Buglips's Guide to Drybrushing

[buglips*the*goblin]

Hiya, folks! Okay, so in response to questions about some of the arcane magicks I've deployed in my Work In Progress threads I'm going to try and narrow down and illustrate a few things and see if they might be helpful to other people. With the rise in popularity of layering techniques, drybrushing was largely relegated to the status of primitive technique. While not suitable for every case, I believe drybrushing is still an essential tool in any painter's arsenal. So what I'm going to try to do in this thread is explain the fundamentals and then give some examples to show that like any technique there's a lot of neat stuff you can do with it.

 

I'd like to stress that this is not, strictly speaking, a tutorial. A lot of what I present over the coming days is stuff you'll have to learn a feel for in practice. I'm just going to try and break down things in an explainable way and give you some fun stuff to try. This is easier said than done, so I'll ask you to bear with me as I try to cobble it together in an organized way.

 

But first, some theory!

 

If we take miniature painting and break it down to its most basic form, we find three main categories of method that we can break down on a line like this:

 

Drybrushing-------------------Layering------------------Washes

 

On a fundamental level, every single basic, common miniature technique is either one of these or evolved from one of these. They define as follows:

 

Drybrushing: Using unthinned paint on a brush, removing most of it by wiping it off, and then applying the remainder on the miniature for a quick highlight.

 

Layering: Using slightly thinned, but controllable paint, to gradually build up highlights with a smooth transition.

 

Washes: Using very thin paint to apply paint to recesses, generally as a shade.

 

Now if we go back to our line above, we can add another method in: glazing. Glazing is one of those obscure methods that tends to confuse new painters. But it's not so mysterious if we put it on our line in the right spot:

 

Drybrushing-------------------Layering-------------Glazing-----------Washes

 

As you can see, it falls quite naturally between layering and a wash, being a hybrid of the two: thin like a wash, but applied like a layer.

 

Now things get freaky, because one of the things I do that people have asked for some elaboration on is "wetbrushing" or "dampbrushing". But, again, this isn't all that mysterious if we add it to our line:

 

Drybrushing------------Dampbrushing--------------Layering--------------Glazing---------------Washes

 

And as we see, like glazing it is a hybrid between drybrushing and layering. Using the strengths of both to make something new.

 

So the focus here to start with will be drybrushing, and then once we're through with the basics then we can get freaky with it and have some funtimes.

 

Next post will include some fancy picture illustrations, make me look all professional and stuff.

Edited November 4, 2013 by buglips*the*goblin

[Last Knight]

*gets pen and paper, takes notes.*

[ub3r_n3rd]

*clicks on "Follow this Topic" and Bookmarks the page*

 

Professor Buglips, very happy to see you doing this thread. I promise to not disturb the class this time...

[buglips*the*goblin]

Okay, so I'm going to start off real easy. The example brush here is a Testors medium white handled synthetic. This is a good utility brush for this sort of thing. If I hadn't been down to so few remaining before my timely restock, I would have deployed them on Kaladrax and saved myself a few hours.

 

These brushes are cheap, easy to find, and hard to destroy. They won't do all of the drybrushing, but they can do a lot of it.

 

So first I'm going to show you a few basic moves with one of my fresh Testors and some brown liner (note this is only to illustrate direction, not the amount of paint the brush should have on it). Pretty much everything I do breaks down to these three simple movements.

 

They are:

 

THE DRAG:

 

 

Simplest of all, this is just dragging a brush with very little paint on it (paint loading will be covered later) in one direction to hit all the raised areas.

 

So where would a Buglips use this? Well, I used a size 0 on Kaladrax's base stone head, but the head is a good example of where I'd use these three. So on the head I'd do it here:

 

 

We'll get to what I actually did with the zero later, but for right now if we assume I was using the testors brush, then I would drag it across the headband to catch the raised triangle bits. Very lightly would just get the triangles. A little more pressure will also catch the space in between.

 

 

The second movement, related to the above, I call "the fan". You can call it the Arc if you want. That looks roughly like this...

 

THE FAN:

 

 

 

I call it the fan because that's what the brush often looks like as it passes through. This is similar to the drag, except you can see that the orientation of the brush to the surface getting paint is more perpendicular. You can just go in a straight line with this if you prefer, but describing an arc feels more natural in my experience - often just a quick flick of the wrist.

 

Where would a Buglips use this?

