How to Paint a Ginger Dwarf Beard

My latest Youtube video showing a simple way to paint a Ginger Dwarf Beard. It's a basic tabletop approach but it still gives quite a nice result.

Bloodbowl Ork - Painting Guide.

How to paint Red

Painting a Bloodbowl Classic - Scrappa Sorehead

Using Pointillism To Add Texture To Skin

Adding texture to skin can be fun and daunting at the same time. The skin on the Goblin above was painted with a classical technique called Pointillism. This is used quite a bit by David Soper and Kirill Kanaev (both legends imo) to create amazingly realistic miniatures. 

So what is Pointillism? Pointillism is a technique where you apply lots of tiny dots to give the illusion of a blend. It works very well in a miniature context because from a distance, it looks like a solid smooth blend but as you bring the model closer you begin to see more and more detail.

Highlights

I started off with a flat base coat of Scale75 Ardennes Green, For the first highlight I made a roughly 1:1 mix of Ardennes Green and Sherwood Green. I very roughly layered in highlights, I made no effort to make these smooth, in fact, I left them quite streaky/patchy. I wasn't fussed at making things neat at this stage because I wanted essentially a rough surface to give me a base for adding more texture.

For the second highlight I made a 1:4 ish mix of Ardennes and Sherwood Green. I applied this using the very tip of the brush, making small dots over the upper surfaces. I kept the dots fairly tight where I wanted the highlight to be strongest and as I moved lower into the darker areas I made the spacing wider and the dots more infrequent.

Another highlight was added using Sherwood Green. I repeated essentially the same process, however this time, only focusing on the upper areas.

I added a couple more highlights by mixing some Tenere Yellow into the Sherwood Green.

Shadows

For the shadows I mixed a little Fantasy & Games Mayhem Red (half way between Khorne red and Wazdakka Red) with some Vallejo Armour Brown (Rhinox Hide ish).  Using this mix I made both a layer and a glaze. The layer paint was applied directly into the deepest recesses. I also used it to line the model where the flesh meets fabric to help separate those areas.

The glaze was applied towards the base of the muscles. I tried to get the glaze to go over some of the dots just to make things a bit more interesting, You can see that most clearly on the upper lip of his face. 

If you want to try this and you don't have Ardennes Green etc, you can just use whatever Green triad you like, you'll get a similar result, just with a slightly different shade of green. Good luck!

Grim Angus - Trollblood

My first attempt at painting a Troll from the Privateer Press range. A really nice model, lots of well defined details without being over the top.

How to Paint Black NMM

So this is something I've been using on pretty much everything I've painted in the past few months, I really like the look and it's actually quite simple to do. Start off with a smooth basecoat of black.

Take a pale blue, I use Scale Color Bering Blue, but GW Fenrisian Blue is pretty much the same. Mix up two paint consistencies, one layer and one glaze. I use quite an organic process to build up the highlight, switching between the glazing and layering as and when needed, but in essence, you want to start with your layer paint and lightly sketch in where the highlight will be. So for example, on the gun barrel, I paint a thin line along the top edge, try and make it as straight as you can but it doesn't need to be perfect. Now take your glaze and glaze up to the line from bottom to top along the length of the barrel. Then glaze downwards, again towards the line. Do this in a few passes until the original line disappears and all you're left with is a blurred colour transition.

Now take a pure white and add a very sharp highlight where the blue is strongest. I put these along the length of the barrel, in a series of dots and dashes, forming a broken line of highlights. This gives a more realistic look than using a solid line, and it's also much easier to do. I then place white 'glint' highlights onto the uppermost pure black area, this is the same kind of idea as when you're painting a gem stone.

I'll do a separate post on how to highlight different kinds of surfaces, I'd say knowing where to put your highlights is the hard part of doing NMM and once you understand the why, the how becomes quite simple.

Sara - Bloodbowl Starplayer from Willy Miniatures

So this is the second time I've painted Sara. I really like the sculpt but both times I found myself struggling to paint the face. I don't want to be 'that guy' but I think it might be more down to the model than my painting. It's just wide and blocky compared to the rest of the figure. It's annoying because I'm usually pretty good at face but I just can't seem to get this one to 'work'. Ah well, if I get around to painting it a third time I'll see if I can do a better job!

Painting Female Skin Tones

When I'm painting a female model, I try and use less harsh contrast between lights and darks I feel it gives a more natural effect. In this one I mixed a slightly pinkish base colour using, Fantasy and Games, Harvester Flesh (Cadian Flesh tone with a little white added), a little Scale 75 Brown Leather (Mournfang Brown ish) and a bit of Scale 75 Deep Red (Wazdakka Red). You don't need very much of the red or brown, a very small amount will do the job.

I highlighted by doing a few layers each time adding slightly more white to the base mix.

Shadows were added by mixing a small amount of a deep purple Scale 75 Black Leather (Naggaroth Night) to the base colour and using that as a glaze. Add more purple for the darkest areas, i.e. Under the chin, Between and below the breasts, the belly button, etc.

Ben Hamilton from the Wild West Exodus

This is Ben Hamilton from the Wild West Exodus range. They have a tonne of great models, lots of character and this one is no different! Quite a lot of the detailing is very small, I found it quite a challenge to paint but the result was definitely worth the effort.

I used zenithal priming here. If you've never heard of that, essentially the model is first primed in black, it's then sprayed from above at about a 60 degree angle with white. It gives you a very effective preshade, letting you see instantly where all the highlights and shadows should be.

I don't often bother with it but I wanted to try out Ben Komets' leather technique which uses the natural grain left over from the primer to create the rough look of worn leather.

Painting Leather

For the trousers, gloves and backpack I simply used Army Painter Soft tone wash, applying it about 4 times directly over the primer. Then I went back and refined it a little here and there, adding some glazes to deepen shadows. I didn't want all the leather parts to look the same so for the straps I used a dark brown, highlighted with some dull orange and finished with a bone colour. If I'm honest I would have liked to get more contrast on the straps, they're a little flatter than I was going for. Still, the contrast between the two different kinds of leather is quite good which was the most important thing.

Painting White

I have a few different ways of approaching white, for this one, I wanted to show a bit of texture on the cloth so I started off darker than usual. I used Scale Color Graphite (GW Dawnstone). Then I gradually worked up highlights by adding more and more white to the mix. Once I got a few transitions on I started adding little lines and dots with each new highlight layer. To add more depth I glazed with black into the deepest shadows. It's ok to go quite dark with this, a common mistake when painting white is to ignore the shadows, or be scared to go dark enough. Check out the image below, it's white but look how dark some of the shadows are.

Painting Woodgrain

This was done quite simply. I started off with Scale Color Walnut (This is a desaturated pale brown, GW Dryad Bark mixed with some Karak Stone is roughly the same). Woodgrain lines were then painted on using Scale Color Birch (GW Ushbati Bone). Then a single glaze of Inktensity Woodgrain was applied to finish. A couple glazes of Seraphim Sepia will also give the same effect.