Patent leather

Grizzix

Member
does anyone know how to get the effect of patent leather/vinyl clothing? any and all help would be appreciated
 

Chrispy

Active member
There\'s nothing much different about it from other things. You may just want to look at a real leather coat for reference, teh only major difference is it\'s usually semi gloss, so add a bit of grey to your highlight to simulate this. Don\'t try and get the texture down 100% as it\'ll never show..
Hope this helps! :D
 

Coyote

New member
patent leather is very shiney and rubbery, is it not?

I just went to Raunchy Latex Ladies.com and took a look at some latex.

Basically, paint it like NMM (no horizon) but with no transition between highlight and base. You don\'t have to always use pure white however. Just there isn\'t a big transition from light to dark.
 

Dr. Awkward

New member
Patent Leather

Go find a Matrix movie poster that has Trinity on it, for example: this one. You\'ll notice that patent leather reflects exactly like metal would, except that there are only two colours: the colour of the leather, and the colour of the light source. There is little or no other highlight on the leather.

You will note in the reference picture that there are two light sources, and that Trinity\'s face is reflected on the shoulder of her outfit. If she were carrying a prop, it would probably reflect off the outfit as well. Patent leather behaves like a black mirror, which means that it reflects white the best, and other colours tend to be eaten by the leather (her face is light enough and close enough to show up, but far-off or dark objects wouldn\'t show).

However, in the reference, you will want to note that the contrast is bumped up a lot, and that IRL patent leather has some shade to it. But minis are also generally high contrast, so a black/white patent leather scheme might look good. On the other hand, it might not. I\'ve never tried it, and it will take some effort to get sharp white highlights on a black background, even if you\'re using pure artist-quality titanium white (which I recommend for something like this). It could be that patent leather would look like crap unless you add some shading, or are really ridiculously careful with your highlights. Good luck.
 

Trevor

Brushlicker and Freak!
I would think it would be nigh on impossible to paint that. I would just paint black and gloss varnish.
 

eparchos

New member
I will here suggest a sin: Use metallic paint. Seriously, take some black paint and a dash of silver paint ond use that over the whole objest, then highlight with progressivly more silver. After that\'s done, I do the whole thing over with a very low-viscosity black, almost a wash, and that dulls it down enough that it doesn\'t look like a sheet of dark metal. You can even throw in some grey or white spots for the whole \"light source\" thing if you\'re into that.
 
A
Vallejo Model Colour - Metal Medium

Originally posted by eparchos
I will here suggest a sin: Use metallic paint. Seriously, take some black paint and a dash of silver paint ond use that over the whole objest, then highlight with progressivly more silver. After that\'s done, I do the whole thing over with a very low-viscosity black, almost a wash, and that dulls it down enough that it doesn\'t look like a sheet of dark metal. You can even throw in some grey or white spots for the whole \"light source\" thing if you\'re into that.

Cool idea, you could use the Vallejo Metal Medium as it won\'t add any extraneous colour, only metalize the colour you are working with.

Cheers, Darkblade :cool:
 

airhead

Coffin Dodger / Keymaster
Patent Leather has to be painted \"wet\". I am not sure how to translate this into mini work, but in larger paintings of wet things (gums, eyes, etc.) generous use of white \"hot spots\" and reflections tends to make it look wet instead of flat.

Again, going back to the matrix poster, notice the amount of white in the black. Every wrinkle has a white line across the top as it reflects the studio lights. Plus some hot spots in the flat areas where it is reflecting the floods.

:idea: Wet the mini and take a picture. Then paint the highlights like the picture.
 
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