Painting from light to dark

[Temujin Pasha]

Hi all,

I was considering a new painting technique where you use the basecoat as the lightest highlight and work down into the shadows with the subsequent layers of paint, is this feasible, currently I use the midtone, shadow, highlight routine, just a general question into the 'logistics' of it so to say.

 

[gohkm]

Wasn't this discussed not too long ago? Try a search for it.

It is most certainly feasible. Some of the painters here have tried it, blending down from a highlight tone down to shadow. I've tried it beginning with an extreme highlight (solid white or whitened bleached bone), and I found it very difficult to control - I would get stark contrasting areas of a slightly tinted extreme highlight vs. highly shadowed areas.

With the amount of resurgent interest in this technique, it might be time for me to re-visit this.

 

[MoldyApe]

Haven't tried this, so I can't comment... in theory, seems like it should work fine...

BUT... I found the thread that gohkm was talking about (read it earlier before I signed up when I was just creeping on here... ):
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?38971-Painting-Backwards

 

[freakinacage]

i know jeremie bonamont paints form 90% of his highlight and shades

 

[Lady Maethoretho]

I do this. Lightest first, then water down your shadow colour to create a wash so it gets in all the darkest areas, then highlight up and so on.

Works lovely : )

 

[sivousplay]

This is how I apply the bulk of the paint on all of my pieces ... I do use the traditional dark to light highlighting occasionally, but probably 75-90+% of the paint I put on my models, I put on light to dark. The first painting of any kind I ever did was teaching myself to do watercolors ... the only white in watercolors is the paper and the basic technique is applying thin washes to slowly build shadows while the highlights remain as the lightness of the paper "shining" through the very thin paint. I use this same technique for painting everything from 28mm miniatures to 1/4 scale garage kits. I prime white and treat the figure as three-dimensional watercolor paper. If I get paint in a place I don't want it, I use brush on white primer to clean the area and start each section of the figure in the same way ... light to dark.