painting Crimson fists with a different method.. need input.

[JagCalle]

Hi guys!

Due to me being bored with churning out orks, and decided to start something that won't take shitloads of conversions, I've decided to work up a small army of crimson fists.

Now then, as I've had carpal tunnel syndrome, wich left me with shaky hands, I've decided to set about how to paint these lads, a tad differently from most.

I've decided to work my marines the same way I do my leather straps for orks (though.. blue..). I usually start off by painting the entire strap in the highlight colour. Then a slightly smaller strip of the basecoat colour in the middle, leaving the highlight colour on the edges. I figure a modified version of this should work on marines as a whole.

My plan is to use the GW airbrush (yes, I bought it in a weak moment, but heck, it works for basecoating..) to basecoat the entire model with a light foundation blue (or a regular citadel colour, that's a light blue and pigment high..) for which will be left on the edges for the extreme highlights

Then paint most of the inner areas enchanced blue, followed by the inner circle of midnight blue. or should I go straight from midnight blue, to black instead of enchanced blue?

I've also considered buying one of those dillutants that makes the colour dry slower, helping me with the blending. (citadel colours are acrylic based right?)

Thoughts, ideas and suggestions?

//Calle

 

[eternity]

Hi,

I didn't want to read your thread and not comment. First, I just want to make sure I understand what you mean: you basecoat the models with the highlight colour and then apply the main colour/s over that??

If this is correct then I would just like to say I think it is a very good idea, and I haven't thought of it as a way to get around the problem of not being able to highlight in situations like yours!

In reference to going from enchanted/midnight or midnight/black it all depends how dark you want the models to be. If you want them quite bright and clean looking I would go for enchanted/midnight whereas if you want them a bit darker and possibly dirty/rugged sort of look I would go for midnight/black. Personally I think midnight/black may be easier to paint and blend.

I have never used the paint thinner but my advice would be to test it out first, as I assume it would make the consistency of the paint different and therefore may be harder (or easier) to paint with, at least until you are used to it!

Good luck and I hope this helps?

 

[Einion]

First off, sorry to hear about the hands! I had a small bout of carpal tunnel on my right hand but I caught it in time so no permanent effects (so far).

Any help if you press the heel of the painting hand against the opposite hand? This usually helps people whose hands aren't as steady as they'd like, not sure if it would help here though.

I've also considered buying one of those dillutants that makes the colour dry slower, helping me with the blending. (citadel colours are acrylic based right?)

Probably vinyl paint but it really makes little difference since the chemistries are about the same and they can be used together (co-polymer paints). So any blending medium or retarder for acrylics should work fine. I've never tried it myself but W&N's Watercolour Blending Medium is supposed to work nicely too so might be worth a try as well.

Thoughts, ideas and suggestions?

Sounds like a good way of going about it if edge highlighting isn't practical any more.

Einion

 

[JagCalle]

Looking through a mates SM dex, and checking alot of pics here on Cmon, I think I'll go with the darker variant. The lighter tend to end up (in my mind, no accusations, it's just my humble, deranged oppinion) looking like red-trimmed ultramarines, with odd icons on the shoulders...

@eternity "First, I just want to make sure I understand what you mean: you basecoat the models with the highlight colour and then apply the main colour/s over that??"
-yes, except the edges where the extreme highlights will be.

@Einion "Any help if you press the heel of the painting hand against the opposite hand? This usually helps people whose hands aren't as steady as they'd like, not sure if it would help here though."
-I do this too, it's what allows me to atleat get the messy standard I have now. Don't think it'll be enugh for marine work though, as I want 'em looking more "crisp". heh, my lowlight method has only been tried on small leather straps so far, but I think I might be able to transfer th method to a whole model...

So, the process will be:
1: a light blue for base (I'll talk to the bloke who works at the LFGS, to see which light blue non foundation works with the airbrush (some GW colours are high-pigment enugh to work without being foundation...)

2: Regal or midnight blue everywhere but where I want the highlights.

3: And finally black in the recesses (or middle of the big flat areas..)

