Painting Techniques

These are simply reminders regarding various painting techniques :

In general

The best way to think about painting, is that my paintbrushes are "breathing life" into the miniature.  When all is done, they are supposed to look as if they were alive.  With that in mind, things seem a lot easier.

And whilst I often (usually ? always ?) paint figures I am dissatisfied with, I have never finished one I would be ashamed of putting on the battlefield, so the final result will not be dreadfully bad !

 

Fundamental techniques and their top tips

As far as I am concerned, there are five major areas to plan for :

-  Light direction

-  Shadows

-  Colour shift

-  Texture 

-  Edge highlights

 

As for the techniques used to achieve them, these will definitely be mixed together on the same figure, and can often be mixed together on the same surface.  For example, feathering gives a nice counterpoint to a more subtle glazing.

-  Glazing.  Glazing is generally done "upwards" (towards the light).  Thin or very thin paint, the thinner the paint and the smaller the colour shift, the smoother the transitions will be.  Thinner paint and smaller colour shifts are necessary over large surfaces.  Glazing gives a very natural look.

Glazing also requires a thin layer of paint, it is not a wash.  It is also best, when possible, to feather the edge of the layer while it is still wet, see below.

The shadowed part of a glazed zone, can be done with feathering or pseudo-NMM...or even glazing for that matter. 

Top Tip : the more colour shifts, the better the blend will look; I would go for anything from 6 to 10 (shading included).  For flesh, be it human or otherwise, nothing beats glazing, and it is best to aim for the upper limit of glazes, even over a very small surface such as a human face.

Top Tip : as obvious as it may seem, this is not something that is always taken into consideration : except in the case of multiple light sources, shadows actually have a cut off point, ie. a distinct transition between where light can hit the material, and where it cannot.  Lightened-up areas do not have this transition, they just have varying degrees of light.  This means that, just like in drawing, painting shadows is somewhat easier, and also helps defines the figure.

-  Feathering (1-brush or 2-brush).  Feathering is done "downwards" for highlights and "upwards" for shadows.  Thin paint but with a bit of consistency, with retarder medium.  Top tips : the initial blob of paint has to be calibrated to the surface it needs to be stretched over, and the brush used to feather needs to be damp otherwise holes will appear and the edge rather than the point of the feathering brush provides the best results.  The colour shift is greater than with glazing, but must not be excessive; hence multiple layers of feathering are required over larger surfaces.  Feathering makes certain elements of the figure pop.

More top tips :  the drying time of acrylic paint is a factor; it can be slowed but it cannot be stopped.  You just have to live with it and work with it.  Mixing in large amounts of retarder medium may seem like a good idea, but it screws up the paint texture and makes feathering very difficult.  It took me some time to figure that out.

Feathering works best on smaller surfaces, or for shadowed areas regardless of their extent.

Feathering with 2 brushes (one sharp for putting the paint on, one less so for drawing it out) is more ergonomic and allows more time with the paint, although a single brush is enough for a small surface.  Licking the brushes not only takes off excess paint, it also gives it excellent consistency for this job.

-  Pseudo-NMM.  What I call pseudo-NMM is applying NMM-like techniques to a non-NMM surface; it no doubt has another name.  Pseudo-NMM is done both "downwards" and "upwards".

It is necessary to start with the shaded areas, which should be painted as a relatively large swathe, basically using downwards glazing; the contrasts can be quite rough.

A top tip is, as with NMM, to use for the shadows something other than the base colour (like using a red glaze over the bluish-grey base of an NMM sword); indeed the colours used can vary in different areas.  The fact that they will later be glazed with the base colour will ensure blending.

The base colour is then glazed over the shaded area, running "upwards"; the shaded area can be redone (and often will have to be, on large surfaces).

Once this is done, the same process is repeated for the highlights, with the particularity that the highlight colour can be glazed over part of the shaded area (always "upwards").  Again, it can be done quite roughly; it is then glazed over with the base colour and reconstructed, with more care.

-  Battle damage

Be it scratches, scars, wounds or tears in cloth, battle damage really helps bring a mini to life; it is also best done during the paint job rather than after it, as the different blending techniques will blend in the battle damage too.

