Lead Figure Painting Tutorial 2: Escher Ganger
This was originally posted as a thread on the RelicNews 40K: DOW forum.
Read first:
1. I often use Vallejo paints in addition to Citadel ones, these will be indicated by "V paintname". For reference: Vallejo colour chart and relation to Citadel colours, and standard Citadel colour chart.
2. I'm aiming for a good, but efficient standard, neither an army standard nor a top-notch display standard, but somewhere in between. Perhaps an army character standard or a warband member standard, or in my case, an actually-getting-damn-figures-painted standard.
3. Photos won't be as clear as usual as I've needed to use a cruder set-up for the WIP photos.
Stage 0: Plan
Bought this a while ago and the reemergence of Necromunda is a good enough excuse to paint it. This will be quite different to the Wraithguard as it's a much smaller figure with lots of fiddly detail. There there will be a lot less repetitve blending over large areas, and a lot more sharp simple layering and black lined details. Thus I've started with a black undercoat, and I think I will go for a different painting order this time - I need to keep the coats to a minimum to leave the detail as crisp as possible. So I will do each colour fully one-by-one, and try to leave as many black lines as possible.
Colour scheme will be: Blue leggings, yellow sash and bikini top, white/grey weapon/mask/armour, leather OR grey green pouches/straps, silver details. Don't know about the hair yet.
Stage 1: Preparation
Cleaned the figure as normal, scraping off mold lines with a knife, and drilled out the gun barrel. I also carefully cut off the pony-tail tip that was pointing up and glued it back pointing down in accordance with the laws of gravity.
I made the base out of a piece of plastic tube cut at a very slender angle, and a couple of bits of plasticard, covered with glued sand as normal.
To undercoat and make sure all the small gaps were covered, I first washed the figure with thinned Chaos Black, then spraypainted with Citadel Chaos Black Spray Paint. When this was dry I painted in any last gaps. Then I used a cunning trick, a few consecutive drybrushes of Skull White - this provides a better colour to paint over than pure black, and shows where the detail will be, whilst leaving the recesses dark.
Speed: Probably 1 1/4 hours all done. The ponytail swap I did years ago but it wouldn't have taken long. Nothing especially time-consuming here apart from the deviant undercoating but hopefully that will be useful later on.
Next: Base.
Stage 2: Base
Going for a grimey underhive look but with a bit of colour.
Gravel was painted with a thin coat of Chaos Black + Rotting Flesh, and drybrushed with CB + RF, then just RF.
Pipe and tiles were painted with Boltgun Metal and shaded with Black Ink. Tiles then had thinned Scorched Brown layered to the edges, and the pipe was highlighted with Chainmail. Tiles then had Vermin Brown layered at the very edges, and the pipe was washed with Black + Yellow. Finally I painted some slime with V Cayman Green then V Camo Green.
Speed: Pretty quick!
Next: Boots and stuff.
Stage 3: Trousers and stuff.
Going for a dark but rich blue. Ish.
Basecoat of 3 thinned coats of Regal Blue thanks to this colour now being a bag of shite that barely covers itself let alone a black undercoat (it used to be good too).
No picture as it
came out bollox
Since the blue is dark, I just painted some Chaos Black in the recesses and lined it with CB. No need for any other shading.
First highlight of Regal Blue + Enchanted Blue, blended onto the larger raised areas and painted onto the smaller raised areas.
Second highlight of Enchanted Blue, blended onto the larger raised areas and painted onto the smaller raised areas.
Final highlight of Ice Blue. This was a bit too harsh against the previous colour and I should have added a little IB to the EB, but it's okay.
Tidied up with Chaos Black in the recesses. Lined where the feet meet the base with thinned CB. Painted the studs and buckles with Mithril Silver, painted a few misc details, and painted the undercloths with Chaos Black, highlighted with V Cayman Green and V Camo Green.
Speed: Not bad. The highlights took a little time but other painting went quick.
Next: Yellow sash and stuff.
Stage 4: Sash
Going for a standard yellow and trying to follow my method of painting over a Snakebite Leather / drybrushed white undercoat as mentioned in the FAQ. I've since edited the FAQ because this method DOESN'T BLOODY WORK.
Undercoat with Snakebite Leather, then roughly layered with white in some doomed attempt to provide a good basis for the yellow.
Paint thin coat of GY, looks crap
Paint thin coat of GY, looks crap
Paint thin coat of GY, looks crap
Paint thin coat of GY, looks crap
Paint thick coat of GY, looks crap apart from a few pools in the creases
Paint thick coat of GY, looks crap apart from a few pools in the creases
Leave a puddle of GY to thicken on the palette, then layer/stipple on thick chunks of semi-dried yellow, looking almost like "normal" crap now
Paint thin coat of GY, looking less crappy
Paint thin coat of GY, looking almost uncrappy
Paint thin coat of GY, looking almost acceptable and it will have to do.
