Painting Cloth And Clothing, The Hell Dorado Project Continues Options

[Ghool]

To start this part of the tutorial, I thought I would touch on paint consistency, and properly thinning your paint. This is a subject that stumps most people, as they struggle to bring up the quality of their paint jobs, and it's a difficult one to master, as well as quantify.

To assist, I have included pictures! I haven't seen this done yet, and I really hope it does help illustrate what the pros mean by 'thinning your paint so it's the consistency of skim milk', 'thin until it's translucent', and so on. I'm a fan of P3 paint (in case you didn't notice), as the pigments are strong, and vibrant, and they thin very well. The paint itself acts more like a gouache (a opaque watercolour, which is very chalky) when applied, and even when thinned. The reason I'm in love with the paints is for this reason; they behave a lot like waterclolours, except they're opaque.
For these examples I've used P3 Coal Black since it shows what I'm trying to demonstrate on the white styrene.

This is paint right out of the pot, worked a bit on the palette with a wet brush.
You can see brush strokes, and they remain long after the brush has been dragged through the paint.
This is too thick. It will obscure detail, dry quickly, and possibly add texture to the surface of your mini.



I've dipped the brush into clean water, and worked about one brush-full of water into the paint.It still leaves a visible brush stroke, but it doesn't stay for very long; a few seconds at most.
This paint is usable as a base coat, and little else. It will cover very well, but for soft blends, and fine detail work, it's still a bit on the thick side. It's nearly translucent.
This consistency is what I call 'whole cream'. Meaning that it's about as thick as whipping cream.



Once again I've dipped into clean water, and grabbed about a half brush-full, and worked it on the palette.
Now we have a properly thinned paint which is easy to blend, and is excellent for fine details.
You can see it's only slightly opaque, and leaves no brush strokes behind.
This is what I call 'skim milk consistency'.



Now that we know how to properly thin our paints, we can move onto painting cloth. Having thin paint, and many layers will give you the smoothest blends, which is what you need to master for the most realistic looking clothing. Well, thin paint is the secret to making anything look it's best.

From the last tutorial, I mentioned I start with the deepest parts of the miniature first, and in this case, I began the clothing by starting with the pants.
I base coated the entire coat, glove, pants, socks, and shoes in P3 Thamar Black. The clothing is going to be black, and only slightly tinted with colour.



I've decided to go with a cool scheme, since the base will be warm lava, and contrast is always good for grabbing the viewer's eye. In fact it's one of the easiest artistic devices to draw attention to certain areas. Whether you use colour contrast, of tonal contrast, a balance of some sort is needed, unless you intend to create an eye-sore.
Like I,ve mentioned in the last tutorial, a colour wheel will help you immensely.
I've decided on a deep purple highlight for the pants, and deep gray-green for the coat highlights. The reason I went with purple and green is for contrast, and because both are in the cool end of the colour spectrum, and that they're nearly opposite one another on the colour wheel. This will help give contrast against each layer of fabric, but the overall cool scheme will help draw the viewer's eye toward the face, and to keep it fixed there. This is how I'll be directing the viewer's eye to give the model a creepy, and penetrating stare that you can't tear your eyes away from. Unconsciously, simply because of the colour contrast, the viewer will be looking at, or toward the face most of the time they are viewing the model, and thus, it will feel like the model is staring them down, when in reality it's the other way around.

The pants were painted with P3 Thamar Black, and a spot of P3 Beaten Purple.
P3 Beaten Purple has really poor coverage, but I find the colour itself is appealing. To remedy this, I always mix Beaten Purple with another, more opaque colour.
The deepest folds were left pure black.



For the highlights, I painted 4 layers, with the last being a thin line on the very edges of the folds in the cloth.
I purposely didn't photograph this part step-by-step. It's a small area, and the step by step is much easier to see on the coat.
So, for the highlights on the pants I kept adding P3 Hammerfall Khaki to my P3 Thamar Black/P3 Beaten Purple mix.
The final highlight was nearly pure P3 Hammerfall Khaki.



Once the highlights were done, I went back over the entire surface of the pants with a 'stain/glaze' (see my panting faces tutorial for making a stain/glaze) using P3 Coal Black and P3 Exile Blue. The purple was a bit too warm, so to push it back into the cool end of the spectrum, I used a blue glaze to shift the colour where I wanted it. When painting purples, a glaze at the end is almost always a necessity, unless you're going for pinks, and pastels.

