Glazing How To - From Start To Finish

[morning]

I also have a question- I tried this on the Huron model, and I seem to always have teh pain flow into the seam between the plate, and raised area, as well as into the cracks. When this happens, all I do is raise the color of the model in all places, not having a bright side and low side. Anything I'm doing wrong, or should I not use this method for models with this many seams?

[LunchBox]

Hi there, I'm quite new to painting miniatures, and i'm trying out the technique in your tutorial. I'm working on painting the Power Armour in red though, and have come accross some difficulties:

 

When i thin the paints, the reds (I've got Vallejo model colour Black Red, burnt Cad. Red, Vermillion, GW Red Gore, GW Mechrite Red GW and Blood Red) tend to turn either a dark brown (the darker ones) or have a pinkish hue to it (Vermillion and Blood Red). Is there a way to get around this?

 

The Base colour i am applying is a mix of Vermillion: Burnt Cad. Red (1:1) also on a white Primecoat. what mixtures would you suggest for highlighting and shading?

 

cheers,

 

Chris

 

For a red, I'd usually glaze on a light orange for a basecoat. This prevents a lot of the "pinking". Reds are wierd...you'll find yourself glazing in greens and blues to get it to look red, but overdoing it turns the red to crimson. Also, be cautious using foundation paints for glazes...they have a tendency to have more of a staining effect instead of a tinting effect. Also, for reds, I'd (personally) suggest getting some RMS "Clear Red". It's straight red pigment in a clear base, and if you have a good blend going, but lost some of the red look, a glaze or two sets it right back to a vibrant red without ruining what you've already done. The shading and highlighting colors are to your personal tastes.

 

very informative lunch box. i do have a little question though. more of a confirmation really. when glazing armour and such on marines, would you normally glaze one tone until you have it pretty smooth then move onto the smaller darker glaze in the shadows. to make it clearer, would you start a darker glaze over a lighter one when the lighter one still hasn't covered full in the darker area.

 

i ask since i have done this a little (damned impatiance) and i have haid some reasonable results with it. however if it is something to try not to go for then at least i will know about it now instead of ruining a nice model.

 

In short, you want to establish your median tones smoothly before shading. As you play with it for a while, you'll start to learn where you can "cheat".

 

I also have a question- I tried this on the Huron model, and I seem to always have teh pain flow into the seam between the plate, and raised area, as well as into the cracks. When this happens, all I do is raise the color of the model in all places, not having a bright side and low side. Anything I'm doing wrong, or should I not use this method for models with this many seams?

 

 

Actually, you want the paint to flow into seams and cracks. As I outlined in the tut, shaded areas in real life are created when the colors around that area are absorbed. For instance, look at the wadded up shirt on your floor...notice the folds are absorbing the colors around it, and the darker, shaded parts are actually the colors of the floor, the shirt, the nightstand, etc. all combined into a darker color. Your brain tells you it's "darker", but look at the actual colors that create the shade. If I have a medium-blue shirt on a blonde bamboo floor next to a walnut nightstand (and I do...gotta pick that up) I see the shades under the folds of the shirt are a combination of blue, dark brown, and ochre. If I mix these colors together on a painting tile, I get a more realistic shade color, instead of using black. Does that kinda answer your question?

 

It sounds goofy, but take a picture of that shirt on the floor...or that towel on the rack...or a crumpled piece of paper. Save it to your computer, and open it in MS "paint"...blow the pic size up, and select a color. You'll be AMAZED the different colors that a simple thing has...and it's all because your eyes tell your brain "that's a piece of white paper", instead of analyzing what colors are actually present. It's the same way you can tell what color a car is at any time during the day. You want a real trip...take a pic of your car in the morning, at lunch, and after dinner. Blow those up and look at the different colors based on how light affects objects during different times of the day.

[Starks333]

When i thin the paints, the reds (I've got Vallejo model colour Black Red, burnt Cad. Red, Vermillion, GW Red Gore, GW Mechrite Red GW and Blood Red) tend to turn either a dark brown (the darker ones) or have a pinkish hue to it (Vermillion and Blood Red). Is there a way to get around this?