Basically this yellow colour is fucking atrocious and couldn't cover up a YELLOW undercoat if you pasted it on an inch thick.
Shaded with thinned and blended V Plague Brown then V Cobra Leather. A bit scruffy really.
Highlight with a few layers of Sunburst Yellow. Then paint lines of White on the prominent edges. Repaint with SY which looks bright over the white. Repaint very edges with SY + White mix.
Speed: Sodding hopeless. This seemed to take longer than all the other painting so far added together. The shading and highlighting isn't so bad as the multiple stages are reasonable to do one after another, but I need to find a better way to get a solid yellow colour (e.g. buy some Vallejo yellow...).
Next: Something that bloody works hopefully.
Stage 5: Something that bloody works hopefully.
In this case, the leather, and it did work, hurrah. I've gone into full detail on this as someone was asking about leather.
Basecoat with two thin coats of V Cobra Leather.
First shade of Bestial Brown blended into the recesses or layed into the tight recesses. This is a natural shade so blends in easily.
Second shade of Scorched Brown blended or layered further in the recesses.
Lined with thinned down Chaos Black. Since I'd managed to leave a bit of black in some areas, this was reasonably easy despite the fiddly backpack.
First highlight of a mixture of V Cobra Leather and V Bone White (= Bleached Bone) blended to the edges, or layered on the most fiddly bits where blending would be wasted. I've tried various unsatisfactory highlights for the leather, usually Vomit Brown / V Plague Brown, but they never seem quite right and need too much blending. So I tried for a natural intermediate stage between the leather and bone colours, and it worked better. A useful thing to remember, trying to find the most natural shade/highlight colour tones.
Lined the edges with V Bone White. This makes a fairly pale highlight, but it's easy to richen a bit just using a thin Brown or Chestnut Ink glaze. But I like it how it is for now.
Speed: Pretty quick, maybe 50 minutes, which might seem long but there's quite a bit of leather on the backpack, and the end result looks good. No hitches on this bit which was nice.
Next: Rest of the backpack.
Stage 6: Backpack
Trying to let the moulding do the work on this and paint fairly simple details with black lining in between. Going for some fairly realistic / neutral colours. No stage-by-stage photos for this as it was too fiddly.
(The leather pouches had already been painted in a previous step).
- Metal was painted with Boltgun Metal, layered highlight of Mithril Silver, lined with Chaos Black and washed with a Black + Brown Ink. The photo makes it look brighter than it is, it's darker IRL.
- Rolled thing was painted with V Cayman Green, layered highlight of of V CG and V Khaki, final edging of Khaki.
- Sash was painted blue to link the backpack with the figure itself. Painted Regal Blue, lined with Chaos Black, lined highlights of Enchanted Blue then Ice Blue.
- Straps were painted Chaos Black, slightly blended highlight of V Cold Grey, then lined with V Stonewall Grey.
- Ropes were painted with V Khaki by lining it along the raised areas using the side of the brush. Then highlighted with V Bone White, lined along the more prominent raised areas. Then tidied up with Chaos Black.
Speed: Pretty reasonable, I was taking care to keep it neat, but there weren't any unduly slow bits. I'd been a bit daunted by the amount of detail on the backpack, but working over a black undercoat and letting the moulding do the work was pretty effective.
Next: Gun.
Stage 7: Gun
This is a very prominent part of the figure, and in conjunction with the masked face, is the main reason I like it. I had a definite idea that it should be a hi-tech grey-white look, with the obligatory blue plasma tube and some metal and coloured details. I've gone into detail on the plasma tube and white sheathing in particular.
Metal
Painted Boltgun Metal, highlighted with Mithril Silver, lined if needed with Chaos Black, washed with Black + Brown Ink.
Plasma tube
The plasma tube had to be a noticable blue, and normally I'd paint it quite a rich colour, but I'd already used that on the trousers. So to make it distinct I went for colder blue. It first was painted with two coats of Midnight Blue.
Highlighted with careful overbrushing of Ultramarine Blue, using a Detail brush.
Highlighted further with careful overbrushing of Space Wolf Grey nearer the raised edges.
Sorry for blurry photo. This was a bit grey so it was glazed with a thin Blue + Purple Ink mix. I might need to give it another highlight if it doesn't stand out enough.
Piping
Another noticable section of the gun. I painted the ribbed pipe Chaos Black, then overbrushed carefully with Shadow Grey and Storm Grey, this has a slight bluish tint which makes it match the plasma a bit, and be a bit different than the straps elsewhere which are have pure grey highlights. The red and green straps were painted a mix of Blood Red + Black and Goblin Green + Black, with layered highlights of red / green, then red / green + white. Makes them colourful without being too gaudy.
