Frankenstein's Bust

This past spring was the 200th anniversary of the novel Frankenstein and our local library system celebrated it in a number of ways. As the Artist at Work that month and them wanting to promote their 3D printing services, I decided to paint a Frankenstein Monster bust... which was also my first time painting a bust and a neat experience.

In this article I'm going to briefly talk about the demo experience, then some 3D printing, painting the bust and finally mounting it to a plinth.

Painting X-Wing in Black and White (and Re-Posing a Protectorate Starfighter)

A while back I posted a full article on my X-Wing Miniatures fleet - Core Couriers. I offered some tips at the beginning of that article on how to paint the ships, but wanted to put together a tutorial covering the process in a little more visual detail. In addition to that, you can read how I've modified this starfighter's wings to be in a rotational position. (More on that at the end of the article.)

As a reminder, my primary project are the Hordebloods, so the repainting of this fleet is just a quick tabletop quality process. Definitely comes together well though and I'm a big fan of the contrast between the dark greys and bright greens.

Washing, Painting Light Colours and Layering Paint

"Nobody wants to paint yellow."
"Fine, I'll paint yellow."
"OK, you get Skull Bearers and White Scars."
"Wait... white too??"
- Ryan, manager of Warhammer store #88 and I.

He and the manager of another store were competing to see who could fill the Adeptus Astartes poster full of marines first. We, Canada, won.

The question gets asked often enough that I decided to use the opportunity to write a tutorial on painting White and Yellow including the techniques involved in the process.

Bonus, is my first video tutorial. You really should keep reading...

Metallics: Painting NMM as TMM

Today we're tossing preconceptions out the window. While writing about Colour Theory and Metallics, I've been looking outside the box a lot more. I've always liked Eldar for how much more alien they look in the Warhammer sci-fi universe. But how can I take that to another level?

So I got thinking... what if Eldar, in their alien nature, are meant to be True-Metallic Metal but are just always depicted as Non-Metallic Metal? Right?

The idea is that while so many of us clamour to flip things upside down to depict metallic effects using regular paints, what if artists have already been doing the same thing? Making that assumption, Eldar are supposed to be painted TMM. So that's what I'm going to do today.

I've even included my paint journal page at the end.

Painting Metal Realistically

In this tutorial, I'll look at ways to make your metal objects look more like they should, instead of generically slapping your metallics on blades and armour. Light sources and shadows play a factor in how best to portray the fact that your miniatures are actually in their own environment.

Like while Painting Chrome, this was another attempt that showed me I tend to "paint from the hip" so to speak. My untrained eyes do the best I can, but I prefer to paint what I see, not necessarily what there is to be seen... if that makes sense. So I'll offer some tips to give you the general idea.

Painting Chrome Metallics

Chrome can be painted a couple ways - the first is to use actual chrome spray paint or silver as a base, then add your own touches to make it work on a miniature scale. The second is to simulate it by paying attention to the shape of what you're painting and simulating horizon, sky and ground.

I'm going to come out and say it: I'm not supper happy with the final look of some of these chrome effects. It's the first time I've tried simulating chrome but maybe it can offer some ideas for anyone trying these effects themselves.

Painting Metals - Parkerizing / Phosphating and Heat Treating

When metal heats up and wears over time, it discolours with hints of blue and purple, maybe a little brown. Sometimes metals will be intentionally heat treated to add a nice rainbow effect to them.

There are methods used to protect metals which also reduce their reflectiveness. Usually with either a matte grey or black. In a painting sense, you use Non-Metallic Metal first, then True-Metallic Metal blade edges and scratches.

Painting Mixed-Metallic Composition (MMC)

I say "Composition" because I'm not talking about how to paint metal so much as how to create contrast by balancing painting techniques across a miniature.

See, when I began painting Non-Metallic Metals, I found that despite its pleasing tones, metal can end up looking flat and dull. You're painting with the same colours used on the rest of your model so everything blends together. Since I'm a big fan of using contrast to make a model visually "pop", when I'm painting with NMM, I'll usually throw splashes of True-Metallic Metal on smaller details like bolts, rivets, buckles, etc.

As an example, take a look at the orange terminator here. Since everything is painted with regular paint, it all has a similar appearance. But, I used some colour variation - the orange is very strong and stands out boldly while the lighter colours like the cloth and golds are softer instead. The black metal parts are bold and strong too, but your eyes are probably treating them similarly to how they look at the orange.

I'm going to preface this by reminding people that I'm self-taught when it comes to art. This article is mostly theory and I'm talking about how things appear to me.

Painting Mixed-Metallic Metals (MMM)

Sometimes, a single style doesn't create the best looking effect. If you combine a few of the other Metallic methods to paint Mixed-Metallic Metals, it can make some nice aesthetic creations.

