Highlighting

[TheDunAtoR]

Hey Guys,

 

I'm new comer to this hobby and I'm intimidated as hell by it. But I really wanted to give it a shot, so I picked myself up a space marine set, bought some painting books, the Dark Angels codex, and decided to paint up some Unforgiven. I feel pretty good about painting the base coats and everything, but I'm really struggling with highlighting. I understand the concept, but when I try to apply it to my units, I don't get the sense that it's working. I did end up completing a complete unit and I figured I'd bring it to my local shop to see if the manager there could give me some pointers on how to highlight correctly. All he did was tell me all the things I did wrong (which I had already figured), and in so many words told me my paint job was garbage. I took it like a man :P and packed up my little guys, and put down the hobby for 8 months.

 

So, what I'm wondering is where did you guys go to learn how to highlight? Do some of you just say "screw it" and just go with base coated models and go play and have fun? I've had a real hard time finding GOOD sources regarding highlighting. Most sites, videos, tutorials will talk about base coating then say "apply a line highlight". That doesn't really help me personally...

 

Also, has anyone else ever struggled with this and just got through it with practice?

 

Thanks!

[Br0ther Rafen]

i used to be in the same position as you are, mate. i used to find highlighting hard as hell, so I just stuck with a basecoat for most things.

Nowadays, however, I can slap on highlights fairly easily, and in not much time at all. Not the cleanest/straightest lines, sure, but it's good for army painting.

now, the key to doing them: practice and patience. Really, the only reson a lot of people have trouble highlighting is because they don't have very good brush control, can't see the details, have shaky hands, etc. But really, as long as you practice on some models, keep your hand nice and stable and don't rush, highlighting should come fairly easily. It's all in the brush control.

Hope this helps.

Oh, PS Welcome back

[RebG]

You definately aren't alone, I'd say 99% of us on here have had days, or even months where it feels like you're not making progress. Really you're learning something every time though.

 

Three 'P's: Positive, patient and practice. Be positive - don't focus on what's wrong - you're new, unless you're an actual Golden Deamon in disguise you know they won't be perfect from the off. Look at what's good. What's better than the last marine you painted? Maybe that wash worked better? Did you have to correct less mistakes? Have you got quicker? You managed to pick the eyes out neatly? So on and so on.

If people give you negatives then roll with it, ask how is a good way to get around that problem they're pointing out. This leads to Practice.

Through practice you'll relax, things that were big deals at first (say line highlights) will, often without you noticing, become much less of an issue. You'll subconciously learn things too - sitting comfortably, holding the mini differently, how much paint on your brush, drying times etc. All this means next time you sit down you have a little more self belief.

Finally all this needs a good chunk of patience. The blogs, forums and videos you'll have seem have people who've been doing this for years. While they're all aspirational it a good old case of walk before you run. Learn the basics. Focus on getting smooth, tidy minis. Then learn to add highlights. Then look at say weathering. You dont need to look at the pictures around the web and suddenly be trying to do NMM or OSL effects. Learn from you're mistakes but give your self a pat on the back when something works out well.

I'll stop waffling. Persevere (a 4th P!) and don't go back to the grumpy critical store manager. Here and CoolMiniOrNot will give you plenty of constructive criticism and feedback which can be a tough way to learn but you'll get some real expert advice, especially at CMON.

Good luck with the Marines, just don't pressure yourself to be an expert after one box of 'em!

[wise_crak]

Personally I don't bother! I been in the hobby a while just painting random figures but now I'm trying to make an army and want results fast and highlighting is a no fir that as I see it, washes give a good effect by darkening the deepest part of the model and the edges lighter. :) have a look at tthem

 

 

WiseyB)

[Bewlay]

As the others have said highlighting takes more practice then playing by the rules.

For exmple I kept trying different method and none would work, but then slowly it got better and better. The problem with this method is that your first unit may pale in comparison to the rest of your army.

[TheDunAtoR]

Great, thanks guys!

[Brother Valerius]

Here's my trick for edge highlights: nobody can tell if you screw up and then go back and correct it after the fact. For some reason, I find it much easier to carefully reapply the base color until the edge highlight is a thin line than I find it to make the edge highlight a very thin line in the first place.

 

Honestly, highlighting is very easy to do in principle. Just take a shade of color lighter than your base color (I highlight UM blue with ice blue, when I did Blood Ravens for a friend I highlighted mechrite red with blood red), and paint it in very thin lines on the edges of armor plates. I try to not highlight every single one, or else it looks too busy. If the lines are very thick and stand out too much as a result, clean them up as I mentioned, and they should look fine. The pro painters use several stages of highlighting, but I find that one is all you need to make the details pop, and make your miniatures look much better than without highlights. Once you get comfortable doing a single highlight, play around with doing multiple stages of highlights, and see how it works.

[Fred Johnson the 3rd jr]

I've got a different take. Do a basecoat, do some kind of wash to darken the recesses (you are using washes, right?), then drybrush with the basecoat color, then lightly drybrush with a lighter shade of the basecoat, or even white, along the edges of things. You get highlights that way, without needing the skill to paint really small areas with straight lines.

 

LOOK UP DRYBRUSHING TECHNIQUES.

[XKhalilX]

i drybrush highlight in that i hit the areas where lines would be such as shoulder pads, fingersm elbow joint, shape of helmet. and i drush brush those areas and i think it looks better n more subtle

 

edi: fred explained it way better! *thumbs up*

[Alphz]

Some helpful advice is don't worry about messing it up! Do some research on paint stripping on these very forums and you should be able to find out a very simple brand near you which will make stripping the paint pain free (always test a product on a older less liked model and remember plastic and pewter can react differently).

 

Once you've got that sorted, just practice like heck! Look up tutorials on the net and just try them, always try new things and don't worry if it doesn't work. You'l find a style that suits you and be very proud of the results. From there on in its just a case of practicing, which will happen naturally as you repeat the technique on all of your models. Then you'l probably want to go back and improve your earlier ones (paint stripping yay!) or even try your hand at a different kind of army with new techniques :huh:

 

Edit: Ps in terms of struggling, yes I constantly look back at my older models and lament that I could do a better job! But patience tends to be my downfall, so I have to practice at spending longer on each model and taking my time. Right now I'm dreading picking up a brush again as I fear I will be rubbish and it will ruin my hard converted models. I recommend this thread for inspiration on how practice can improve your painting! Dan the Deamon Army log

[Kazehana]

A standard tactical box comes with more guns, heads, and arms than you can actually use on the 10 legs and chests; use those to practice if you don't want to start off on a precious Marine. I usually get a really thin brush and start off by running it along the corners of the lip on the shoulder pauldrons, making sure I get both the outer and inner sides. Once you see how that ends up, you'll get an idea of how you want it to look - and once you can visualize it, you'll be better at doing it. It takes a lot of practice; those first few Marines will be shelved as you do more and more. It's not something you just pick up :huh:

 

Like anything else, practice. This community is amongst the most helpful I've run into in my years surfing the web, so if you post up some pictures of your finished squad and ask what to do to improve, I'm sure you'll get some sound advice - it's hard to help you improve when we don't know what exactly is the issue with your technique, right?

[djhg]

Depending on your time zone TheDunAtoR I could show you how I go about doing stuff via Skype or something. Then you can see specifically what I'm doing and ask questions as you see stuff.

If you have a camera I can also give advice as you work should you want it...