 

they will appear off hued until you have an even coat....so as you continue to build up layers they will solidify

 

very informative lunch box. i do have a little question though. more of a confirmation really. when glazing armour and such on marines, would you normally glaze one tone until you have it pretty smooth then move onto the smaller darker glaze in the shadows. to make it clearer, would you start a darker glaze over a lighter one when the lighter one still hasn't covered full in the darker area.

 

i ask since i have done this a little (damned impatiance) and i have haid some reasonable results with it. however if it is something to try not to go for then at least i will know about it now instead of ruining a nice model.

 

its personal preference like i mention above, it doesnt matter how(order/process) you do it, as long as it works for you

 

theres many different techniques using this basic blending technique

 

lemme say this again this is a blending technique, not a "how to paint models with blending"....this technique blends, so changing parts here and there changes the result...this is where practice and experimentation take over

 

you usually aim for smooth coverage...if changing colours doesnt affect getting smooth coverage then by all means, but if in the end you geta rough finish, then you need to go back and think over what happened

 

I also have a question- I tried this on the Huron model, and I seem to always have teh pain flow into the seam between the plate, and raised area, as well as into the cracks. When this happens, all I do is raise the color of the model in all places, not having a bright side and low side. Anything I'm doing wrong, or should I not use this method for models with this many seams?

 

if the problem comes with highlighting...dont thin quite as much, and soak off as much water as possible...when touching the mini dont press hard or the brush will gush out fluid...touch lightly to spread the highlights

 

with seemed models highlight first because you can always darken...but re-lightening just doesnt work

 

 

you want thin paint, not watery paint

 

 

hope this helps :)

 

 

agh dammit, i was waiting for you to post and you dissapeared so i thought you were all like im lazy ill let Alex answer....jeez

 

Alex

[Tinweasel]

... if anyone knows of where i can get a hot pink and a couple other bright colours like that, i would love to know

I have an old bottle of GW Titillating Pink - it's the way old-school color that GW used to use for all their Slanneshi stuff back in the late 80's when the paint sets first came out. I checked Coat D'Arms website (who used to do manufacturing of paints for GW back then) and while they have a lot of the older range colors, that particular one isn't one of 'em. The next best thing I could suggest would be Vallejo Model Color #735 - Fluorescent Magenta. (Linky to the color on The Warstore) I've seen it in person as they carry it at both the local stores near me that stock Vallejo and it's not nearly as garish as one might expect, especially when you can mix it up with more subdued colors.

 

 

When i thin the paints, the reds (I've got Vallejo model colour Black Red, burnt Cad. Red, Vermillion, GW Red Gore, GW Mechrite Red GW and Blood Red) tend to turn either a dark brown (the darker ones) or have a pinkish hue to it (Vermillion and Blood Red). Is there a way to get around this?

One thing I might chime in with is the fact that you're using translucent paints over a white primer undercoat, so you said. The darker ones ought to be turning a somewhat burgundy-ish color but VMC Vermilion and GW Blood Red are both on the extreme light end of red and so would filter your white primer into a pinkish shade. In addition to the add-in colors that Starks and Lunchbox mentioned, I'd throw in GW Bronzed Flesh if you use it as an initial glazing color over the white. It's got a strong enough hue that it ought to cut the pinkish tint right out of your reds if you apply them over it as a 2nd layer. As to avoiding the dark brown and keeping it more red, you might want to add a color like GW Bestial Brown or something to it - kinda counter-intuitive I guess, but Bestial Brown has a very healthy red tint to it and the color's strong enough that it ought to compensate for the generally poor coverage/tinting of reds when mixed in with them. I'm a big fan of 1:1 Scorched Brown/Red Gore, but if you're starting with lighter reds and glazing down into shade colors, you'd probably want to save something like that until you're well into shading.

 

Like Starks said, also, is that as you add more of the red colors in layers they will solidify - GW Blood Red especially is known (infamous?) for it's crappy coverage, especially when painted straight over a very light or very dark color. I would imagine Vermilion acts much the same (if having a bit better coverage) just because it's such a primary red hue.

[Patrick O)))]

How does this technique work with white armour?

 

Would I be basecoating them white and then applying few greys to shade and whites to bring the lighter areas back up to where I want them to be?

 

Also, which white primers would you recommend?

