Ciamar a tha sibh. Welcome back.
In this installment we'll focus on painting our figures black leather jacket.
woo hoo!
To me, one of the key things to painting black is just having the confidence to
leave most of the surface black, if you overwork it you'll end up with a grey effect.
The second thing is to keep your highlights small and punchy,
again if you make them too big or with too long a gradient you'll end up painting grey.
Start by basing the jacket in black, I used Valejo Model Colour black but use whatever you have.
The more satin or glossy your black is, the darker it's going to look.
To create our initial highlight we'll take some of this Scale Colour Caribbean Blue
and add it into the black to turn it grey.
If you're trying this out with a different colour scheme,
just mix in any saturated colour you've already used elsewhere on your model.
Mixing your own grey, rather than relying on a
premixed paint should give you a more harmonious final result.
Paint this onto the areas where the jacket will be catching the light.
So one of the neat things about black is that the initial base coat will
naturally reflect a lot of light so you'll actually be able to see where you want your
highlights just by holding the miniature under a light source.
So here up at the shoulder we'll put in a small highlight.
The upper part of the back is sloping away from the light so we'll just leave that alone.
However, here at the bottom it starts to tilt up facing the light.
So we'll place some highlights in the middle of those rased details leaving the
creases between them in shadow.
We'll need a highlight on the collar here too,
adding essentially an edge highlight on that lower part.
Grazing the side of the brush along the edge, in order to get a clean line.
Like with most of the model we're using quite thin paint,
so we'll apply these highlights over a couple of layers to ensure we get decent coverage.
To help blend out the edge of the paint you can thin your
colour to a glaze consistency with a little water.
Then with a very small amount on the brush, use the glaze to help smooth out the highlights.
Lightly drawing the brush up and over the edges of the highlights,
applying a very thin layer of the glaze to the surface.
On the shoulder, as we have more surface to play with we'll add a few little dots
to help fade out the highlight while creating some subtle textures.
Just be careful that you don't draw the edge out so far that you end up covering up the
whole back. Remember you want to retain a lot of that black so you don't end up painting grey.
If you do mess up, you can make a glaze with black
and glaze down over the edge of the highlight a few times to help reduce the grey.
Alright so we'll switch back to our thicker consistency
and continue applying highlights to the rest of the jacket.
So here on the sleeve we're picking out the tops of all the little creases
leaving that underside of the arm black.
It's worth bearing in mind while your placing these that your initial highlights will end up
looking a lot darker after you put in your much brighter highlights.
Here on the other side of the jacket we'll pick out these creases near the bottom.
They would be catching quite a lot light.
Then we'll do the other sleeve in just the same way,
pick out the areas that would catch the light.
So the top of the shoulder, and then the top of all the
little creases along the upper side of the arm.
And I'll do the chest as well, adding a round highlight on top there.
Finally adding a highlight onto the lapel, pulling the paint up, over the surface to the upper edges.
Then we can take our glaze again and smooth out any highlights that are a bit rough.
Drawing the glaze up and over the trailing edge to help even out the transitions.
And you're going to apply these over a few layers, letting each one dry before adding a new one.
And we'll do these ones on the chest as well. Just to soften out that hard edge.
Once your happy with that you can add a little Scale Colour White Sands into
your mix to lighten it, making it so it's a medium grey tone.
Similar in brightness to Games Workshop Dawnstone.
We'll use that to apply another layer of highlights.
Again, targeting the spots that would be catching the most light.
So on the top of any little creases.
This time making our highlights quite small.
To make sure we don't end up with that dreaded grey effect.
Here on the side, we'll try to build up the highlight in the middle of those creases
so they fall on the raised part of the hip.
And we can apply them with little horizontal lines to create a subtle texture on the surface.
Pulling the paint up over the surface to the upper edges.
Same idea here on the sleeve, using small lines to build up a more interesting texture on the
large highlights. Then just picking out the edges on the smaller parts.
On the back we'll try to pull the highlights towards the middle on the lower part.
The reason for that is that the middle of the back is the highest point on the surface,
so you'd expect it to catch more light as it's going to be closer to it.
Think about drawing or pulling the paint into position, rather than just placing it there.
Remember acrylics are transparent when thinned.
And more paint will be left at the end of your brush stroke.
Thus by drawing the paint over the surface and stopping where you want the highlight,
you can create a gradient into it, Ideally building it up over a few layers.
Again on the larger areas we can paint the highlight on with little lines in
order to create some texture on the surface.
And on the collar we'll draw the paint into the middle of that edge highlight.
Targeting the centre so that the highlight makes sense with the one on the lower back.
When I'm working on these small edge highlights I like to first place a dot of paint as a guide
and then sweep the bristles up to that point from either side.
I find it helps me get the paint where I want it while ensuring the brightest part
will end up with a bit more paint making the highlight more intense.
Alright, so really it's just a case of working your way around
the jacket and picking out all the little details.
You should start to see what I meant by the initial highlight becoming darker
as we begin to add brighter layers on top.
Overall the jacket is going to look darker the brighter our highlights get.
I know that sounds like a bit of a paradox.
But it's just because when you place something bright next to something dark,
the dark area will appear darker in comparison.
And vice versa for the brighter areas.
Alright so we'll apply a couple small circles on to the chest, just like I've mentioned before
you want to match the shape of the highlight to the shape of the surface that you're painting.
So because the chest is round we make our highlights round as well.
To continue we'll take some of that grey colour and thin it
down to a glaze consistency with a bit of water.
Then we'll use that to soften out any of the highlights that need it.
So these ones on the chest for example.
Just by applying a few layers of the glaze along the edge of the highlight
we're able to create a blurring effect so that the edge isn't so obvious.
And you can do that for any highlights that seem to have an abrupt end point.
Always pulling the bristles up and over the edges, applying them over a few layers
letting each one dry before adding a new one.
And you repeat that until you are happy with the result.
To continue, we'll add some more of the white sands into the grey
making a significant jump in brightness this time.
Remember that we want to create quite punchy highlights
avoiding that slow progression from dark to light.
And this is going to ensure we retain a black look to the jacket.
Now we'll essentially do the same thing again but we'll try to make
our highlights about half the size as the previous layer.
Focusing on the upper part of all the little folds and creases.
You can see I'm still using quite a thin consistency,
and that's so I have more control over the transparency.
By keeping the paint thin, I can create a bit of a transition by applying a series
of transparent layers, making each one a little smaller than the previous one.
Same thing on the back. Again trying to build up the intensity
of the highlights towards that middle point.
Think about drawing or pulling the paint into position, rather than just placing it there.
Ideally building it up over a few layers.
And again on the collar you can see that I'm using that dot and sweep technique from earlier.
Targeting that mid point so it matches the highlights towards the lower part of the jacket.
On the bottom, we'll start to include some edge highlights, just drawing the side of the brush
along that edge, allowing it to lightly graze the surface so that we leave a nice thin line.
On the shoulder here you can see the way that I'm lightly drawing the paint
up over the edge over a few passes in order to create a small transition,
making it much brighter at the very top of the shoulder.
And the same idea on the other side of the jacket.
Apply the paint over a few layers, gradually making it more intense around that mid point.
Think about drawing or pulling the paint into position, rather than just placing it there.
Again trying to build up the intensity of the highlights towards that middle point.
Ideally building it up over a few layers.
I think I went a little off on that lower one,
but I can correct that with some of the darker highlight.
And then, just paint the lighter colour back in over the top.
Again, we're not trying to be perfect but we
also don't want to leave in obvious mistakes that would be easy to fix.
So we'll continue that on the sleeve, building up those sharp
bright highlights just along the top part of the creases.
Adding in some texturing where the surface allows us to do so.
By keeping the paint thin I can create a bit of a transition by apply a series
of transparent layers, making each one a little smaller than the previous one.
Again targetting the spots that would be catching the most light
So on top of any little creases.
This time making the highlights quite small to
ensure that we don't end up with that dreaded grey effect.
So these lines on the shoulder just give us a little something extra to look at.
So that the highlight isn't quite so sterile.
Then we'll add a couple very small highlights in the middle of the chest.
Just painting on small dots in that centre point.
Ahhh, I think they're a bit offset which looks weird.
So I'll paint over one with our darker highlight.
And then repaint it with the lighter colour, so that they line up.
Yeah, so the placement of that looks a bit better now.
To finish things off we'll take some of the White Sands on it's own
and we'll go back and apply very tiny highlights in the more prominent spots.
Here in the middle of the shoulder highlight, I'm just adding a tiny little dot.
You can see it finishes it off really well.
When you're doing these try to just barely touch the surface, be very gentle with how
you hold the brush and slowly lower it onto the surface so that the tip very lightly touches it.
It's tricky to do but practice definitely makes it easier.
Alright, so then well add a dot into the middle of some of the creases.
You don't have hit every single one, just pick out some of ones you like the look of. So...
Yep I quite like how that's looking.
You could add some sort of free hand on the back of her jacket
if you want to get fancy but I quite like this plain black effect.
So I'm happy to leave it alone.
In the next of this series, we'll take a look at how to paint her mini skirt
and we'll be doing that with a pink tartan design.
Alright troops, so that's about all from me, thank you always for your generous support,
and I hope to see you in the next installment.
Thanks again.
Bye for now.