it was a little strong myself and I already did what you suggested but I guess I need to do it again.

Thanks for the highlighting tips, that\'s exactly what I need. I\'ll give it a try later tonight and repost some pictures.

Thanks again.

 

[vincegamer]

Originally posted by Modderrhu
With a mixture of bone and white, do the tips of his horns, with more emphasis on the upper surfaces. Then just white on the extreme tips and upper edges.

I disagree. The tips of his horns should be black, not white. A quick Google image search of \"bull horns\" will show nearly always they blacken at the tips.

As to highlighting, this is a good technique:
Put a super bright lamp above the mini, where you think the light (sun, torch, whatever) would come from.
Photograph the mini from the front.
Highlight the hot spots in the photo.

That looks like what you\'ve done, so you\'re more advanced than you knew!

 

[Einion]

Maybe these will help with the basics of lighting. If you imagine you start with a black-primed figure for example:



Visualise the lighting using the Stop-Sign Rule, as on the left, and then paint accordingly:



Einion

 

[Ratcals]

Thanks, the picture demonstration is very helpful. I painted the highlights before seeing that but I still think it is an improvement. Remember, this is my first try. The pictures on the left are before and the right ones are after. I also cleaned up the eyes.

 

[Tinweasel]

One thing I find useful, at least for upper-facing highlights, is to hold the miniature so you\'re looking down on it from above, and lighten everything that you can see from a top-down viewpoint.

I generally have my figures taped to 20oz bottle caps as an easy handle, so holding them from all directions as needed is a piece of cake.

That being said, I don\'t necessarily disagree with anything discussed in the thread already. I would add, though, that for highlighting in general, I\'d try and steer clear as much as you can from simply adding White to mixtures as you work your way up to extreme highlights. With the two most \"popular\" miniature paint brands (Citadel and Vallejo) this tends to give figures a \"chalky\" and/or \"semi-pastel\" appearance - I\'d definitely suggest highlighting with successive shades of whatever paint colors you\'re using.

However, if you\'ve got Citadel Inks at hand (or any other paint, really) a nice thin glaze (think 1:15 paint/thinner) goes a long way for taking away a \"chalky\" finish when you just can\'t get around adding in white for extreme highlights.


So far as the current guy goes, I\'d suggest you can even take up the highlights a step higher, especially on upwards-facing edges. Personaly preference, really, but I find a brush held sideways on edge really makes for a good way to apply \"extreme edge\" highlights - just for definition of different color areas.

 

[petey]

Put the model under a strong light, then you can see what should be light/dark

 

[petey]

Originally posted by vincegamer

As to highlighting, this is a good technique:
Put a super bright lamp above the mini, where you think the light (sun, torch, whatever) would come from.
Photograph the mini from the front.
Highlight the hot spots in the photo.

sorry, didnt read all the posts

 

[mickc22]

well it\'s a matter of practise, the more you do the more you will \"see\" where the highlights should go, using a bright light as a guide is allways a good idea

As for your picture taking, I\'m bringing my minis up to you from now on , the clarity and sharpness is awesome