We've come to the part where paint actually finds its way onto a model. I'd like to point out that the stages covered in this post took approximately an hour, spread over the course of Thursday evening and Friday morning. I pretty much rushed through it in order to post something today (Friday) so under normal circumstances I would spend longer. I also noticed that there is a mold line down Francisco's right side that I missed (and will annoy me forever) but as a gaming miniature it will do until I feel overwhelmed to go back, file it off and repaint.
The following stage numbers refer to the diagram found in part 2.
Stage 1
As mentioned in part 1 of this series. This is fundamentally the undercoat stage.
Stage 2
I've given the coat a thorough covering of the brown/black mix. I've not concerned myself with being particularly tidy with my painting, more a case of making sure the paint is in all the corners it needs to be. At this point I'm using a decent sized brush – a number 3 if I remember correctly.
Stage 3
The pure brown stage is done as a couple of thinner layer, using the same sized brush, leaving only the deep recesses in the stage 2 colour. Again, not too worried about being tidy around the non-coat areas of the model.
Stage 4/5
These two stages tend to merge into each other as I apply several layers with a smaller (0) brush. From now on I'm using very watered down paint and building up highlights slowly to the point where I can't go any lighter.
Stage 6
I'm now using pure Bleached Bone, again with a lot of water, almost to the point where it's just water. I tend to run the brush along the raised edges of the model first then build up more subtle highlights around other areas using fewer layers or even more watered down paint – in fact it's just water with whatever paint residue is on the bristles.
Stage 7
The wash stage is done in two parts. First of all as a thin wash over the entire brown area, painting it on with the brush rather than drowning the model and letting the colour pool. This layer should dry in seconds. I then go back in with slightly darker wash and paint it into the lower areas, creating deeper shadows. To be fair the camera hasn't really picked up on it, but to the naked eye you can see the difference straight away.At this stage I have a decision to make. I like where this is going and may just apply a final highlight, or I may work more into it adding lighter highlights (and darker shadows) before declaring the coat complete. It is a gaming miniature after all so may not warrant the attention and time of other models.
Stay tuned to find out what happens next…
Read part 3b here
Again, the main problem I had was being too heavy handed with that final highlight on the cape. I should have used more water on that highlight and been more careful about where the runoff went. I've learned something and that's good. So onto the next mini. Thank you so much.
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