[Starks333]

@patrick---explained on page 3 ;)

[mario]

@patrick---explained on page 3 :blink:

 

Well, that's not always true, it's on page two for me. I do not know whose settings (posts per page) are different but the better way to describe it would be: Start reading the whole thread from the start and you should bump into it at some point.

[Graypaint]

I have not painted miniatures in around half a year-yet again-but I find myself always returning.

I started working on a SoB seraphim as an exercise of applying this technique. I am having a little bit of difficulty with raised details, like the fluer de lies on her armor.

 

The paint "pools" on the decoration, but does not cover to the edges. I suppose this isn't a huge deal, but it is very difficult to get clean coverage of raised details this way, especially if I am attempting to apply light sourced shading. How do you get around this "center pooling" thing? For the record, I have a bit of soap to act as surfactant and I have cleaned the piece, so I don't think oils from my hand or surface tension are to blame.

 

Also props on the best tutorial on glazes that I have read in English. Horah for Texan-Canadians.

(As a side note, is there an "American-team" GD painters site analogous to the Canadian team site?)

[Starks333]

dont thin the paint as much when doing details, it runs off or pools because theres too much water

 

next thing, is dont let it pool, pull it away, if it stays touch with a clean brush to soak up the pool before it dries

 

make sure to not be pressing hard or the brush will be gushing out more watery paint, touching lightly will put paint down without excess liquid

 

 

 

canadian-team.com is more just a name, its available to anyone we just support the canadian gathering more, because well...we're canadian...

 

however i opened offers to others(such as team north america) to create a sub forum for them...so its really open to north america -_-

[Graypaint]

I was trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, and I think it might be my brushes being sort of fishtailed, which makes having good brush control a bit trickier.

 

I am also finding that some times, especially with lighter high saturation colors, like yellows and yellow-greens, they sometimes leave ring stains because I have to dilute them so much to get a thin layer on there. How do you handle yellow glazes?

 

I'll drop by Canadian-team or post here with some photos to give some better impressions of where I am stumbling once I get something more impressive looking.

[Starks333]

I was trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, and I think it might be my brushes being sort of fishtailed, which makes having good brush control a bit trickier.

 

I am also finding that some times, especially with lighter high saturation colors, like yellows and yellow-greens, they sometimes leave ring stains because I have to dilute them so much to get a thin layer on there. How do you handle yellow glazes?

 

I'll drop by Canadian-team or post here with some photos to give some better impressions of where I am stumbling once I get something more impressive looking.

 

 

the stains are from pooling thats all...and i explained in the last post about dealing with that sort of thing...simply dilute less with highlights when doing smaller areas, and use brush sensitivity to apply the paint thinner or heavier.....and just dont let the paint pool, its as simple as that, easy is a different story, but its simple

 

as for brushes get some kolinksy sable brushes, raphael series 8404 are my prefered brush, and i order from dickblick.com...it just makes blending easier, not a single person i know that ive got to switch has ever been disappointed, or ever wanted to go back, they dont fish hook, if you keep them clean they dont split, they conform ot the surface you are painting, they lay down a smoother layer, hold more paint, have nicer points, and beat other brushes in pretty much every category

[LunchBox]

I was trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, and I think it might be my brushes being sort of fishtailed, which makes having good brush control a bit trickier.

 

I am also finding that some times, especially with lighter high saturation colors, like yellows and yellow-greens, they sometimes leave ring stains because I have to dilute them so much to get a thin layer on there. How do you handle yellow glazes?

 

I'll drop by Canadian-team or post here with some photos to give some better impressions of where I am stumbling once I get something more impressive looking.

 

 

the stains are from pooling thats all...and i explained in the last post about dealing with that sort of thing...simply dilute less with highlights when doing smaller areas, and use brush sensitivity to apply the paint thinner or heavier.....and just dont let the paint pool, its as simple as that, easy is a different story, but its simple

 

as for brushes get some kolinksy sable brushes, raphael series 8404 are my prefered brush, and i order from dickblick.com...it just makes blending easier, not a single person i know that ive got to switch has ever been disappointed, or ever wanted to go back, they dont fish hook, if you keep them clean they dont split, they conform ot the surface you are painting, they lay down a smoother layer, hold more paint, have nicer points, and beat other brushes in pretty much every category

 

 

I think I agree about the brushes...Starks left 2 of them in my room @ Chicago GD, and even though I tried to return them @ 7 the next morning...I'm kinda glad he didn't answer the door!

