My lil' painting problem

[Fayarin]

It may sound stupid to all you great painter, but I have a little problem in my progress in painting.

As I'm getting better at painting, I'm getting worse at a simple technique as highlighting. My problem is a very simple one. I tend to use a lot of layers for highlighting, but when I come to a stage of real highlighting, instead of shading, I just highlighted that part, so there is no more room for lighter colours.
I noticed that a while ago, but I just can't get it right! And the most frustrating is that I don't understand why. I just keep making the same mistake over and over again. It makes my layering look very ugly.

I've posted this earlier at One-Ring.co.uk and I had some great advice. But if you have something to add, or if you had the same problem, I'd love to hear something about it.

[LadyEyes]

I'm not certain I understand the problem. I think I do, but I'm not certain. Do you have a picture of something that has not turned out well that shows what you mean?

[Fayarin]

Click to see full-sized image

Don't run away yet the base belongs in a larger one..that's why it's ugly

Like the NMM on his arm and the red. There are so many layers, but I don't have enough room to make the NMM really shiny with white and light greys. Or the red, there just isn't enough room for further layers so the red is really dark.

[Trovarion]

Something that comes to my mind instantly is that I kind of had the same problem for a long time. I would like to know that if you are painting highlights, how many different colors do you use? e.g. a dark red, a medium red, a light red and some orange = 4

the reason I am asking is because if you are using 4 colors and try to get from pure color a to pure color b to pure color c and pure color d you will have a space problem. so just take two colors and maybe a 3rd one, but not up to pure for the last highlights and dont go to pure always. if you work with small amounts of added color you are fine!

hope that helps in some way...

[ToMaZ]

I was typing out a whole post, but it basically came down to Trov's post... only more complicated O_o (curse you Trov )

Basically when I paint (and I'm still experimenting with paints en techiques) I start with something dark, and build up thin highlights with a light color. Then shading is done with a third color. That's basically the same for every area I paint.

Like trov said, if you're going to build up highlights to pure colors, you run out of space. I had it the same problem too. The funny thing is that I use GW painting guides to get the hang of painting. And they often go like this:

Start with black, go all the way to scorched brown, go all the way to bestial brown, add bubonic, add bleached bone.

I blame GW!!! again

[Skrit]

Well... Don't do nmm!

Nah, just kidding offcourse. I think what Trov says is the right thing.

[Fayarin]

Something that comes to my mind instantly is that I kind of had the same problem for a long time. I would like to know that if you are painting highlights, how many different colors do you use? e.g. a dark red, a medium red, a light red and some orange = 4

Hmm, I usually use about 4 colors. But I guess you're definetly right. That's great advice Trovarion, I actually did all the colors, so thanks for pointing that out.

Thanks for your comments. I'm happy now