The coat was hit with P3 Cryx Bane Base right out of the pot, leaving only the crevices in the folds of cloth black. Rarely is black ever a pure black in reality, since it absorbs most of the light hitting it. But, depending on the light source, time of day, and possibly fading of the cloth, dirt build up, and worn areas (like the elbows), some of the light reflected back to your eye will have a certain tint, usually grays, greens or blues. It's the nature of black dyes.
Since I wanted to keep the tint a deep green, I went with the P3 Cryx Bane Base, as it's an excellent colour for highlighting black, and it has great coverage.
This little fella has obviously been in Hell a while, so it's not likely he's got new clothing. Even though he is a Demon, he's a minor one. I went with a very green tint to the black coat to show that it's not as opulent anymore. I wanted it to look a bit shabby, and faded. So, I let the green dominate.

Every layer after this was two-brush blended, with some Feathering on the smaller folds.
It's the best and easiest way to paint clothing. There are many fine tutorials on this site and other explaining this technique. I might post one with pictures in the future.



The highlights were then worked up by adding in P3 Bastion Gray into my P3 Cryx Bane Base.
I then only hit the top 50% of the folds in the cloth.



More P3 Bastion Gray was added to the mix, and the top 50% of the previous highlight was hit with paint, and blended or feathered out.



The final highlight was pure P3 Bastion Gray, and only the very tops of the folds were painted with a thin line, using just the tip of the brush.
I feel the coat is a bit too gray to look black, so for the next part of the tutorial, I'll show how to fix that, and get your black back!



-Brant

This post has been edited by Ghool: Sep 18 2009, 01:30 PM

[LazyPeon]

Ironically, i only the other day asked DD about paint consistency.
Thanks for the photos Ghool, this is just the sort of tutorial/guide that I've been looking for.

Now to find a new mini to paint to test it out on!

[Ghool]

The highlights are pretty much complete on the coat, but I've purposely taken it too far into the gray so I can glaze it back to the tone I want.
Adding a glaze after the final highlights will smooth your blends, and tint your colour to what you want; in this case, black.

Just check my tutorial on painting expressive faces on how to make a glaze.
For the jacket on this particular model, I've made a glaze with P3 Armour Wash, and just a spot of P3 Thamar Black.
The coat was glazed with a single layer, all over the entire jacket, and a second layer was painted into the folds and crevices.
This tones down the gray, and has given the model a nice, solid black look to the coat.

In addition to the coat, since I wanted the pants to get a bit more contrast, I bumped up the shade. I did this by painting the glaze to the undersides of the pants, the codpiece, and the deep folds of cloth. This dropped the colour a bit, toning down the bright purple even more. This ties the coat and jacket better, since they now share a similar shade, creating a more harmonious look, even though the tints used to highlight both are contrasting.



However, the highlight got a bit toned down as a result.
This is normal. Adding just a small highlight of P3 Bastion Gray on the edges, and tops of the folds in the cloth, gives us that pop back, whilst keeping the blend very smooth.



Here's a shot of the back as well.



For the gloves and boots, I wanted a shiny leather look, and it had to remain within the cool end of the colour wheel.
Plus, it allows me to demonstrate several different ways of painting black, using different tints for highlights.
So, far, we've covered green, gray, and purple tints, and now we'll move onto blue.
The first highlight is P3 Thamar Black mixed with P3 Coal Black, and I left the undersides of glove, boots, and any deep folds pure black.
The effect is difficult to see in the photos, but you want a very subtle transition at first, and more extreme towards the top for leather. This will help make it look shiny.



More P3 Coal Black was added to the mix. Only the top 50% of the previous highlight was hit with this next highlight.
It's a bit easier to see this time around, but the effect is still very subtle.



P3 Frostbite was added to the mix. Just the very tops of the gloves, and the tops of the folds of cloth were hit with this mix.
Even less area was covered. Make sure you're covering 50% or less of your previous highlight to get a good level of contrast, which will then give the surface you're painting a shiny appearance.



The final highlight for the gloves and boots had more P3 Frostbite added to the mix.
Only the very corners, tops and very edges of the folds, fingertips and toes were hit with this final layer.



Next, we'll get onto the metal neck collar, the neck ruff, and cover painting and shading white.

-Brant

This post has been edited by Ghool: Sep 19 2009, 05:16 PM

[althai]

You should totally freehand a spider on his codpiece.

