Question of when to use drybrush

[Baldur8762]

Greetings again,

 

I have seen much on the use of dry-brushing and I am not certain I know when to use it.  Do do you finish painting everything, even all the fancy work, and then dry-brush?  I feel like if I use dry-brush technique on my miniature now, i will just be painting over much of it when i try and do more painting. What color should I use when I dry-brush? Must it be white? I am sorry if these are foolish questions.

[knarthex]

No questions are foolish around here!

 

I try to do my dry brushing early on a mini, as it tends to be a bit messy and can be hard to stay inside the lines, so to speak.

It doesn't need to be white, but it is usually a lighter color than what you are using for a base coat. As it is done for high lighting.

Dry brushing shines for certain things,

Fur and feathers are good examples of things that dry brush well.

Stonework is another place that dry brushing works well.

Chainmail for a third.

Basically, any place with a lot of texture.

 

It is also useful for weathering vehicles to make them look used, by adding a patina of dust. I first learned dry brushing doing military modelling...

 

Hope that helps!

 

Keep on asking questions!

[Chris Palmer]

Drybrushing is a way to quickly add highlights to a textured surface. I usually do it after the base colors are applied and before I do any detail or other highlight painting. The earlier in the process you do it the better, as it is usually done with a broader brush and therefore is harder to control where it goes along the edges of other colors. You usually want to use a color that is a highlight of the base color you are drybrushing; so simplistically speaking, for brown you'd use a tan, for dark blue you'd use a light blue.

 

Edit: Ah, ninja'd by knarthex!

Edited September 11, 2016 by Chris Palmer

[Cassu]

Pretty much what others have said. You can also use washes and glazes over the top of dry brushing top knock back the colour a bit if you think it's too bright and to diffuse some of the harsh edges. I tend to only use dry brushing these days on fur and if I'm painting grass, rocks, etc. for bases mostly because I feel I lose a it of the control over where the paint goes when I dry brush. But dry brushing is still a very effective technique.

[Pingo]

Dry brushing is simply a technique for applying a not-too-runny paint not-too-thickly to edges and prominences in a fairly small amount of time. 

 

The paint used does not have to be white, or even a lighter paint than what it is painted over -- although most of the time it is.

 

It is a less controlled technique than many, and so is often used in the earlier stages of painting, before more careful detailed work is done.

 

The brush is not actually dry, but very lightly damp, wiped off before picking up the paint.  The paint may be full strength or thinned down, but whichever it is, much of it is blotted off the brush before applying it to the figure.  The layers dry very quickly and some control of how much and how far one goes is possible.

Edited September 11, 2016 by Pingo

[Doug Sundseth]

The only thing I'll add about drybrushing is that it will tend to add texture to the surface brushed. This can be good for replicating a textured surface like some furs or bad if you plan to blend over the area later.

[Cassu]

Oh also, one technique I find to get the right amount of paint onto the bristles for dry brushing is to dip your brush in your paint, and then blot it or run it gently across a dry paper towel. If you're using a paper towel with texture or ridges you can also see how it will look before using it on your mini.

Edited September 11, 2016 by Cassu

[Cranky Dog]

And just in case it wasn't mentioned: NEVER USE A GOOD/NEW BRUSH FOR DRY-BRUSHING!

 

Dry-brushing is a brush killer. It will ruin any fine point you were able to have and will be permanently splayed. Though if you have a bunch of old brushes lying around, have fun.

 

Personally, I like using a synthetic filbert for dry-brushing. Being wide and flat allows me to cover large areas with good control.

[Glitterwolf]

And just in case it wasn't mentioned: NEVER USE A GOOD/NEW BRUSH FOR DRY-BRUSHING!

 

Dry-brushing is a brush killer. It will ruin any fine point you were able to have and will be permanently splayed. Though if you have a bunch of old brushes lying around, have fun.

 

Personally, I like using a synthetic filbert for dry-brushing. Being wide and flat allows me to cover large areas with good control.

 

THIS!!!

 

I find drybrushing a great way to highlight mini that are supposed to be a bit dirty.

 

Like Skeletons. I happily will drybush those bones.

[Gadgetman!]

Dry brushing is simply a technique for applying a not-too-runny paint not-too-thickly to edges and prominences in a fairly small amount of time. 

 

The paint used does not have to be white, or even a lighter paint than what it is painted over -- although most of the time it is.

As Pingo puts it, you don't have to use a lighter colour.

I Dry Brushed on Krokuta's mane:

http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/70541-02955-krokuta-gnoll-cleric/

[MojoBob]

Dry-brushing tends to be applied with a largish brush in a semi-controlled mop-like scrubbing action, in which paint can end up all over the place, and this method is indeed very hard on brushes.

 

But that's not necessary at all. You can apply paint in the dry-brush method with a 000 brush (!) if you need to, and with an action quite similar to regular painting; this way you can be quite precise in your paint placement.

 

The key is that the paint has minimal liquid left in it, and that the brush is dragged across surface detail, not pushed down into it. You don't want to be applying too much paint in one layer, but build up the effect gradually — remember, you can always add more, but taking paint off once applied is a nightmare.

[ced1106]

Another common technique is to drybrush white or another color on top of black primer, as an undercoat.

 

You can catch the raised edges of a miniature in other ways besides drybrushing. Edge highlighting has you carefully catching the raised edge with a flattened brush, or the side of a tip. Overbrushing is drybrushing with more paint, but you need to be more careful about the paint ending up in the recesses.

 

Drybrushing is common for new painters on metal, but I've found that different metal surfaces require different techniques. Again, drybrushing works best on texture, so drybrush chainmail, but learn other techniques for swords and flat surfaces.

 

Finally, the "rough" look of drybrushing suits some miniatures, and not others. Elves don't like it, but rock elementals don't mind.

Edited September 11, 2016 by ced1106

[buglips*the*goblin]

Greetings again,

 

I have seen much on the use of dry-brushing and I am not certain I know when to use it.  Do do you finish painting everything, even all the fancy work, and then dry-brush?  I feel like if I use dry-brush technique on my miniature now, i will just be painting over much of it when i try and do more painting. What color should I use when I dry-brush? Must it be white? I am sorry if these are foolish questions.

 

Most of it is covered already, so I'll just give a synopsis of the basics to remember:

 

1.  It's a technique with most of the paint taken off the brush then roughly applied to the mini.

2.  Use an old brush for this (or a purpose-made flat drybrush)

3.  It works best on textured material

4.  Go lightly, then build up in several passes

5.  Best done early because it's messy and may hit finished areas if left to later.

 

That's the basic instruction, but as with any technique you can get pretty complicated and weird with it after the basics as you experiment and gain experience with it.  That's important to keep in mind when you see people in their Work In Progress doing things differently (like drybrushing and then using inks, or playing around with the wetness ratio of their drybrush paint).  That's not stuff you need to know for the foundation technique, it's them building on the foundation. 

 

If you're fresh to a new method, it's best to keep it simple at first - everyone here did it that way.  It can be a bit overwhelming to see all at once, but if you keep in mind that what looks complicated is built out of relatively simple individual methods you'll get the hang of it more quickly.  All of it works this way, and nothing teaches like practice.  Ask questions as much as you like, and don't be afraid of mistakes - sometimes botching a thing, while disappointing, can reveal many insights. 

[Jokemeister]

The brush is not actually dry, but very lightly damp, wiped off before picking up the paint.  

 

Oops... 

[MojoBob]

The way I do it for broad, mopping dry-brushing is to load up the brush with paint, about half-way to the ferrule, and then brush out as much as possible against the edge of the bottle or palette. Then I start drying it out properly by brushing on a paper towel.

 

When I can see no more paint being deposited on the paper towel, it's probably about ready to start on the model, but I keep an old Airfix model tank around to test on before I do anything to a model I care about. If the paint is still too wet when I try it on the test-piece, then it's back to the paper towel. And so forth.

 

The thing that trips up beginners a lot is the very little paint you need left in the brush to be able to dry-brush successfully and well. With some colours, it can look like the brush is actually empty.

 

Note: for dry-brush flogging I use largish, springy (but not hard) bristled synthetic brushes. DON'T use your good sable brushes. Filbert-brushes are good, I find, because the flattened oval shape gives you a very flexible choice in brushing area.

Edited September 12, 2016 by MojoBob