Chest of Colors forum

Those minis look fine to me, but you should add more contrast there. You have shadows and you have midtones there. But I miss some stronger highlights. Don't be afarid of glazing (or whatever you call it), painting with 'coloured water' is fun. You must be very patient, because it took some time and many layers to get fine result, but when you've done, you will be surprised.

Just remember - when painting with glazes, your brush must be almost dry. If you will have too much of 'coloured water' on it, the paint will be splashy and blending not smooth.

Le6n: thanks for the tip on using an almost dry brush to glaze, Ive been using a very wet brush and getting those sloppy results.

Demi: What glazes do you think would help finish off the face? Also, to make the armor less flat, would you recomend just a hard highlight along the edges of the armor, with maybe a 50:50 mix of UM blue and fortress grey?

Cyberpaddy: Thanks for the input again, I was really happy with how the cloth turned out as well. Also with the hair, its a very easy effect to pull off, all you need to do is water down some badab black wash and paint the hair. Biggest thing is to make the hairline look natural.

Glazes aren't washes. You don't want to drown the surface in them, but to paint it with them. Use them like paint, so: don't overload your brush with them...

Masnagj wrote:What glazes do you think would help finish off the face?

Don't tell the others but I feel it's time for you to try the secret knowledge in practice....

@Masnagj: red, blue, yellow - with every color you can create sth interesting

Demi: Ill play around with glazes on the skin to try and add to the mini

Mahon: Thank you for that link, it was a very good read. I will have to play with some of those ideas on the sgt.

I love to add some bluish tones to shadows on skin and - I think - it works...

I played around with glazing with the new tips I recieved, and the secret knowladge Mahon had provided in his link.

I think things worked out pretty well, I just sort said lets see what happens. I kept the pallet more to the warm colors, trying to add a bit more pinkish realism to the face.

I added a few glazes of lich purple to the recesses to try and add more depth to the wrinkles and areas under the cheeks. I then did a glaze of red gore on the more prominent areas on the forehead, chin and nose. I also threw on some orange just to see what I would get because I cant get better with out experimenting. I think it turned out pretty well.

I tried to leave the brush much more dry than I have been at my botched attempts at glazing. I still noticed a bit of pooling on the face in the recesses, does this mean I have not dryed the brush enough? I was also having a hard time not coloring the whites of his eyes with the glaze I was using. Is this just brush controll issues or too much water.

I was very excited with the result, as I think I have finally got the idea of how to glaze something. I took pictures and have my camera at work with me, but in my excitement I forgot the stupid cord to upload them.

I will make sure I get pics posted tommorrow, cant wait to hear reactions on how I can get even better!

I can't wait to see your glazing results. I think you're starting to like that If you still experience 'pooling' while using glazes, I suggest to dry your brush more. And if your colour is diluted enough (paint line on paper tissue - it must be almost transparent), some small pooling will not do any problem. If you continue layering the glazes, the paint will become more smooth...

Here are the pics as promised, some of them arnt the greatest as they are pretty zoomed in, I need to get a decent set up for taking these pics.

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

I really think the glazes have really brought a lot more life to the mini. I do think I went a little bit too orange with the glazes though. But I bet all of that will come with experiance. The next thing im going to play with is a small fey thing from the woodelf box to see if I can get some smooth transitions on the wings and to just increase my skill and familiarity with the glazing technique.

see? glazing doesn't hurt
flesh looks a bit burnt but some more highlights should fix it