richrockster
New member
Okay, it seems to most logical thing to do next after a couple of fumbling questions - start a project log!
This one's mostly going to be about my experiences with a new (to me) technique. I've asked about layering, and now have been trying it out myself. Firstly, if you've not read any other posts by me, I'm returning to painting after a 15 year break, I have quite shaky hands and am hoping that regular painting will redevelop my muscle control.
Some things I do differently having read around :
1. Mount my mini on something. Tamiya paint jars work very well, or roughly any plastic cap around 40-50mm diameter.
2. Thin the paints! Yep, I never used to. I only added water when they got thicker. Now I thin pretty much everything, although I'm trying to work out a better approach with metallics.
3. Lots of light! I have 3 lamps, which positioned around me practically eliminate most shadow. I keep some shadow, so when I point the mini in a certain direction, I can see where shadows lie from a single source. Tricky to set up, but a great system for me.
Right. My new technique of layering. For reference, I'm using Vallejo Game Colours, plus inks, a retarder made from glycerin (in small measure) and water.
I've been working out how thin I can get my paints, and I can say pretty darn thin. Base colours are applied at around 50/50 paint/water, then shade with 50/30/20 paint/ink/water mix. Leave to dry.
Then I've been trying out different thicknesses for layering. The one that's working for me on this Khador Widowmaker is 2 part colour, 1 part highlight colour, 10 parts water. Add another part of highlight, and 2 parts water.
As it goes lighter, it gets very thin - to me this seems to allow for smoothing any glaringly obvious layer transitions - this widowmaker has about 30 layers on it in some places. For me personally, this is some of the best highlighting/shading so far.
NOTE: The blue I started with was a mix of Night Blue and Blue Ink. Not typical Khador colours, but I don't really game, just paint what I like
. Also, I've only worked on the bottom half of the coat. 3 hours of work there still more to go . :tremble!:
View attachment 3427
Apologies for the cruddy pic quality. Only thing I did was balance the colour levels due to flash, and crop it. It's taken on a mobile at the moment. At this stage, I've applied a dark blue wash to smooth and tone the highlights down. If I'm starting to go chalky, this is what I've been recommended to do. So I've smoothed and toned, I'm gonna post at this stage, and do another set of highlighting. I'll probably tidy up the edges of the coat by re-applying some Dead White.
This one's mostly going to be about my experiences with a new (to me) technique. I've asked about layering, and now have been trying it out myself. Firstly, if you've not read any other posts by me, I'm returning to painting after a 15 year break, I have quite shaky hands and am hoping that regular painting will redevelop my muscle control.
Some things I do differently having read around :
1. Mount my mini on something. Tamiya paint jars work very well, or roughly any plastic cap around 40-50mm diameter.
2. Thin the paints! Yep, I never used to. I only added water when they got thicker. Now I thin pretty much everything, although I'm trying to work out a better approach with metallics.
3. Lots of light! I have 3 lamps, which positioned around me practically eliminate most shadow. I keep some shadow, so when I point the mini in a certain direction, I can see where shadows lie from a single source. Tricky to set up, but a great system for me.
Right. My new technique of layering. For reference, I'm using Vallejo Game Colours, plus inks, a retarder made from glycerin (in small measure) and water.
I've been working out how thin I can get my paints, and I can say pretty darn thin. Base colours are applied at around 50/50 paint/water, then shade with 50/30/20 paint/ink/water mix. Leave to dry.
Then I've been trying out different thicknesses for layering. The one that's working for me on this Khador Widowmaker is 2 part colour, 1 part highlight colour, 10 parts water. Add another part of highlight, and 2 parts water.
As it goes lighter, it gets very thin - to me this seems to allow for smoothing any glaringly obvious layer transitions - this widowmaker has about 30 layers on it in some places. For me personally, this is some of the best highlighting/shading so far.
NOTE: The blue I started with was a mix of Night Blue and Blue Ink. Not typical Khador colours, but I don't really game, just paint what I like
. Also, I've only worked on the bottom half of the coat. 3 hours of work there still more to go . :tremble!:View attachment 3427
Apologies for the cruddy pic quality. Only thing I did was balance the colour levels due to flash, and crop it. It's taken on a mobile at the moment. At this stage, I've applied a dark blue wash to smooth and tone the highlights down. If I'm starting to go chalky, this is what I've been recommended to do. So I've smoothed and toned, I'm gonna post at this stage, and do another set of highlighting. I'll probably tidy up the edges of the coat by re-applying some Dead White.