[Ghool]

All of the clothing is pretty much finished, except for some large, and small details.
I've base coated the metal neck piece in P3 Pig Iron, and washed it with P3 Armor Wash, mixed with a bit of matte medium. The medium gets rid of the shine , and helps the wash settle into the recesses better.
Since the metal collar (it's some sort of bizarre torture device...I think) is next to the skin, harder to get your brush around, and into, without getting paint all over the place, I painted it before painting the ruff. Remember; the deepest parts are easiest to paint first.
As you can see, I got Pig Iron all over the ruff. I don't worry too much about making a mess. Just make sure your paint is thinned properly, and there's no danger of obscuring the details.
I also hit all of the buttons on the jacket with a spot of P3 Pig Iron.
I don't use W&N brushes for metallics, and I paint in what I've heard referred to as 'Non-Metallic-Metallics'. I shade and highlight my metals with a very similar technique to NMM, only I use metallic paints. I use them because I love the shine, and you can't get that from non-metallic paint.

For brushes, I find the Formula P3 Hobby line works quite well. Not the 'Studio' brushes mind, but the 'Hobby' brushes. The base and detail brushes hold a nice fine point (which doesn't curl too badly), and hold up well to repeated abuse from metallic paints. Metallic paints will destroy a good brush with a single use. I know this from experience.
Don't even use the same containers for cleaning metallic paint brushes. Get separate water containers for your metal paints, and regular paints, and don't mix them. Otherwise you could contaminate your good series 7 brushes with bits of mica.
I highly recommend Windsor & Newton Brush Cleaner and Restorer for cleaning your brushes after a session, and for soaking overnight when they get paint in the ferrule. Or, if they get stained or soiled an overnight soak will get them new again.



I went back over the raised areas with P3 Pig Iron, and then highlighted the collar with a single highlight. The area was so small, a single highlight will suffice.
For bringing up the highlight, I use a secret ingredient; Vallejo Model Colour Metal Medium. This stuff is shiny, and I mean shiny. I use it for every colour of metal; gold, copper, silver. It works great for everything, and can even be put on straight for extreme, and edge highlights.
So, I cut the P3 Pig Iron with some VMC Metal Medium, and applied a single highlight to the edges of the raised areas.
The buttons on the coat also got hit on the very tips with a bit of the Pig Iron highlight. Repeating colours in several places across the miniature creates harmony and balance.
Once dry, I painted the gaps in the collar which showed some fleshy bits with P3 Midlund Flesh. I assume it's the little fella's neck.



I washed the fleshy areas with a glaze of P3 Sanguine Base, and followed by a wash of P3 Flesh Wash mixed with matte medium.
After the wash was dry I hit the raised, fleshy areas inside the collar with P3 Midlund Flesh.

I've base coated the ruff, wrist ruff, and bows on the shoes with P3 Menoth White Highlight.
It was applied by thinning the paint to 'whole cream' consistency in 4 layers. Three layers looked all right, but I wanted a more solid base coat, which is vital to painting good whites, so I went for another layer. It's THE most important part of painting whites, so make sure your base coat is solid, and opaque.
At this point, you can see I got a spot of white on his face. This is an easy fix, and I didn't even notice it until I was actually writing the tutorial! This is why it's good to snap some photos before you call a model 'complete'. Errors become easier to see, and it gives you a different perspective of the model.
I'll fix that white spot in the next part of the tutorial. For now, it remains!



The white areas were glazed with P3 Menoth White Base. This glaze/stain is the same as that presented in my Expressive Faces tutorial.
I didn't wash the entire white areas. I've only glazed the recesses, and the undersides of the whites, leaving the upper 25% of the base coat exposed.
As more of the miniature came together, I felt the glove, and boots could use a bit more 'pop', so I hit just the very tops and corners of everything with a tiny spot of P3 Frostbite mixed a tiny bit of P3 Coal Black.



Once the first glaze was dry, I made another with P3 Cryx Bane Highlight. I applied this one in just the deep recesses and folds of the white.
I like these colours for white, as they create an off-white, linen like colour. But you can certainly experiment with your whites, and use blues, browns, yellows, purples, greens...well, you get the idea.
At this stage, I gave the eyeballs hanging from his lapel a base coat of P3 Menoth White Highlight. I'll leave them for now though, but since I had the white out, I thought I would save myself a bit of time. I also painted a very thin line or P3 Flesh Wash along the wrist where the edge of the ruff meets it. This gives the fabric a bit of separation from the skin, making it look like the wrist is under the ruff.