 

 

That eyebrow ridge is a good spot. I'd want to catch the upper surface, so the fan does the job. Also, with multiple passes either in one direction or back and forth, the area of greatest paint deposit will be at the apex of the arc - so you can use it to make that area more highlighted than the arms of the parabola.

 

Finally we come to the heavy duty stuff...

 

THE SCRUB:

 

 

 

This is the one that will brutalize your brushes. This is good for filling out an area with texture, or as a quick, less precise method of drybrushing. Most times when people say "drybrushing" this is the one they mean. I generally like to work in a circular pattern when I use this.

 

This can be used anywhere, really, but specifically this is where I'd use it:

 

 

The Scrub is what gave me that nice stone texture and where most of my 0's on Kaladrax were sacrificed.

 

 

Over time this will damage brushes, but a Testors medium will continue into useful old age longer than any other brush. Here's a picture of one of my grizzled veterans next to the newcomer:

 

 

 

 

Note that while I break these movements down separately, when I'm drybrushing I'll often switch up between them on the fly. After some practice it all feels very natural.

Edited November 1, 2013 by buglips*the*goblin

[buglips*the*goblin]

This will take me a few days to put together, just so you know it won't all be posted up today. I'm going to try to have it all up by Monday, depending on available time.

[MonkeySloth]

If I may oh exalted teacher. I've been dealing with trying to find a replacement drybrush for the first one I ever bought, lasted me 3 or so years, and it never really dawned on me what makes a good dry brush, well, brush. I thought any brush would work but I've gone through about 5 the past two months until I've finally found what works.

 

You'll want some type of brush with a bit of spring to it and that the bristles themselves stay together. This doesn't mean the brush has to come to a point, but you don't want the bristles to be shooting out every which way as it will inhibit you from having any type of control on where the paint goes and how much. The brush being a bit springy also helps with how much paint ends up where you want it as it allows for much lighter pressure.

Edited November 1, 2013 by MonkeySloth

[Loim]

I actually have some old Testors brushes that get used specifically for this.

[Slendertroll]

Hmm, I typically thin my paints a little bit when I drybrush. Other than that, this pretty much lines up with my understanding of the techniques. The "fan" is new to me though, I usually think of it as either mono- or poly-directional. That is, scrub in one direction, as your drag, or in many directions, as in your scrub.

[buglips*the*goblin]

We'll get to the thinning part.

[Willen]

Thanks for the thread, and waiting for more. Strangely, I never thought of the fan thing, and that scrubbing makes me shudder. Never, my precious brushes, NEVER I say!

 

Only gently dragging the edge of the brush against the edge of detail for me :)

 

I want to see what you call dampbrushing, to see if you do the same as I do.

[Cimmerian76]

This all makes sense so far. The brush snob in me is screaming in rebellion, but I do have a bunch of testors brushes I use for PVA glue. I never thought they would touch paint. Personally, for drybrushing I tend to like something with shorter bristles that offer finer control, but then, I'm relatively patient, and don't mind slowly building my paint up with light brushing. If I was doing Kaladrax in 7 days, I don't think I could do that. I'll be watching you, Goblin. but I like what I see so far. I now intend to sacrifice a testors or 2 to Kali.

[CashWiley]

Drybrushing------------Dampbrushing--------------Layering--------------Glazing---------------Washes

I like this 'moisture gradient' laid out like this. Well done.

[Sabith]

Well timed! I'm gonna be drybrushing like a madman as soon as I get to my DHL Skellies (hopefully this weekend,) and while I've read over painting theory ad nauseum, a Buglips guide is a very welcome refresher! I've always been scared to drybrush. No matter how much paint I think I've rubbed off, there's always too much left on the brush, and I gorp things I want left un-gorped. Plus drybrushing is often recommended for highlights, but I worry that the lack of control when flicking the brush around so much will result in getting paint on the wrong parts of the mini.

 

I'm very interested in getting to this "wetbrushing." Specifically how it's applied, and how much you load your brushes when doing it.

 

Looking forward to more!!!

[ub3r_n3rd]

I've been dry-brushing since I saw a video on it online Sabith. It's nothing to be scared of, a good way to check and see if your brush has too much paint on it is to run it over the back of your hand and see how much paint comes off it after you've tried to get it down to the right amount on your brush. This will show you how much paint you'll be releasing on your figure, you'll see it come out very lightly on your skin or too heavy and can adjust accordingly.

[buglips*the*goblin]

I have some extra skeletons that may make for a suitable demonstration along with Rauth's wings. I'm soon about to leave for a night of shenanigans, but I'll try to remember to boil some skellies tomorrow.