Slap Chop! Anyone tried this painting method?

[Axineton]

So I came across this method the other day from a bloke called Ninjon who used this method of painting which he got from someone else and it looks a pretty darn good way of getting stuff painted. Just wondering if anyone else has had a go at it and what your thoughts on the process were? 
 

linked a couple of vids to the method here: 

 

[Bryan Blaire]

It looks like it’s a basic zenithal that stops at the mid-tone and uses dry-brushing (or even further edge highlighting either in white before applying color, or with color after applying tones) for the high tones, rather than applying that with an airbrush.

I could see dry-brushing for some textured look if that’s what you want.

Several older videos on this/similar to this, it’s a grisaille technique applied to miniatures - grisaille has been around since the last millennia in non-miniature art (known at least as far back as the late 1200s/early 1300s).

Here’s a couple of others for people wanting to look into the technique for mini painting (the first from a year ago, the second from about 5-6 months ago):

Personally, I used a similar technique on my skeleton warriors for Cursed City, and I think it turns out really well - I used a brown-black base primer with warm titanium buff (almost identical, if not dead on, to Wraithbone) mid tone and then white ink highest tone zenithal base coat, then some intermixed Contrast + inks + standard acrylics thinned to glazes on my models, did some oil washes, and then weathered them - I finished up painting in texturing on the bones and cloaks as a semi-highlight, but more to just add some visual interest if people are looking closely at them.

It’s all about getting your models to look how you want them - for me, I would use the techniques I used again on more fantasy figures, as well as Necrons, Orks, and Chaos 40K models, but don’t think I would apply the textured “SlapChop” thing to Imperial models, Tau, or Eldar of any variety (just my own vision of the factions).

I really hope people keep exploring more ways of painting miniatures (there’s lots of videos by good painters exploring techniques) - it’s cool to see folks applying stylistic things that artists have used in 2D art translated into 3D mini painting.  Thanks for bringing this one up, Axineton!

Edited October 10, 2022 by Bryan Blaire

[Axineton]

That’s ok mate! I’ll take a look at that top video you posted as I’ve already seen the second one in your post. 
 

I was thinking of trying it out on my ork kommandos I’m gonna build and paint for the kill team painting event so the more hints and tutorials the better.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Axineton

[Bryan Blaire]

I think with Orks it will work well, and consider trying to do your dry-brushing on fabric in an opposing directional manner to see if you can generate or at least give the illusion of cross-hatching to mimic a rough fabric pattern.

I’d almost stipple, rather than fully dry-brush, on the armor, to give it a more rough, mottled appearance, and I think with some weathering work post-main coloring, you’ll end up with some fine looking Orks (similar method to what I was considering on mine).

Edited October 7, 2022 by Bryan Blaire

[Axineton]

Lol I doubt they’ll look that good but I’ll give it my best shot.

[Marshal Mittens]

There are lots of videos on this method.

I think it works better on some minitures than others, namely those with strong angles. 

I also am not sure I believe that it's as fast as they say. Likely faster than some methods, to be sure, but I doubt it's as fast as they make it out to be.

Lastly, the folks demonstrating the method are extremely good painters. They can make anything look easier than it is.

Tl;dr: it's a neat tool that maybe is slightly over hyped.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Marshal Mittens

[LameBeard]

I’m excited to try this, but to me it looks like it will be difficult to correct mistakes, and I make a LOT of mistakes. It also looks like it could be expensive in terms of buying a lot more contrast paints. I think I have 4 right now? I need to choose a model that could work well with these colours.

[Lord_Ikka]

Just heard about this method from a guy who used it in a speed painting challenge I was in this last week. He came in second, so I guess it works well, I just haven't looked into how the method actually works.

[Grotsmasha]

When I watched Ninjon's vid, my first thought was, doesn't EVERYONE do contrast this way already? Seriously, it's the only way I've ever painted Contrast....

[Noserenda]

Yeah its an ollllld technique with a rebrand name that makes me want to headbutt a wall. Pretty sure i remember reading about a version of it back in the post movies LOTR period.

[Arkhanist]

Underpainting in shades of grey, or grisaille (literally 'greyed') as a technique for creating the highlight and shade first then adding colour glazes over the top has been around since the 1300's for oil painting, so it's absolutely not a new technique - parts of the sistine chapel were done that way!

Certainly as a young'un, there was a technique for mini painting I was introduced to called 'French glazing', i.e. literally painting the model in greys up to white first, then thinning paint to a glaze to apply lightly tinted layers to add back the colour.

The downside was it was quite a labourious technique, both to build up the highlights by hand (airbrushes not being a thing for mini painting back then), and as the glazes would need to be built up in very thin layers to build saturation and smooth transitions, which is why it wasn't anywhere near as common as base/shade/highlight.

And for scale model guys, doing a dark 'pre-shade' to define panel lines and apply contrast to flat tank panels over a light primer, before applying a thinned airbrush layer over the top for the colour has been a thing for a loooong time.

These days of course, glazes are trivial to obtain, and Contrast etc gives you a basic sort of glazed effect on turbo very easily. Certainly, contrast is commonly applied over a airbrushed zenithal primed model, which is another approach to the same idea but with a defined light source 'above'. I admit, I have been known to tart up a zenithal with a little drybrushing to build up contrast in 'overhang' areas that are otherwise very flat.

Doing the highlighting generally by drybrushing is also having a bit of a come back - we all did it back in the 90s, but it was seen as 'low skill' method for beginners, so you learned to leave it behind as you upskilled. Nowadays, drybrushing with cheap makeup or even specialist brushes (ala artis opus series D) is making a bit of a comeback, and you can paint whole minis that way, and it's pretty awesome for terrain.