For the final shade, I used a glaze of P3 Bastion Gray. This one I applied only next to the collar, very bottoms of the shoe bows, and folds in the ruff. It was mainly just thin lines.
But, at this point, the white looks a bit too gray. It was my intent for it to look a bit gray, as I wanted to look a bit shabby, but the glazes really dulled down the highlight.
It's an easy fix though; I thinned some P3 Menoth White Highlight to 'skim milk' consistency, and hit the edges of the ruff, and the raised areas and folds everywhere else in the next step.



For one last shade, and to further harmonize the colour scheme, I made a glaze of P3 Cryx Bane Base, which is the same colour I used for the first highlight of the coat.
This last shade was applied in just the folds of the ruff, and next to the collar.
This really pulls the whole thing together, and there's just a few minor details left to attend to!



-Brant

This post has been edited by Ghool: Oct 14 2009, 02:41 PM

[Ghool]

To finish off this tutorial, I'll quickly skim over the rest of the details. The main areas of the model are complete. All that was needed was some punch added in places, others needed some cleaning up, and the minor details such as the lapel eyeballs, and cane.
I will quickly skim over how I went about the small things, but they are just as important as the main areas, and if done well, the details can make or break your piece.
They don't require a lot of technique, simply a steady hand and some patience.

I gave the collar a bit more punch by painting a thin line of P3 Armor Wash around the base where it meets the neck ruff.
I tidied up the white bows around the boots by painting thin lines of P3 Thamar Black around the base, and where they sit next to the shoe.
I gave the face a bit more pop by adding a few more creases to the forehead with P3 Ryn Flesh mixed with P3 Morrow White.
I added a bit of dripping blood on the metal collar, the skin flaps pinned to it, and the fleshy neck bits inside the gaps of the collar. This was P3 Skorne Red mixed with a spot of P3 Sanguine Base.
I added a thin highlight of pure Vallejo Model Colour - Metal Medium around the very base of the collar next to the neck ruff.
The details on the back of the coat were painted with P3 Cryx Bane Highlight, and highlighted by mixing in P3 Morrow White.

Lapel Eyeballs:
Base coat - P3 Menoth White Highlight
Bottom 50% of the eyeball was glazed with P3 Skorne Red.
The optic nerves were painted with P3 Khador Red Base.
The pupils were painted as small dots with P3 Thamar Black, and highlighted with P3 Menoth White Highlight.
The optic nerves were highlighted with a small line of P3 Menoth White Highlight.

Books Under the Left Foot:
All of the books pages were base coated in P3 Hammerfall Khaki, washed with Vallejo Model Colour - Smoke, and highlighted back up with P3 Hammerfall Khaki and P3 Menoth White Highlight.

Bottom Book: Base Coat - P3 Battle Dress Green, and highlighted with P3 Thrall Flesh.
Middle Book : Base Coat - P3 Skorne Red, and highlighted with P3 Ember Orange.
Top Book: Base Coat - P3 Battlefield Brown, highlighted with P3 Bootstrap Leather, and P3 'Jack Bone.

Cane:
The wood was base coated in P3 Gun Corps Brown, washed with a mix of P3 Brown Ink, Vallejo Model Colour - Smoke, and highlighted up with P3 Gun Corps Brown mixed with P3 'Jack Bone.
The handle and tip were base coated in P3 Pig Iron, washed with P3 Thamar Black, and highlighted up with P3 Pig Iron mixed with Vallejo Model Colour - Metal Medium.

Base:
The entire base except the flat top was base coated with P3 Menoth White Highlight.
Next was a drybrush of P3 Sulfuric Yellow, followed by subsequent layers of P3 Ember Orange, P3 Khador Red Base, and P3 Thamar Black.
The flat top where the model is standing was base coated in P3 Thamar Black, and drybrushed with layers of P3 Bastion Gray, mixed with P3 Menoth White Highlight.
Once that was all complete, I gave the lava one last wash of P3 Red Ink, and a spot of P3 Khador Red Base. I washed the areas around the black drybrushed areas. This gives the lava a nice glowing effect.
I then varnished the lava with Liquitex Satin Varnish to give it a 'wet' look.

And, the finished piece:









And this one is a bit further back, to give you an idea of what the figure looks like at a distance relative to the naked eye.



I hope this process was helpful to all!

-Brant

[althai]

The handle of his walking stick looks a little overbright, but that could just be the photo. Otherwise, very nice work, and hanks for the tutorial.

[Ghool]

The handle of his walking stick looks a little overbright, but that could just be the photo. Otherwise, very nice work, and hanks for the tutorial.

It's not the photo. Thanks for the tip. I'll glaze it down, because you're right.