For example, on my Elemental King I painted his collar and metal plates a cool blue-grey NMM steel but then used iron RMM to create layers and sheets of rust. On my Harlequin Wraithlord, I used a little bit of NMM to highlight some of the TMM gold in order to force a visible highlight not dependent on the strength or angle of actual light reflecting off the paint.

I'll show you some examples and offer some tips on ways you could use this.

Recently, on the mounted leader from Age of Sigmar, I used metallics to create a shiny undertone that blended into natural set highlights. This was actually done in only 4 steps - Metallic gold primer, a thick brown wash, then an off-white highlight followed by quick white highlight of tips and corners.

Painting Real-Metallic Metals (RMM)

"Real" is a term I've dubbed in regards to painting Metallic Metals using paint that actually contains metal.

This means you can paint something with iron and have it rust or use copper that patinas green. Even if you don't want to age it, there's value in having a finish that actually looks like Pewter, Brass or Gold.

Want to see how this crazy stuff works? Click on through.

Painting Non-Metallic Metals (NMM)

This is a simulated look using colour to fake a metal appearance. As an example, using greys for silver, blues for steel and yellows for gold. You might also hear it referred to as a "European" method of painting due to its wider contrast and softer blending.

Honestly, NMM isn't much more difficult than painting any other part of your model - Shade, highlight.. you're already familiar with it. But is IS harder and does require more patience with a little more skill. The difference is to make it look good, you need to use more shades of colours to blend from dark to light and choose where you want the reflection coming from. For now, we'll focus on an NMM overview and look at simulating real reflections later.

Really well done NMM stands out and Internet likes to place people who can create the effect with a solid technique on a pedestal. With all things Internet though, don't look at it as a necessity, just a neat skill to pick up at sometime.

The problem with NMM is that you're using the same paints to simulate metal as you're using to paint the rest of your model. This means that without strong control of your colours and contrasts, metals can disappear. Instead of standing out, they'll blend in with cloth and skin.

Painting True-Metallic Metals (TMM)

Over the next while, I'm going to look at different ways to paint metallics. Most people are familiar with "True" and "Non" Metallic Metals, but I use more methods than these two and you're going to get to read about them all! Sound good?

"True" is the term given to using shiny metallic paints that actually shimmer like metal does. It also means that as you move the model around or look at it from different angles, the highlights change. This is by far the easiest way to paint metal and is the most "realistic" way to paint shiny metal. (I say "shiny" because some metal is naturally dull and you're better off using Non-Metallic Metals.) It has both colour and reflection.

Painting Stone and Completed Warsong Champions

Aside from my Mountain King, I also recently completed a unit of Warsong Hordeblood Champions. (Photo at the end) I've carved stone in the past for this project, but today I'll demonstrate painting it instead.

Why might I decide to paint rather than carve? Well, for one, this type of stone is much harder than the turquoise used on Madrak. This makes it more difficult to shape and to drill a hole for pinning. Aesthetically, it's also trickier to have accessories on the stone like the metal trim and spikes.



The method for painting this stone was actually pretty straight forward, using only the paints pictured below. I also went with a stone that would blend with the colours of the rest of the figure.

Colour Theory: Contrasting Achromatic

Sin City

Neutral (Grey) and Near-Neutral Achromatics as well as Monochromatic paint schemes create lovely soft looks, but sometimes you want something to stand out. As I said at the start of this series, choose a paint theme to help you paint, not restrict you. It's OK to cheat if you want to play with contrasts or make something really stand out.

If you're doing this for artistic reason, the effect can be fantastic - a greyscale scene with a coloured dress, red gore, striking eyes. Firey explosions and muzzle flash in The Matrix seem extra bright and striking because so much of the movie is Monochromatic, Near-Neutral or Dull Colours.

Created with painter from
Bolder & Chainsword

• Don't go overboard.
• Contrasts can be lost quickly if you paint too much of something.
  Ex: A black and white scene with red blood dripping from claws can look intense. But if you paint red gore all over, it'll just look messy.
• Contrast details, not generic elements.
• Pick details that are worth accenting. Skin, jackets, armour and such probably aren't worth standing out. Eyes, gems, a beautiful dress, hair, special effects, blood, tattoos, mirrored surfaces and so on.
• The reverse is also true.
• You could take a normally painted scene, then paint an area Neutrally to dull it or mute normally shocking visuals like blood. This would make the rest of the scene stand out.

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Alright, I Cheated

Instead of painting a new miniature for this one, I decided to take the one I painted for the Achromatic example and throw some contrast on it.

I mixed some bright (Blood) red in with some pouring medium to give it a little body and gloss. This gives me some nice bright and thick fake blood. Too bright to be realistic, but great if you're trying to be bold.

When I paint it on him, I used a cheap brush like I always do when working with mediums. The obvious place for the gore is his axe and where it would drip down. I also painted some splash across his chest as a spray of blood. For effect, you don't really want to create a "real" spray of blood. (Fine mist, Dexter-like, etc.) Just some solid contrasting areas.

