For people that start with midtones: a question about shading tiny details

[mrbspaintjobs]

I have a queston for you painters out there that are much more skilled than I! Specifically, people that start with the midtone of a triad and shade up and down.

 

For figures who are tiny and super ripped (I'm specifically thinking of GW's Catachan Jungle Fighters), how do you shade in between the tiny cracks and crevaces of their pecks and abs, and their faces? Do you maybe start with the midtone, wash with some sort of flesh wash, reapply midtone on raised areas, and then maybe shade down and h/l from there?

 

Catachan Jungle Fighters faces/torsos seem super unfriendly to starting with mid tone...

 

Let's do some ascii art to see if I can convey what I mean:

 

[_|_]

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Pretend those are pecks and abs. How the heck would you shade that starting at the midtone? /mindexplodes

[mrbspaintjobs]

Or inbetween fingers that are holding a weapon for that matter...

[fanguad]

I'm hardly an expert, but what you've described is what I do. Mid-tone. Wash with shadow. Mid to fix any issues. Carefully apply highlight.

[Furongian]

Yes, I reapply the midtone after shading. There's no reason that you have to start with the midtone, though. I usually do, but when the situation calls for it I've also started with the darkest tone and worked up from there. That's often the best bet for what you are describing. Or if you prefer to shade with a wash, then basecoat with midtone, wash, then reapply midtone to all but the recessed areas.

[Flow]

I generally base paint with the midtone, then shade in the recesses and highlight the high points, and then go back and try to smooth out the transitions. I'm pretty new at this as well, but this approach so far seems to make sense.

 

Edit: Though keep in mind, the "wash" to do the shadows isn't a "bath". I think it should be as targeted as any paint. Just get the tip of the brush into the paint and carefully brush it into the recesses as is appropriate.

 

I think too many people may take "wash" to mean slather the thing with thinned paint and let gravity do all the work. This technique can lead to some undesirable effects.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Flow

[Argentee]

I am not a great painter... But I use two brushes with very good tips. With the first brush damp, but not wet, with just water I 'paint' the area I'm trying to shade. Then I go back with a very thin wash on the second brush and making sure the brush is NOT loaded with a lot of paint, paint the shaded area.

 

The other way I use drying retardant and try to wet blend. I'm still trying to get a feel for what works for me.

[Atramagus]

It also depends on the wash for me... If it does the job properly, you may not even need to go back over with your mid-tone color. One thing I tried in the past was slightly lightening the midtone, then washing with shadow - the darker color collected in the recesses, and darkened the lightened midtone to a proper midtone.

[mrbspaintjobs]

I'm wanting to really bring the quality of my minis up. I've been doing 5 layers (not too many, but enough to make a big diff in quality) starting from shade going to highlight mixing through the midtone, etc. I'm getting pretty quick at it, so doing a large army (Imperial Guard blob army) isn't going to be TOO bad... but I have a feeling starting with midtone might start to make it too time prohibitive...

 

We'll see! If anyone is interested I'll post pics as I go.

[Wren]

Do you feel like the challenge is more related to -

 

1. Just seeing the detail well enough to aim the brush where you want?

2. You can see it just fine, but you can't aim the tip of your brush well enough to get the paint only there and nowhere else?

3. The tip of your brush is larger than the area you want to cover with shadow?

4. All of the above?

 

How I address these problems -

 

1. I use a magnifier. My recommendation is for a bifocal one (one with lenses for each eye that you wear on your head). Most people find those are easier to see where you're getting the brush tip and cause less eyestrain than just a big magnifying glass.

 

2. This is one of those things that is more about practice than tools. Some people have tremours or other issues that might mean they can only progress so far with this.

 

3. A brush that tapers down to a fine point is pretty important to this and many other techniques. This is not about brush size, more about how sharp a point does the tip of the brush form. If you're using synthetic hobby store brushes, they probably lose their tips pretty quickly, though I've seen people accomplish some pretty impressive stuff in spite of the limitation of that kind of brush. Kolinsky sable water colour brushes (because the handles are shorter) are the brush of choice for most miniature painters. More expensive initially, but with a bit of basic care, they last a lot longer.

 

You will find that trying any new technique is likely to take longer than your tried and true method, and certainly using a wash instead of doing each shading step by hand is going to be quicker. So there's also the question of what your end goal in painting is as to whether trying something new is worth the effort. Also there is nothing wrong with starting dark and working up if that works for you! If you have a few leader character types you want to do a better job on, you could try just doing what you do now, but adding another couple of layers.

 

However, there is a lot of value to trying new techniques in terms of maybe one works better for one thing than another. I normally start with a midtone. When I paint black I start with black, work up and then come back down. Which I paint non-metallic metal, I start white and go down. Doing those colours or surfaces wasn't working with my usual method, so I tried something else until I found what clicked for me.

[mrbspaintjobs]

I definitely have the skill and patience to do what has been suggested, which brings me to another question -

 

Do you think painting on the shadow into the tiny cracks between the muscles would be enough contrast? Washes are usually much darker than actual paints that you would use. If I do use a combination of washes and manually shading, would the contrast from the darker wash look weird compared to the deepest shadows that I would paint on manually?

 

It seems that the pros start with the midtones (for the most part) and highlight up and shade down from there. What is the advantage of this compared to starting from dark to light?

 

EDIT: I wonder if this style of painting does not really lend itself to the types of minis that GW puts out. There are alot of angry faces with lots of cracks (jaw lines, folds, etc). Any thoughts on this or am I off my rocker?

Edited April 1, 2013 by mrbspaintjobs

[fanguad]

Well, you don't *have* to use dark washes. You can also do multiple washes - slather on a "shadow" color, then carefully apply a very dark color.

 

If you think shadow->mid->high is the best, you can add matte medium (or Reaper brush-on sealer) to the paint to avoid chalkiness. Do this *before* the paint starts looking chalky though.

[Jen]

EDIT: I wonder if this style of painting does not really lend itself to the types of minis that GW puts out. There are alot of angry faces with lots of cracks (jaw lines, folds, etc). Any thoughts on this or am I off my rocker?

 

Given that GW suggests the 'base coat, wash, drybrush to highlight' school of painting (or at least they used to, back in the day, but it's been many, many years since I've followed GW), it wouldn't surprise me if they had their minis sculpted so that they'd respond well to that style.

[TaleSpinner]

I base coat with my shadow color and highlight up from there. I may go in and add deeper shadows later though during the final dark-lining step.

[mrbspaintjobs]

There's definitely something different about the GW minis.

 

When I paint up a Reaper mini, I'm like "Yeah, Laszlo's style of painting makes sense..." and I can mimic it.

 

I pick up a space marine or imperial guardsman, and I'm like "uhhhh....."

 

I'm thinking of maybe trying out a hybrid!

 

Shadow color, do a wash to darken up the cracks and crevaces, etc, and then resume my layering stages. 1:1 Base:Mid, Mid, Mid:HL 1:1, etc etc.

 

It might give me that over all super contrast that I like but give an overall higher quality appearance that all of the layers give.

[zoroaster100]

I start with the midtone, apply a shadow color wash, then re-cover all but the shade areas with midtone again, then highlight with highlight, then highlight with a lighter highlight (mixing highlight color with white, off-white or other light color).