Thanks. I'm telling you, that drybruhsing technique is working wonders. Already finished the Spektr: And I have one more question for you friendly forum people. What do you think of this guy's approach: https://lazypainter.com/ I read through his article on washing and decided to try it out, and, well. Either I did something very wrong, or it doesn't work at all with my color scheme. Ended up switching back to my current recipe of "main colour baselayer + dark semi-wash shading + bright drybrushing + edge highlights". Which is faster than my earlier approach of blending everything, but still took me 4 hours for this little lady. But I find his approach interesting, and the prospect of cutting my time down to maybe even 2 hours per model while at least maintaining my current level sounds marvelous. Thoughts?
I'm glad it helped :) This is the first time i hear of this method, and his results look far more than good enough for tabletop level. I'll have to analyze it well and likely try it out. I also suggest you make a post specifically about this as maybe more people are familiar with it and could tell you more.
I've only quickly scanned the washing article, will have to read it in detail later. I'm also interested in the rest of his site and will try his methods when I get my Defiance models. His character faces look amazing for just using washes without any highlighting. From what I can see he seems to use a very limited colour palette when doing the washing method. Your colour scheme has way more colours than his so that complicated things. Also the way colours are arranged on the mini may add to the challenge. Definitely an interesting method that I'd like to try.
I have an airbrush now! I'm pretty sure I would never have been able to pull off the hair like I did with a brush. Lots of fun! Even then, I thought this lady would go much faster. Turns out a lot of time can be spent touching up on an airbrush job... Edit: Sorry, picture didn't work again.
Too much effort But let me know how it works out for you once you try it. For me, so far it doesn't. They do! But I tried it out on my Daktari and it didn't work for me at all. Diluting the wash as much as he says resulted in no noticeable effect whatsoever, and if the answer to that is applying 30 layers until the shading kicks in then I'm faster with traditional highlighting, especially on small surfaces like faces. Also, washes still dry out glossy, no matter what I do, and I hate that. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but so far none of his methods have actually worked for me in any way that I would consider an improvement. Except airbrushing That I will make much more use of now that I have one. It's simply marvelous.
Spoiler This is not showing. Google permissions? The page says 1-3 per step, so 12 tops. More importantly, he shows examples ranging from 22 to 120 minutes per miniature. End with a layer of matt medium when that happens. It's transparent "paint".
Okay, that's it. Google's shitty picture service has finally annoyed me often enough to make the switch to Imgur :D Man what a hassle. But see, then it's even more layers. And 12 layers is basically as much as I would use with normal paints anyway. I guess @Law Dawg is right – my color scheme doesn't lend itself to the technique anyway. Maybe once I start another army at some point in the future I'll choose an easier scheme and try it out. Actually, I've already been thinking about busting out my old unpainted LotR minis once I'm done with my nomads and use this technique to finish them. They're on a much lower level anyway, and combined with an airbrush, the prospect of getting painting time down to 30 per model would be the only way I could ever bring myself to finish them.
So I sat down with my airbrush again, and what started with my Zonds ended at the first of my Geckos (didn't want to waste all that color). But since I'm still learning my way around the airbrush, I'm not sure I did the highlights right. I feel like I did the shoulder pads wrong. Can anyone help me out?
So, it sort of depends on what purpose you have in mind, and what effect you’re trying for, but in general you want the light source for your highlights to appear to be coming from a consistent direction (or directions). The head and chest have highlights as if lit from above and to the model’s left, but the shoulder pads don’t, which is probably why they look off to you. You might find it useful to check out Squidmar’s video on light and volume:
Dang, you're right. The shoulder highlights should be on a horizontal line with the head and chest. And the arms are more like cylinders, so the highlight should be more even on the top. Well, guess I'll have to redo those parts... ... after I come back from my holidays in August. Which means there'll be radio silence here for the next three weeks. See you then!
I'm back :) The Sin-Eater will proxy as my Moran, since while I don't have much use for his profile, I adore this sculpt, while the same can't be said for the old Maasai. Tomorrow I'll hopefully finish his two Koala friends.
That’s an awesome paint job and I love the idea of him standing in as a Moran (definitely agree the Moran model is in bad need of an update!!).
I admit one thing: Deciding to combine all 7 potential colours of my colour scheme on one troop was a terrible, terrible idea. So. Much. Work. As much as I love the Zeroe sculpts, this being my absolute favorite, I'm very glad this was the last one.
It may be a lot of work, but I really enjoy all the detail and definition you pack into these models!
@burlesford that is a labor of love and I really enjoy all the colors on that Zero. The Zeroes generally have a lot of character and your scheme, difficult as it may be, really makes them pop.