Colour Theory: Monochromatic

Choose a Hue, add White, Black, Grey
Burnetts Boards

This colour scheme is similar to Achromatic (Greyscale) except a single colour is allowed. You can still Tint, (Highlight) Shade or Tone. (Grey) There aren't many situations where you might use monochromatic colours, besides for artistic reasons.

Despite the unusual visual this creates, there are practical situations where you could use this theme, though probably limited to things like natural beast / alien armies like Tyranids or Legion of Everblight or uniform mechanized ones such as Tau and Battletech.

At first glance, you might think you can paint this like Near-Neutral and Neutral Achromatics, but that's not the case. Some similarities and differences:

Colour Theory: Near-Neutral Achromatic

Similar to Pure Achromatic (Greyscale) schemes, are Near-Neutrals. Since Grey is Neutral, Near-Neutrals are Colours that have so much grey (light or dark grey) that it's almost impossible to tell what the original colour was. "Earthy" is another term given to these colours due to how many browns comprise these tones. Painting in Neutrals can feel pleasing as they're not aggressive, even when you're using a lot of darks.

"Sepia" is a term you might be familiar with for an art style that uses mostly Yellow Neutrals. However, a painting style that uses a single colour is called "Monochromatic", which I'll look at next.

Any of the other art styles I've covered can be used when painting with Neutrals. The mixes of Hues, contrasting lights and darks, softer blended ranges, etc.

The chart here is a good guide on colour intensity. To create Near-Neutrals, you really do want to go past the "Dull" colours, where the colour really starts to disappear and the grey tone becomes apparent.

Colour Theory: Pure Achromatic (Greyscale)

Remember when I said colours of equal value look like the
same shade of grey? Look at the Colour Wheel now.

Achromatic Colours are Whites, Blacks and Greys. Greys are also known as Neutral because they have no colour. (Grey is also what you get when you mix two Complementary colours together - they cancel each other out.) Greyscale can be a very unique way to paint a miniature.

The normal reasons for painting like this is for environments like stone formations or cities, either for terrain or for bases. A practical reason for painting greyscale on a miniature would be some form of camouflage, either natural (mountain beasts) or man-made by people living or fighting in these areas. You'll also find these schemes in nature for general reasons: wolf pelts, seals, whales, polar / black / panda bears, etc.

Some reasons you'd paint these compositions would be if you're painting an object that's normally White and/or Black, painting something that's normally composed of Greys or painting something that should have colour artistically.

There are different ways that you can paint a greyscale miniature or scene, each which has a strong impact on the way it comes across to the viewer.

When you're choosing the amount of Black, White and Grey to use, here's some things to consider:

Colour Theory: Colour Contrast and Context

Comparing light, dark and grey contrasts.
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/color_context.htm

When we look at contrast, it means we're looking at how strongly one colour appears compared to another. Specifically, when the 2 colours are painted next to each other. Advertising and websites pay close attention to the contrast of colours to ensure text and objects stand out against their background.

Another important part of Colour Contrast is when we look at people who are colour blind. (A topic I had a buddy write about once - Colour Blind Modellers.) You can convert 2 different colours to greyscale and they become the same grey, causing details to literally disappear. There are a bunch of websites dedicated to testing how well colours contrast.

When we paint miniatures, we want to make colours "pop". Try to remember:

Colour Theory: Square Tetradic Colours

I'll be looking at two Tetradic Schemes - Rectangular and Square.

In both, we use 2 sets of Complementary Colours for a total of 4 colours. The difference between Rectangular and Square is how far apart the colours are spread. We have the benefit of more colours to paint with, however it becomes harder to balance all of them cleanly.

Created with painter from Bolder & Chainsword

The Square scheme is more difficult to work with than the Rectangular one because the pairs are spread out evenly around the Colour Wheel. None of them blend closely with another, even though you'll have 2 Warms and 2 Cools. It's similar to the Triadic scheme, but with a fourth colour added. Here are some things I recommend:

Colour Theory: Rectangular Tetradic Colours

I'll be looking at two Tetradic Schemes - Rectangular and Square.

In both, we use 2 sets of Complementary Colours for a total of 4 colours. The difference between Rectangular and Square is how far apart the colours are spread. We have the benefit of more colours to paint with, however it becomes harder to balance all of them cleanly.

The Rectangular scheme is easier to work with than Square, because here the pairs are spaced closer together, creating two sets of nearly Analogous Colours that act as Complements to the other. It's similar to the Split-Complementary scheme, but there are two sets of complementing colours. Because we're working with complements, there will always be 2 warm and 2 cool colours. Depending on your choices, the near colours will either be the same temperature or opposite temperatures.

Here are some things I recommend: