So I decided to work on a new painting technique for my O-12. Instead of my usual white prime with blending and layering, I'm using airbrush underpainting to do the tonal shading, and then tinting with brushed glazes. My goal is a muted, "realistic" paint scheme using a palette limited to six paints: Vallejo chocolate brown Vallejo khaki Vallejo burnt cadmium red Vallejo pale sand Vallejo dark sea blue Reaper spectral glow *edit the manufacturer I am not a huge fan of the official paint scheme, and wanted something that looked like a peacekeeper force would wear it without being black or green or navy. The desert-style palette was up against a winter scheme, but I have two members of the club painting winter armies right now, so desert it is. The first model is the gangbuster. I think it's fine as a start, but I learned a lot - you can quickly overwhelm the shadows with the glaze if your brush is too loaded or the paint too thick. Patience is key, even more than in layering. But overall this is easy enough and fast as hell - under 5 minutes of active time to prime and shade with the airbrush (assuming you are working on lots of models together), and 3 or 4 hours to glaze it if you keep moving from area to area and color to color to give things time to dry between glazes. Working on the dakini hmg next, should finish him up tomorrow if all goes well. I should probably take better pictures then, too.
Good suggestion. Got home to late to do much painting, so here's a few images. The first (on the NGO) is after one coat of black primer (airburshed vallejo surface black). I'm doing a series of three or so really thin coats to protect detail on the model, that's why you can see the metal shine through after only one. Once the model is black, I do two rounds of highlighting - a grey (in this case, Vallejo Medium Grey, which is a pretty warm grey) and a second round of highlighting in white (again, a warm white using Vallejo Pale Sand). The grey is painted zenithal, but off axis around the mini - about a 45 degree cone from zenith all the way around, as well as directly from above. The white is just directly from above. This basic strategy is the same as used by Dana Howl (who has killer youtube tutorials - check her out ). You can see two examples of the endpoint of this process on the Beta and the Sirius. Then I start brush glazing on the color. The dakini HMG is after a round or two of color. As you can see, it's starting to build up, but still pretty faint compared to the gangbuster. Some colors take more coats to get where you want them - it's a process. But it gives a lot of control.
Many thanks for the extra pics, it really helps to follow how you get to this result. I've started to dilute the Vallejo PU primer lately* and it was a bit disappointing to have this transparent result at first but it ended fine once set. Thanks for Dana Howl's tutorial link, looks like a good source to keep nearby. *right after seing Angel Giraldez' priming tutorial. His channel is really great to learn things.
Underpainting is good for sketching highlights but not so good for the actual contrast. I also thought it was the way some time ago but it never turned out statisfying for me. Otherwise I really like your Gangbuster :) The flesh could use a tack more shade by a wash (work really well on organic structure) but that's up to you.
Just finished to watch every single vids from her channel. She's hilarious. Thanks so much for making me watch it.
Yeah, that's kinda where I was with it before I saw what Dana is able to achieve. I would often photo my mini with a point source from above before priming so I could see where the light falls on the picture as I did blends and layers. That works, and works well, and you can do some interesting things with contrasting color shades pretty efficiently, but it takes a lot of time in my hands. For me this is about testing out a new technique, and seeing how far I can take it. I figure after twenty-odd O-12 models I will have a pretty good idea on whether this is going to work, and maybe other things that will enhance the technique in my hands. So far the key to maintaining contrast is super thin layers of glaze, especially in the shadows. Good suggestion on the washing in some arm shade on the gangbuster, I might do that.
Also if u wanna try undershading to the fullest I suggest u try inks. They work the best with zenithal pre shading.
Quick update - tonight was hobby night at the club. I worked up the beta trooper, which is a fun model to paint. Overall, I think this is better than the gangbuster - and painted up in about 60% the time (under 2.5 hours). The contrast is better this time b/c I protected the shadows (i.e., didn't coat them with too much glaze). Going to keep working on that, but promising.
A quick update on O-12 progress: the squad is coming together nicely. I've got the first batch of six models complete. Average time for a model is about 2.5 hours at this stage. The underpainting does a lot of heavy lifting if you let it. Working with the glazes is pretty forgiving as well - little mistakes are easy to remove before they set in - and I've not had any trouble with chipping or waterlines like I sometimes get with washes. The limited color scheme is also working better than expected - I was afraid working with essentially 4 different browns would make the palette too muddled, but the colors remain distinct to my eye. This is also my first time working with painted bases - it saves a lot of time and steps vs. my traditional ballast and static grasses approach, but I think I like the final look of those bases better than this. I'm thinking about punching them up a bit with some weathering powders, but we'll see once I get everyone painted up. Here's a group shot of the first six models.
The painting itself is styled well and effective,but if I can offer an observation; the bases being hand painted and deeply saturated compared to the models is distracting to the eye and takes away from the work on the mini. Any plans to mute them down? Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk
Thanks and I agree. That's why I'm thinking to do the weathering powders. That should help to filter them down.
Hey there - some more progress this week. all told, 4 new models join the O-12 party (siriusbot, deva, delta, and kappa). The deva and delta were fiddly to work with - not my favorite models to paint. But I'd paint 10 more of the Siriusbot - he's a riot(stopper?).
Apologies for the terrible photo, but a quick update. Four more join the force: another dakini, the Omega, and two proxy units (Valk WIP as a Varangian and Chassuer in his Monstrucker "Make Ariadna Great Again" hat). I'll get better photos of the crew soon, along with some additional units that I'm finishing up now.