Another question about painting miniatures: Using traditional brushes, what’s the best way to achieve the shading gradients that make Giraldez’ models standout so much? For reference, look at how seamlessly the new PanO models blend from blue to sky blue to white, and even to purple. How is this achieved?
As a brush painter myself yet to achieve this nirvana. There are two methods with different pros and cons. 1. Wet blending. 2. glazing. Glazing seems more common when looking at talented infinity painters. But IMO, I've found it very difficult to understand the magic even watching videos. Pick one, watch lots of videos and practice.
The exact result can't be achieved with a brush. Airbrush provide a totally different application of paint which is, if not impossible, impractical to mimic with brushes. Fundamentally though its about blending and providing a lot of contrast (thats what makes the pop). So brush techniques which smoothly blend will achieve a similar effect you seem to be after. The key attributes to angels style is; 1. Contrast, angels skilled use of the airbrush means he really ups the blend from dark to light which provides a lot of contrast. 2. blending, the hardest part about maximising contrast is having it still look smooth. Putting two very different hues or satuations next to each other means the contrast will also highlight the border between the two and this can be jarring. Hence blending techniques to ensure that contrast effect is only noticeably where you want it.
nahh airbrush doesn't help to paint like giraldez, it only help to paint faster anyway you can't paint NMM with airbrush I never used one myself and I'm doing fine learn blending/glazing and practice every day is the only way then your eyes are the hard cap I can't improve more myself as my sight is just vanishing at some point ^^
Try "grandpa" glasses (cheap ones, or better, as picked by your optometrist, with correct eye separation etc) or magnifiers. Photos also help, cameras always end showing things you missed (mirror the image and you will also get a new "view", where brain will see even more). And absurd quanties of light (pupil closes, giving you better depth of field) both near and for full room (to avoid the stark contrast when looking around).
Agreed. You don't need an airbush. Just practice blending. I find an airbrush more painstaking to use as you need to clean it so much between colours as well as mask things, which can be very fiddly. You can get good blends on models with large surface areas however with an airbrush. At the end of the day what you are used to using will be best. Its not the tool, but the skill of the artist that will determine the best results, and to gain skills you just need to practice, practice and practice. Hopefully if, you enjoy painting you will keep at it and get better over time.
I'm Far Far from a master painter that being said I'm still learning with an airbrush and need a better one... but being able to apply a base coat, white highlights and dark shadows then going in with the brush has been way better and you can do this pretty cheap... You don't need top of the line airbrush to get that aspect done. And try not to compare yourself to Giraldez... Dudes a Master of the Craft... Not just a "Really good painter". He is a Master and has decades of experience
I may have to invest in the airbrush and experiment. Hopefully I didn’t come across as arrogant when I asked how Angel does his thing, I just mentioned him because he seems to use the glazing/ wet blending to great effect and I didn’t know what those techniques were called so I could get started practicing them.
It's not about arrogance, it's about the first-year student comparing himself with the professional that came to lecture them about state of the art advances in their field, it's only going to hurt himself. So, don't do that to yourself :)
Yeah my analogy was going to be like going to boxing camp in in trying to fight Tyson... Oh bro I don't think anybody thinks you're arrogant man we all want to paint like that guy you know what I mean at the end of the day we all look at our model I don't care how good we are... we all look at our model n go "Ugh still not as good as Angel"
Practice. Lots and lots and lots of practice. "Offer to paint a friend's entire 500-trooper Guard army" levels of practice. Much of Angel's work is done via airbrush, and it's not really possible to duplicate that with paintbrushes. You can approximate it with wet-blending and glazing, but it still won't necessarily look the same.
that's not entirely true, Giraldez is only using airbrush for base colors (except TAG and big mini) it's actually the opposite you can't achieve quality with an airbrush most of his work is done with paint brushes I'm no way near Giraldez level of painting but you can't achieve this (8-12 hours) : https://image.ibb.co/bHuySf/Untitled-1.png with an airbrush it's just impossible ^^ but you can do something close: 3 time faster with a loss in quality regarding smooth transitions/blending
Absolutely you can do it with a hairy brush but it takes much more time and skill. Just to show you can do almost seamless blending with a brush. This mini I did a few years ago...it's mostly layering and glazing. I don't have an airbrush. Though It's not Infinity but nonetheless.
Well that settles it. You don’t need an airbrush, just lots of practice, knowledge, and technique. Thanks for the post and for the inspiration.
