painting scratches - help needed

[me_in_japan]

howdy all,

I'm in the process of painting a couple of Cryx warjacks. They're just for my own tabletop use, so nothing too fancy, but it occured to me that I have never painted scratches on freehand, and would like to learn how. So, I did a search and found several exponents of the "paint a thin black line then paint a thin white line at the bottom" method. I tried it, and while it kiiiiinda works, it also kinda doesnt. Now, clearly some folks are very, very good at painting on freehand scratches (particularly those who do it on NMM) but I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to give me any pointers as to how to make mine look better.

here's what I did so far. Please excuse the quickie iphone pics.

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This 'jack is just for fun/practice, but I have a deathjack sitting looking at me that I would love to paint up to competition standard, so if I could get a bit of quality battle damage onto him, I'd be a very happy camper.

Thanks in advance, everyone

 

[PegaZus]

I'm not going to be much help on technique but the first thing that popped out at me is that they look like you were trying to make lightening bolts rather than scratches. Maybe if they were all going parallel they'd work better.

 

[MAXXxxx]

At first glance they look good.
The only thing that I'd make differently:
paint the white first, than the scratch itself. It's easiert to make the white line much thinner that way.

And if possible use a middle color, so not like: black line with white under it,
but , let's say a dark brown line with a black line over and a light (not necessary white) under it.
+Instead of white I'd use the most extreme highlight color you used for the mini. It makes no sense, that the scratch is lighter than the most extreme highlight you used.

and like pegazus said, I would avoid the lightning like scratches.

 

[RuneBrush]

Agreed, you need to decide what made the scratches. Scratches made from bullets will look different to scratches made in close combat which in turn will look different to scratches made by walking through debris (walls etc). Also is it my eyes or is the actual shoulder metallic?

 

[AndyG]

As above about the positioning and direction of the scratches, dont forget the edges always attract more wear and tear than the center.

Definately use highlites rather than pure white also it looks a lot better if you have different levels of oxidisation indicating old scratches as well as new scratches so not as bright on the top edge and some rust streaks coming down from the underside.

Also on the bottom edges yes use the highlite colour but the ocasional dot of white to show a deeper sharper section to the edge which catches the light more and be sure over these little white glints to put a pure black shadow to indicate the additional depth of that section of the scratch.

Also a lot of scratches on painted surfaces would show a darker primer layer underneath so for example yellow paint scratched would tend to show an orangey brown undercoat and then the metal glinting underneath. Have a look at my Space marine to see this effect with green http://www.coolminiornot.com/304200
Hope this helps

 

[Einion]

What I usually advise re. painting scratches is: thinner, and don't use straight white* and both seem to apply here. Just doing these can help quite a bit.

Next things to look at are shape and placement. Often scratches are slightly tapered and come to a bit of a point on either end, if you can manage this combined with them being thinner it'll make 'em look lots better. Positioning might be the hardest thing because it's conceptual, where are scratches more or less likely (even impossible) taking into account how they're created and any adjacent flaring, projections or raised detail that would protect portions of the surface.

*Except on white or a very light colour; even on something white the position of the scratch is important - in a shadow area you need to use an appropriate lighter colour, not the lightest colour, for the highlight to look right.

Einion

 

[me_in_japan]

Thanks a lot for the advice, chaps

I had a shotty at following it, and here's what I ended up with. The base coat colour, btw, is charadon granite (GW), shaded with a mix of umbral umber (P3) and black (vallejo), highlighted with various amounts of dheneb stone (GW), but not all the way up to pure dheneb (although it certainly looks like it should be. There's bugger all contrast in this chap, bar the spectacularly luminescent yellow bits) The scratches were done with:

base scratch shape: charadon mixed with a bit of umber/black
scratch highlight (lightest part) - dheneb stone with a touch of charadon
darkest bit in scratch - straight black

plus various mixed up intermediate colours where I thought it was all a bit stark. straight charadon saw use here, too.

so, here's what happened.

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Your advice was definitely a big help - it's looking heaps better than yesterday's efforts. It's still not quite there, though. What am I missing? Do I just need to work on thinner lines and so on? Or is my positioning/colour choice out of whack?

Thanks all - with your help I can crack this. I have faith in yez

*edit* just read Einion's post. Thanks a lot for the wise words. I'll have a try at doing some thinner scratches tomorrow. The advice re: relative brightness is also a good one. I'll bear that in mind when doing the various areas. For the moment, though, I'm just hoping to get the concept down, hence I'm mostly focusing on open accessible areas like the shoulders. Including this guy I have 3 big jacks and 4 small ones to practice on before I do the deathjack. I'm hoping that should be enough (in fact, I'm rather hoping I get the hang of it before I run out of jacks, as after that lot I'm likely to be a bit fed up with painting scratches. Still, if that's what it takes...)

 

[AndyG]

Thinner and some flaking as well so a slightly friable edge to show uneveness from the scratch.

Also zenithal light would indicate that the sections of the scratch that reflected the most light would be brighter so a little bit more white in the highliting mix at the bottom end of the scratch also this would be a naturaly deeper section as its were the damage starts off then it slides away growing less deep hence less reflected light towards the top so a little less white in the mix there.

Got to say its LOADS better than the other side I think you've cracked it Cracked it .....scratches..... its a joke......ohh please yourself

 

[me_in_japan]

...aaaaand onto day 3 of painting scratches I was working on his right hand, today. Actually, today's efforts are quite encouraging. I kinda maybe sort of might've gotten a handle on the painting of the fine scratches. Perhaps. But I wouldn't want to get too definite about it, just yet . I'm still having trouble with the bigger chips around the edges of things, though. What say you all?

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I fiddled with the levels a bit for the second pic, as it was too dark to see much otherwise, but the first and third are vanilla pics from the iPhone.

I used the same colours as yesterday, but tried to add a touch of white to the bottom end of scratches, and did my bestest best to keep them thin. I also tried doing the light line first, then adding the dark one to thin it down. That helped a lot. I'm currently using a Rosemary & Co size 1, which is quite big, but it's also pretty new, which means it still comes to a nice point. I actually have a Winsor and Newton series 7 miniature size 000 sitting unopened in its wee plastic tube. I've never had call to use such a teeny tiny brush before, but if you reckon the scratch lines are still too thick, I may have to bust out tiny tim...

Your advice has been invaluable so far - Thanks a lot, everybody

 

[AndyG]

Looking spiffiing!! Loads better again, placement is spot on and nice thin lines. Crumbly on the edges like this digger just look at the cabs corner upright you see what I mean

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonboots/40371707/

But yep its a good un I like what your doing.

 

[me_in_japan]

ok dokes folks - maybe the last set of pics for now, i hope.

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I think the thin scratches are pretty much where I want them to be at. I'm going to steer clear of larger chips for the moment, though, as I can't quite seem to get the hang of them. I'm getting a bit bored with scratches, so I reckon I should go off and do something else for a bit. I'll be back, though. Hopefully with a nicely scratched up deathjack to show off

Thanks all for your comments, and particularly to AndyG for his help and the nice pic of the rusty tractor I have had barely enough time to put brush to mini this week, but I promise to spend a bit of time around the forums and try to help other folks out in whatever small way I can over the weekend.

Ta muchly

-MiJ

*edit* oh dear. Not the best example of focus there. *hangs head in shame*