-  Edge highlighting.  Vital on any mini, as at this small scale it helps break up the zones and give definition.  Top tip : an edge highlight needs at least one highlight itself, and should always be brighter than the brightest highlight; and an interesting, sharper, effect is achieved using a different colour, which is then glazed over with a highlight of the base colour (example : pink edge highlight on green, glazed over with yellow-green).

It is vital to use a brush whose edge can be flattened, and the paint should have some consistency.

In more detail

Planning

I never think enough (or at all) about
-  which blending technique I will use where
-  what texture each part of the figure will have and how I will achieve it (you don't paint leather the same way you paint cloth, and jeans and silk simply don't look the same either).
-  any patterns / freehands
 

It is worth blocking in the colour of the base before painting, or at least when part-way in, as otherwise the white-sprayed base tends to distract from the paint scheme.  Painting early the black contour of the base also helps a lot.


Basecoat

The basecoat requires thin paint, and therefore will consist of at least two layers (thinning it down so to need more than two layers is possible, but seems excessively time consuming).
-  NO imperfections must creep in to the base coat (including deposits of dried paint caught up in the brush…).
-  The base coat MUST be opaque and regular, the watering down tending to push the pigment into recesses.

Feathering / aka One-brush or two-brush blending (aka void blending or spit blending)

Although the paint should not be as thin as a glaze, it MUST be thinner than one might think.  A rule of thumb is to dilute it to "what seems right" then dilute it again one more time.  Otherwise the paint seems to have too much surface tension.  Being thinner it will, however, dry quicker.
What seems about right, is the paint is thin enough to be "hoovered up" by a paintbrush with a large reservoir.

Feathering highlights is easier if the shadows have already been built up, as they define the lay of the area to be painted and makes correct positioning of the highlights a lot easier.

If feathering is the only technique being used to create highlights - I often use it this way, for example, on the armour of sci-fi figures - something like four to six colour transitions are required (for example, over a crimson base coat, scarlet, then half scarlet half orange, then orange, then bright orange, then bright-orange and off-white, then off-white).  The paint of each transition is sufficiently thin to pull it over a small or large area, as required; and it can even be pulled beyond the previous "layer" onto the previous transition.  A (very) strong contrast is required, and can go all the way up to white (or at least off-white).  Note however that the brightest highlight ("hotspot") can cover but a very small area and be very effective in "bringing the miniature to life".



Glazing

One important thing with glazing is to never underestimate the ability of acryclic paint to tint. Hence glazes should be heavily watered down.

The second, perhaps most important thing, is the quantity of glaze on the paintbrush.  A glaze is not a wash; the glaze should NOT be overloaded.  There will be a sort of "wet tip" of paint that needs to be pushed towards the highlight (or shadow, if glazing down) but this should be small.

You can also tell if the amount of paint on the brush is ok, if the glaze dries almost instantly (which also eliminates unsightly ring marks).  This also means that glazing offers a lot of control as layers can be built up almost instantly.

Direction is important, as the very thin paint will deposit where the brush stroke ends : if glazing "upwards", the brush stroke must finish on the highlight area; vice versa if "downwards".

One way to glaze "upwards" is to imagine that the paintbrush is light splashing over the figure.

Wet-blending

I haven't tried this yet; it apparently works well for large areas and light coloured paints. It definitely needs (a little !) retardant medium, and it can be done with one brush or two.  I think it is not unlike the effect you get when mixing together two paints on a palette; they do not "instantly" form one unified colour.  It can naturally be combined with other techniques.

Whatever the case, it is apparently less of a technique in itself - which doesn't mean those who are good at it (ie. not me) cannot achieve amazing results with it - than a time-saver for other techniques.  It gives a quicker to do and pre-blended base for glazing (reducing glazing layers from say 10 to 2...).


Loaded-brush

I haven't tried this at all.


Edge highlighting

Different degrees of thinning with the same colour will create different hardnesses over different parts of the miniature.



Painting human faces

A human face is all about achieving good contrast and smooth transitions over a pretty darn small surface for a 28mm figure.

This really needs a succession of very thin glazes; it is a thankless task as the difference between two layers seems so small as to be insignificant...until the end result is visible.

