Painting Question

[Westfalia Chris]

Hi Drachen,

I may try some highlights. Now this is different to dry brushing, right? I would need to pick out the edges with a lighter colour? Any tips?

Strictly speaking, drybrushing is one type of highlighting, but the "traditional" meaning of highlighting is applying small, well-defined areas of lighter paint on the raised areas using more or less precise application by brush and diluted paint. You'd need a steady hand for it, and it is a bit tricky, or, rather, time-consuming on large, flat areas.

You can combine the two, though. You could apply the first layers by lightening up your base colour, usually by adding some orange or yellow to reds and greens, or light greys or off-whites to blues (and reds and greens if you want to go for a pastel effect), by very light-handed and subtle drybrushing. Stage by stage, you add more of the lightening tone. The final highlights would then be painted on by hand, but should be a thin mix of paint to let the lower layers shine through and make them blend a bit more evenly.

Generally-speaking, for your figures, I would suggest applying two to three thin coats of red to establish a base tonal coat, then shade it using a mix of red and warm brown washes (so, maybe a skin wash rather than a sepia tone, or maybe a burgundy shade instead) to give it some warmth and depth, and finally add some very slight carmine/orange highlights on the very edges only.

Edit: Looking back at the pictures, I noticed that the red areas seem to be predominantly, if not exclusively, cloth. In that case, I must modify my suggestion, in that sharp highlights should not be used too excessively on textile surfaces. For these, it might be preferable to stick to multiple very subtle drybrushings, followed in an alternating sequence by some thin washes to blend the various layers together.

[HothJim]

So, I gave them another coat of red and the results, for me anyway, are not too bad. First time in 15 years painting anything seriously, it's not going to be perfect. I used a brown ink as was suggested above, and this has settled fairly well although I will need to touch up some areas of the cloaks where I have been a little liberal. Once I get the other half of the regiment painted I will try some light drybrushing on the cloaks using a mix of pure red and lava orange (Army Painter) which should pick out those edges. I was thinking of doing the same with the weapons, using perhaps a lighter/darker metallic grey?
One thing I didn't dare do was the eyes! Not sure even my insane detail brush is small enough for these little fellas.
Appreciate any further advice or criticism guys. Good job I have been off work, I got lost in this, and the Crossbowmen are under way now too.

[Major_Gilbear]

Two coats of the more translucent colour (like your red) should give you an even coverage.

If you want them to look a bit brighter though, you should first apply an initial coat of the colour mixed with a little grey/white/ivory/flesh - then do your two coats on top.

Colours like red, yellow, black, and white are tricky to paint because as soon as you move away from them for shades/highlights, they're not really that colour any more. Subtlety (i.e., less is more) is therefore often best when highlighting and shading these colours.

To highlight red, I'd add a tiny amount of flesh colour to the red rather than orange. This will avoid the cloaks looking orange (or too pink if you add white).

For painting eyes... Well, there are a few schools of thought!

1) Don't bother - you can't see them on the tabletop anyway, especially if the unit is ranked up closely. You simply add a little dark wash in the recess of the eyes to both hide the fact that you've not painted the eyes, and to emphasise the "recesses" a bit more.

2) Do simple eyes on some models. Paint the eyes sockets black or very dark brown. Paint the eyes in as well as you can with some white or very pale ivory. Wash with a very thinned dark brown. This defines the eyes, but doesn't go as far as doing the pupils. It's also reasonably forgiving to have a go at, but really only works if the eyes are reasonably well sculpted/defined.

3) Do complete eyes, but only on front rank/character models. Paint the eyes sockets black or very dark brown. Paint the eyes in as well as you can with some white or very pale ivory. Dot or line in (top-to-bottom stripe) the pupils with black. This is tricky and requires a sharp brush and a steady hand. Really, even practice only helps so much as I find luck is the biggest factor in getting them right first time!

4) Do all the models with full eyes. Just like (3), but to all models!

For painting eyes, this video may help you. I find that there are lots of painting vids on YouTube, and they are very helpful is demonstrating the "how" as well as seeing the end result.

Personally, I'd suggest doing (1) for the bulk of your models, (2) for the front ranks of units, and (3) for the heroes - and only do 3 if you want to (do (2) otherwise).

I do (4), and I'm a glacially slow painter as a result!