Might give the whole thing an asurmen blue wash sprayed on. I'll try it on some random gobbo I have around first. might work with the white undercoat as a highlight (instead of step one) if the wash "bluens it up enugh"...

red details will be painted mechrite red or Macharius Solar Orange (both foundations), and then "lowlighted" with red gore before it's given a Baal red wash.

Can we name this method "lowlighting"?? =)

I'm buying the missing paints on monday or tuesday, aswell as the blending medium, and will start working on a "corvus" helmeted marine I had in my bit box. I'll try to post pics of the wip process during this experiment. (heh, long live small tabletop tri-pods for us shaky hands. atleast I can take decent pics =) )

//Calle

 

[winterdyne]

I'd go with a zenital highlighting method - if you like the effect that is. Glazing down I think will take a lot more work on your hands. With the zenital work, I find less glazing is required as the bulk of the coat is already dark.

Start black, then apply a very dark shade of blue, and then successive very thin, light coats from above until you reach a colour that's pretty much your extreme highlight (although very thin). Where this is too light, use a 50-50 blue/black wash mix to glaze down and unify colours. Should work well for CF.

Then block in detail areas with black and paint those as normal. The results are pretty good, and quick.

 

[JagCalle]

@winterdyne: that seems fairly easy, I googled zenital, and after some browsing found this:
http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=237847

Up to step 4 it looks good enugh, but looking at stage 5, it feels a bit.. grainy? to me.

Now I haven't used the citadel airbrush for stuff like this before, but wouldn't odds be that it'll get a bit grainy/chalky?

Oh, and here's what might be a stupid Q from me; why not (like in the link) use multiple coats of the same colour (tone)? in that example ultramarine blue?

Maybe even white or grey instead of blue (a couple of layers over a black undercoat) followed by a healthy spray of asurmen blue wash?

I've just used my airbrush for basecoating and fast inking... can you even use it at an angle like that, or does one fix the mini in a horizontal position and spray from the side as usual?

//Calle living the learning experience..

 

[winterdyne]

You do use multiple coats of the same colour - the coats are extremely thin and translucent, so the colour isn't achieved by a single pass of the spray - it's a lot like drybrusing over and over again to build it up. The more mixes and thinner coats you use, the less grainy the result will be - it looks grainy when you have too much contrast between what you're spraying and what it's hitting. That said, the less mixes and thicker coats you use, the faster the tone builds up. For a competition standard piece I may use between 30 and 50 layers of spray in 8 or 9 separate colours for the tone. For an army, I reckon 5 stages is enough.

The Sternguard are on my touch-up list - they need some edge highlighting by hand, and a glaze or two to deepen and unify things to bring them in line with everything else in the commission. The grainyness should be lessened during that stage.

You can spray washes, but frankly, why would you bother? It gives less control than directed washing or glazing. If you're interested, greyscale preshading by airbrush or spray can be done (black to grey to off-white base coat over the whole mini) and glazes used thereafter to colour.

As for directing the spray - hold the gun so it sprays nicely and hold the mini at the appropriate angle. Don't worry too much about precision - as long as the spray hits the mini from the sort of direction you want your 'light' to come from, the resultant highlights will look right. I attach my minis to cocktail sticks in order to have a handle to hold, and stab the stick into a big block of polystyrene to keep things separate and out of contact with anything while drying.

With any jar-fed brush though, what will help here is pre-mixing your paints. BUY EXTRA JARS! LOTS OF THEM! Then buy some more! Don't worry about cleaning the brush between colours - as you're going from one similar colour to another, just swap 'em and blast it through. If your brush keeps clogging have a jar of appropriate cleaner to clear it.

It's doing this sort of work though that will make you realise how useful a cup-fed brush is - you can mix the paint in the actual airbrush which saves loads of time.

 

[JagCalle]

Cool, I didn't realise it was your tutorial untill I went back and re-read it =)

I'll see if I can get my grubbly paws on a second marine(ish) mini, and try both ways, that way, I can find what works for me =)

Thanks mate!

//Calle

 

[winterdyne]

The important thing is that the paint go on looking relatively 'dry' - adjust your spraying distance, paint flow and pressure accordingly - relatively high pressure to paint flow ratio is what you're after. You do NOT want runs or spattering to occur. Always test spray onto paper or card, not the mini.