Sheath
The gun was carefully basecoated with two thin coats of V Stonewall Grey.
Sorry for very blurry photo. It was shaded with thinned down V Cold Grey blended into the recesses - you should just be able to see it near the top lumpy bit.
It was then lined with a mix of V CG and Chaos Black around the grey bits that were part of the sheathing, and with pure CB around any non-sheathing parts.
The gun was highlighted with thinned Skull White blended to the edges, this took a couple of coats. The edges were lined with Skull White. Finally it was tidied up with Chaos Black.
The gun took some effort but I think it was worth it as I like the overall effect.
Speed: Fairly slow actually. Maybe two hours overall? This was mostly due to keeping things as neat as possible (apart from black lining, I hardly had to correct any mistakes which is unusual for me), and also trying to get a smooth effect on the gun. I think an intermediate highlight would have helped on the gun though it wouldn't be any quicker. I can't really think of how I could have speeded this up and still kept it neat.
Next: Skin (but not hair).
Stage 8: Skin
I'm not very comfortable with skin - I can get the colours right, but find shading and highlighting awkward as skin is pretty smooth and subtle, so it's a tricky balance between showing some muscle definition whilst avoiding too much lining and sharp highlights. In this case I tried to go for a slightly paler skin tone rather than a more tanned one, as is appropriate for the underhive. I probably should have gone paler still I think.
Basecoat with 4 thin coats of Elf Flesh - yup another colour that's pretty shit =|.
I gave it a very thin wash of Chestnut Ink - this is really a "guiding" wash, showing me where the shading should go rather than actually shading much itself.
First shade was Dwarf Flesh blended into the recesses.
Second shade was Terracotta blended to the edges of the skin, and thinly lined between the muscles. I also did a some lining with thinned Chaos Black after this.
First highlight was repainting Elf Flesh over the raised areas, mostly just layering.
Second highlight was a mixture of Elf Flesh and Skull White, layered over the muscles again, often just using a fine line of it.
And that's that. The face area looks a bit scruffy but that's because there's still a lot to paint around the skin there.
Speed: Fairly slow, firstly because of the number of coats required, and secondly because the skin is recessed beneath clothing etc, thus the "leaving a black gap and putting a couple of simple highlights on" technique doesn't work so well, so it needs full painting. Layering up from a darker colour may have worked but I prefer shading down as it seems easier to keep the shading fairly small that way.
Next: The detailing and clothing on the upper body.
Stage 9: Upper details and hair.
Upper details
Much of these were the same colours as used elsewhere on the figure so were painted the same way. I.e. Blue bra top, white/grey armour/mask, black straps, khaki cord, etc. I also painted all the jewellry (sp?) gold to give her a bit of BLING - I figured gang members will want to show off their wealth, particularly ones armed with heavy plasma guns ;). This was V Polished Gold and a simple highlight of Mithril Silver. Also, the eye was carefully painted white and then a pupil dotted in, being careful to avoid the "staring" effect.
Hair
I left the colour choice right until the end, and then realised that the black looked pretty nice. However I didn't want pure black as there's plenty of black straps and stuff on the model. So I went for a rich dark brown, being careful to keep it dark so I got the imposing effect the black undercoat had been giving.
Basecoat thinned down Chaos Black.
Careful overbrushing with a couple of coats of Dark Flesh.
Sorry for ass-tastic photo. Careful overbrushing with Vermin Brown....you'll have to take my word for it.
Turned out quite nice and looked fairly organic. The trick is to slowly build up the overbrushed coats to avoid clogging up the detail.
Speed: Very quick. No problems here.
Next:: Tidying up a little bit (not much as I've been careful), and it's done, hurrah.
Finished figure:
Umm yes that was a lot quicker then.
I think a BIG factor that made it quicker is that there's lots of different colours and areas to paint but they're mostly fairly simple. The variety meant that I personally could paint for much longer periods without getting so bloody bored I want to throw the figure in the bin and run down the street screaming (as sometimes happened with the Wraithguard).
Also, the black undercoat and painting of several details fairly simply worked, and, due to the smaller size of the figure, still looks pretty good. As did choosing some natural tones (see leather section) that made highlighting etc easier.
The areas that took the most time were either those where the paint I was using was shite, or where the areas were complex but large enough to require full blending stages. This could have been speeded up by different paint choices and layering respectively.
Things I learnt or re-learnt during this:
- Using natural tones makes painting stages easier.
- Simply painted detail looks fine if kept distinct by black lines, so there's no need to paint it too extravagantly.
- Paint coverage can be a big issue and some colours are worth a white undercoat first.
- Being neat takes some time but is beneficial later on.
- I still don't thin down paints enough for some painting.
......
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