Vehicle Advice Sought

[Sardoo]

I'm very tempted by the Crooked Dice transit van and the new Spectre Miniatures 4x4. The vehicles are resin castings and so the windows are solid (hope that made sense) and the problem is that I have no idea as to how to paint them to mimic glass. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. Thanks in advance. 

[grant]

Mask them off, airbrush, or paint by hand - use a bunch of blues. Gloss after. Gloss again. And then gloss once more. Should look glassy.

[Momotaro]

Like bodies of water, you generally want the windows to reflect something, and the sky is the best bet.  Recognisable and relatively simple.  Actual car windows are often quite complicated with crazy reflections off buildings and clouds.

Generally open sky is quite a rich, deep blue high up and gets lighter towards the horizon.  I always brush, and blend the colours - I've had success with both two-brush blending and using a retarding gel.  It's a good way to practice blending too, as shading from top to bottom is pretty simple and it's a large area to work on.  Blues are richly pigmented colours and mistakes are easily corrected. Shading to a corner rather than horizontally across the window also looks good.

There are lots of variations you can try.  Corner highlights look good, sharp corner lines in a very light blue over the basic blue shading, or "slashes" across the window.

In summary - blue, like Grant said  And glossy!

I make no claim to being the best painter out there, or the smoothest blender, but here are some of my efforts:

Four layers - probably not enough.  Corner highlights help


Painted edge highlights - quite cartoony


Smoother blend using retarder gel  - all colours wet


Two-brush blend (wet highlights over dry base colour)

[von Lucky]

+1

I usually just paint dark blue transitions. Sometimes with a white accent. Not as many transitions as Momotaro though (nice miniatures btw).

If you're feeling inspired (i.e. crazy) try this:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=73288.msg945602#msg945602

[Sardoo]

Excellent stuff, folks! Thanks for the advice!

[axiom]

Momotaro - where's your red balloon tyred truck from?

[Sardoo]

Thanks, Momotaro, The pictures are great! Really helpful, cheers!

[Cubs]

It's not a vehicle, but there is glass!



I did that by painting a very dark and shadowy, rough shape of what was inside (in this case a face of course) and then putting some random bits of light in with white paint diluted with glaze medium - one wobbly streak across the top and then another streak down the middle (rubbed a bit off with my finger because it was too stark to begin with).

I think as long as it looks a bit wobbly and 'organic' without being too straight and uniform, it'll look like a good bit of shine.

Grant's gloss technique is also a good one - I did that on a Saruman 'seeing stone' a while back and it was very effective.

[Sardoo]

That is very realistic indeed! 

[Michi]

If you don´t want to go down the blue glass road...

[Momotaro]

See - Cubs and Michi are much better!

Axiom - it's by Ainsty Castings, from their Spy Fi range.  They offer a choice of tracked or balloon-tyred versions and several different loads.

[axiom]

Perfect! Thanks Momotaro

[Sardoo]

This has been really helpful - thanks!

[Mr Tough Guy]

if you're up to it you could also paint a cityscape reflection like Dwartist has shown here:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=64549.45

[Cubs]

Jebus!