Painting feathers without losing detail?

[Midnight Lurker]

Hi Guys,

Can anyone offer suggestions on painting feathers without gooping up the sculpt detail? I'm working on one of the Dark Sword Thief of Hearts https://www.darkswordminiatures.com/main ... Fallen.htm, and the feathers on the wings are very very finely sculpted... The texture is really closely spaced and impossibly shallow! I've never seen texture this fine!

It would be really easy to lose the sculpt all together with only a couple coats of thin paint so I don't see how I could actually layer them... Should I just drybrush and wash? Or wash and then drybrush?

Ack!

Jen

[Barton]

I would love to know the answer also! Someone with lots of experience please reply.

[Nameless]

drybrush, wash, drybrush, wash.... repeat until satisfied with result?
besides, I wouldn't be afraid with loosing some sculpts details, especially if hthey are that subtle. after all, in real life you rather don't see texture of feathers, hair, fur.

[arctica]

paint each bit individually and you won't lose detail that way not a quick and practical way but im sure the results would be good.

[Cyberpaddy66]

I would have thought using glazes and washes would be the way forward with the feathers, it's soo thin there's hardly any pigment buildup at all... I'd love to give this model a go

[Mordred]

I usually start with a couple of drybrushes and washes, to finish it off I usually pick out some of the edges with a little thicker paint.

When painting feathers it's crucial that your paint never gets too thick so you don't loose any detail.

[Corvus]

I usually go with light drybrushing and then washing with darker color to smooth out the layers and shade the recesses at the same time.