Flesh colour = add a little pink or purple pink, avoid too much yellow.


Undercoat with very thin paint, basically a glaze (flesh colour), using multiple layers to build up opacity without creating unwanted texture.


Darken the eye socket, paint the eyes.  Interesting technique, pushing the brush onto thumb and drawing it down, which creates a „knife edge“ giving greater accuracy for painting whites of eyes.

Two important elements for the next step :

1    Mix up PLENTY of base colour, I mean REALLY A LOT as the very thin glazes that are going to be painted on take a lot of time, use up a lot of paint, and need constant adjustment.  It is an EXTREMELY painstaking process if new batches of paint have to be made up.

2    The main issue with painting a face is that transitions must be really smooth but contrast high over a VERY SMALL surface.  This can only be achieved by ULTRA THIN glazes, whilst making sure the paintbrush is only moist with them.  The paint will dry very quickly but, on the other hand, the surface is small so the two balance out.

Highlight forehead, upper part of cheek, nose, nostrils, the area between nose and upper lip and the top of the lower lip with successive (10 ?) layers of flesh colour + increasingly off-white, basically glazing ie. the same technique I use to finish a two-brush blend.  Each highlight layer paints over 90% of the previous one.

Shading (in example, with reddish brown), same glaze consistency.  Three sides of nose, whole lower half of cheek, mouth if closed, under bottom lip, hairline, two diagonal lines down from nose along mouth muscles, all for definition.  Glaze back over if too strong.

Subtle edge highlight over the top of the eye socket (where the eyebrows would be, to simulate underlying muscles).

The upper lip has been defined by highlighting; the lower lip also, but only the lower lip is then coloured, by adding a little pink or red or purple to the flesh tone, to avoid to great a differential, and then highlighting.



The face may be broken down artistically into three zones :

Upper zone (forehead) = yellow, reflecting sunlight

Middle zone (cheeks, nose) = red, blood vessels close to surface

Lower zone (chin) = blue, reflecting earth



So the following step is to glaze in heavily watered down red paint or even ink into the lower half of the cheeks and a very little on the nose to warm it ; keep adding on ultra-thin glazes until satisfied.

For the lower part of the face, blue for male faces, but purple is better for female faces.



Take a look at this point at the whole, and improve as required.





Worth considering the idea of concentrating on one side of the face (both sides in light but create more contrast on one side than the other), which will give it a more dramatic and dynamic look.


Other human flesh (except face)

The best technique for painting human (or no doubt any) flesh is what I call the "pseudo-NMM technique" (see above).  Vince Venturella from Hobby Cheating does a fantastic example of it on his video n° 36. 

The shading colour is definitely to be done in a different tone - for a warm tone, dark crimson and plum, for example; for a cold tone, blue and violet are more appropriate.

The first unifying glaze is best done with the addition of some extra pink to the base colour, which "breathes life" into the flesh as it were.

This, more than any "pseudo-NMM technique" needs a lot of "rinse and repeat"; a much as NMM itself, in fact.

The end result can be anything from a very smooth flesh, to a more stylised, dynamic result, and both can look pretty good.

 
NMM

I have developed at length the "pseudo-NMM" technique above.  Obviously, this is the technique used to paint NMM.

NMM itself, however, requires :

- juxtaposition of light and dark

- hyper-contrast

-  it does not require, as I originally thought, pure black and pure white, although these can be present

-  that highlights do not necessarily correlate to light direction ; although any pure white should be light source dependent

-  a matt varnish applied, but without any dampener

-  after painting everything, at least on a steel blade, work in some very thin coloured glazes (red, green, brown, whatever) for a simple but very effective "sky-earth NMM" effect

Rust effects

1)  Paint on rusted areas with a dark orange
2)  Use a small sponge (or packing material) to dab on bright orange paint on and on the edges of the previous layer
3)  Paint on very small "splotches" of darker and lighter rust
4)  Run a wash over all this
5)  Repeat step 2
6)  Line some heavily rusted edges with metallic paint (as if all the vehicle's paint had rusted off)
7)  Run over the metal paint with a pencil to dim down the shine