[Graypaint]

I am actually using and have pretty much always used either kolinsky or red sable, which are pretty decent brushes.

I still have a hard time finding good miniature brushes even at actual Blick stores (which, at least in my region, have dropped the Dick). In the same vein, I also am looking at getting a new camera, both for miniatures and for my other photography. It's hard getting photos that people can give good crits on with a mediocre camera, but I do what I can.

 

I'll order a few though, I am getting my painting stuff together and either shipping or bringing it on a plane to my apartment.

 

Also, do either of you mind if I PM you a picture of the SoB I am working on? I don't think it merits a new topic right now.

[Starks333]

feel free to PM...but never be ashamed of your work...confidence is key to improvement

[LunchBox]

Exactly...you are more than welcome to PM, but don't be afraid to show your work. The B&C of 2008 is NOT the B&C of yesteryear, where everyone got raked across the coals for painting a mini.

[Graypaint]

I am not really insecure about my painting as much as I am pretty sure no one wants to see a half painted Sister of Battle that I am not going to finish for another month.

Also I am not sure my PMs are not working.

I would have posted here but I feel like I am already derailing this otherwise useful tutorial thread.

[Shiodome]

on a plain area (e.g a knee pad) how would one go about combining this techinique with also adding detail? like a painted symbol/text/icon; in my minds eye just painting some text onto a carefully glazed surface would result in an unnatural contrast, or just look too harsh? (typical examples on a kneepad might be chapter/squad markings)

[LunchBox]

on a plain area (e.g a knee pad) how would one go about combining this techinique with also adding detail? like a painted symbol/text/icon; in my minds eye just painting some text onto a carefully glazed surface would result in an unnatural contrast, or just look too harsh? (typical examples on a kneepad might be chapter/squad markings)

 

A very good question, and a good observation. Keep in mind I am not very good at freehand, but you can actually "set" the freehand inside the glazes, by adding those armor glazes back over the freehand. More particularly, and I've only pulled it off once, but you can save your highlight glazes until after you've added the freehand, and it will bleed out the color a little as it would in a natural light situation.

 

There are others here that could answer that much better...

[Starks333]

as lunchie said you add a couple thin glazes of the knee pads colour over the freehand to tie it back in..NOTE VERY THIN...you dont want to lose your freehand you just want to tint it in with the surface you are painting so it looks normal, you may have to slightly re-highlight the freehand after the glazes depending on the colour of it

 

you shade and highlight the freehand individually from the surface its on but still in accordance to light...murals are trickier because they require the shading/highlights of the actual design AND the lighting in folds and raised areas, so i usually make the drawing, apply highlights and shadows in it...and then start highlighting and shading the folds

 

 

Alex

[Serraphim]

Seeing as how glazing is a very subtle technique, how would you go about using this on something that requires a lot more contrast, such as NMM or SENMM.

[Starks333]

glazing is just blending, that is all

 

blending can be used to do anything...you just change parameters

 

that being said nmm is about contrast and texture...so you need to adapt your blending to allow you to achieve said contrast and texture

[Berzerker Pezz]

Since Starks is in this thread, I thought I'd ask a quick question.

 

I see a lot of painters use a pin vice to hold their miniature (rod + drilled hole in foot). What size rod and bit should I order with my pin vice set? I don't actually have one, amazingly, because I use the dremel for most of my pinning ventures. Starks has told me this is good for keeping wear and tear off of it during the painting process as well as keeping the hand oils from getting onto the figure. The sets start at around .50mm

[Starks333]

small enough to fit into the spots on whatever scale figs you paint (real 28mm have tiny feet so beware if going outside GW)

[Serraphim]

Is there a point where your glaze can be too thin? Or does that just mean that you need to spend more time working up the colours?

[Thunder_god]

I've dabbled with glazing on my Ultramarine's, but I can't seem to find the right base and highlights. I access to just about every brand of paint where I live, so color selection is not a problem.

 

I'm shooting for something akin to the marine on the current WD cover. Any suggestions?