I think this method - possibly combined with a zenithal highlight - of drybrush + contrast is absolutely fine. It is well suited for minis with lots of texture, and if you have big brushes is very quick to define the undercoat. And contrast over an preshaded undercoat is one of the things many people have liked right from the start, it's a different style of painting that has got a lot more accessible, though you are limited in some ways as some colours aren't readily available (e.g. khaki), though you can use a different base shade to pre-tint the contrast to add options, as well as mixing Contrast to get new colours.

I'm damned if I'm going to call it 'slap chop' though.

[Evil Eye]

Yeah, having watched this video, the only "new" thing I saw was the idea of using different colours for the underpainting layer. Everything else is just putting a catchy name on a technique that's been around for ages (and has been used with Contrast since the line started!). I remember shortly after Contrast came out using it in conjunction with pre-shading and zenithal priming; it's how I get my AoS goblins painted.

It's a great technique, and the coloured primer is a good idea, but Rob and Ninjon acting like they invented it seems a bit disingenuous. They're not even the first minipainting YouTubers to do it; as mentioned earlier, Marco did something very similar with his underpainting experiments.

[Bung]

To add to @Arkhanist information about that technique

The first book released about this was around 2016 

https://www.migjimenez.com/en/publications/588-black-white-technique-english.html

 

For different base colors there is one that used green as a base called verdaccio for skin colors

https://realismtoday.com/what-is-the-verdaccio-technique/

[Valkia the Bloody]

Uhm.....

I have always been doing this.

Since I started. 25 years ago. Did not even know I was doing anything fancy with my painting.....

[sibomots]

"zenithal highlight"

I'm dumb.  I kept thinking this had to do with the kind of paint.

It's the direction (from whence)  the paint  is applied.  From the top?  Zenith?

[Arkhanist]

On 10/10/2022 at 3:09 AM, sibomots said:

"zenithal highlight"

I'm dumb.  I kept thinking this had to do with the kind of paint.

It's the direction (from whence)  the paint  is applied.  From the top?  Zenith?

Exactly so! Zenith is the top, peak, or highest point - directly above, in other words.

[Firedrake Cordova]

On 10/10/2022 at 3:09 AM, sibomots said:

It's the direction (from whence)  the paint  is applied.  From the top?  Zenith?

From the imagined light source illuminating the model, which would generally be around the "noon" position (above) 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Firedrake Cordova

[sibomots]

2 hours ago, Arkhanist said:

Exactly so! Zenith is the top, peak, or highest point - directly above, in other words.

Yea as soon as I saw the word written out I realized my mistake.   I had just listened to the videos and they spoke so fast I heard a word "hasmuthal" or something not realizing they meant to say the top, or whatever.  I guess "zenithal" has a better ring to it.   10 Points Gryffindor! 

 

Or at least I didn't quite register the connection.

It was my fault.  I wasn't paying attention.  Duh, he was holding the airbrush over the top of the model.   Anyway.  Issue solved.  Order restored.  Procrastination may begin, again.

 

[Arkhanist]

Strictly speaking, it's the light source at zenith as Firedrake Cordova says. So you usually represent it as a grey spray at about 45 degrees off vertical, plus a white from directly above. (Since gravity feed airbrushes don't really like spraying straight down, you tend to tilt the model to line the top of head to the spray, but same result)

 

The gray at 45 deg makes it look more like a larger diffuse light source, e.g. a sun lighting through atmosphere, while only spraying a true zenithal from directly overhead looks more like it's under a spotlight with very harsh shadow, though it can be an interesting look for undead or for a space scene.

 

It shares a lot in common with object-source lighting. I.e. as if light was coming from an object in the scene itself, such as fire or plasma weapon - you just spray the white as if it was light coming from the object, fading out as it gets further apart, then tint it. Harder effect to pull off though, as it can easily look fake, while a basic zenithal prime is how I do everything these days!

[jaxom]

It’s just pre-shading. I’ve done it a bunch with dry brushing and it works fine. There’s nothing new or special here other than internet hype.

[Razblood]

I used this technique a couple of years ago for my Crimson Fists Termie Librarian, it's basically zenithal drybrushing followed by a tinting colour.

 

As a name slap chop is pretty non descriptive.

 

 

[Pacific81]

Love the internet's way of coming up with some funny sounding label and branding something that is really quite basic and intuitive as the next big thing. 

 

Pretty sure ZorpaZorp and others posted this method for their Star Wars Legion miniatures about 2-3 years ago. I've certainly got some droids I painted up using this combination of methods. 

 

[jaxom]

I actually picked it up as as technique from watching Tabletop Minions live stream for a Covid online board game convention teaching board gamers how to paint minis for things like Descent and Gloomhallow. He then put out videos about it about a year ago.

 

Anyway, here's the Scion's I did by drybrushing the pre-shade. I put down Gryph-charger grey and Snakebite Leather straight from the pot for the fabric and boots.

 

 

A nice thing about the technique is that you can really dial in what you want by using a lot of very thin layers.

 

First layer

 

Final layer

 

 

[TrawlingCleaner]

A very simple and handy tutorial for an old technique is never a bad thing, if it gets more people to paint up their dollies, it's only a good thing!

I used it recently for a couple of buildings:

 

 

[Xenith]

Thought I heard my name.

Back in my day, we just called it painting quickly. I watched Ninjon's Slap-Chop painting style, and its...just what GW told you to do with contrasts right from the start? All my painting has been in that style since contrasts came out, so check my logs if you like! 

 

Single infantry like nids and guardians/aspect warriors I've got down to about 11 - 15 mins per model, contrast alpha legion, maybe an evening a batch?

Edited October 17, 2022 by Xenith