Base coating Technique No. 455

[OptiMAT]

Just been sold something by a GW store-man and was wondering if anyone here had any thoughts/examples/ideas on it.

 

Spray Base Black

(From far away and only one angle) - Spray Skull White

Watered down Primary Colour

 

The benefits from the sales pitch seemed obvious. Get black basecoat in the shade areas, get white as a highlight on top surfaces, and get grey in between.

 

Does anyone have any experiences with this?

 

And, as a side note, as only my new models will be done this way, will it make the models look too different to the rest of my army or is the effect only minor?

 

I'll probably still be extreme highlighting in Enchanted Blue anyway or they really will look too different to the rest of the guys to make sense.

[Olis]

I've seen it on a DVD about painting. Can't put my hands on it right now so I can't tell you what DVD. :P

 

You can get 'em on ebay. I'll have a look-see.

 

Edit: Found 'em. "Painting Miniatures". There's 'Red', 'Blue' and 'Green' DVD's. I think it might have been on the green one. The bloke on there sprayed white from above on a Warhammer Fantasy Ogre primed black, I think.

[mr tough guy]

That's a zenithal lighting technique

 

http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/2010/08/...work-order.html

 

you see it pop up more and more these days, works great if you do it right as it adds another level of realism to your paintjob, might need a bit of practise to get it right though

[PaintMyBits]

This also works well with vehicles except undercoat white then airbrush black into recess and areas tou wnat dark then spray on your base colour. Instant shading i use this pre shading a lot.

[cathar the great]

That's a zenithal lighting technique

 

http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/2010/08/...work-order.html

 

you see it pop up more and more these days, works great if you do it right as it adds another level of realism to your paintjob, might need a bit of practise to get it right though

 

 

Just wanted to post a link to that tutorial.

 

I already tried this on several miniatures and it works quite well. I wouldn't use Games Workshop spray paint, though. Get some Army Painter :rolleyes:

[winterdyne]

It's used quite frequently with an airbrush, where you can get a smooth enough transition (using shades of grey) to do most of the shading / highlighting for you, leaving you just to do lots of glazes.

With pure white / black, it's OK to set up a guide for where to work, but if you want a smooth result you still need to pull the blends off by hand.

[CarbonCopy]

The theory is sound and can lead to some amazing light/shade dynamics. I use this basic technique with my show pieces, though I use an air brush.

 

As an alternate method, prime your model a dark shade (gray, black, over-all base color, whatever), then take a photo of it with a strong light source from above (or wherever your light source is intended to be from). Use that photo as your reference as to where to highlight/shade the model.

 

For air brush, shade/highlight with your actual shade/highlight colors instead grays. Touch up and detail with brush as needed.

[Brother Valerius]

The problem I've seen with people's zenithal lighting models is that they look amazing... from one angle. If you look at it from an angle other than the one that the model was designed to be viewed from, the illusion shatters and the model looks pretty sub-par. Do you find that there is a way to compensate for this, or is it an inherent weakness of the technique? Because if it is the latter, it makes the technique not suited to anything except display pieces, to me at least.

[OptiMAT]

I havent done a test model yet, but in theory (read: my head), the better you can achieve 50-50 dark/light mix the better the model will look from other angles.

 

If you have a very focused light source like 80 Black coverage, 20 White coverage, the model will look too focused, as you describe.

 

That's just applying some sort of lighting logic to the whole thing, Hard focused light, or soft dispersed light; whether it will work on the mini practically or not I will have to wait and see.

[darkenedsquire]

I wouldn't use pure white personally I would go for a light grey colour personally pure white might be a bit jarring.