Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Back to the future


Sometimes interesting things happen when you have painted miniatures for this long.  They say that if you walk around long enough, you eventually meet yourself.  In some ways, I have managed that :-)


In this case, I am matching the color/style of another painter who had previously been matching figures that I had painted about 8 years ago.  So, it's been interesting to think about how I approached figures 'back in the day'.


Obviously, so many things have changed since then.  In fact, the way I paint now barely resembles the approach I used in those days.


This is definitely something different.  You hear me talking about this all the time... that is, using Secret Weapon washes and mixing them with regular paint.  In this image, I mixed an off white with Baby Poop.

By doing this, I get a very nice shade of tan that is semi-opaque.  It is fantastic for tinting flesh tones, golds, etc.  I do this with all kinds of washes and paint combos.  As I said, flesh tones and metals benefit greatly from this approach.


4 comments:

  1. Very cool use of Baby Poop...kidding aside, what you've done 8 years ago is still light years ahead of me. Well done & keep up that fantastic work James. Although I shall not ever attain your caliber, it still inspires.

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    1. Thanks for the kind words! It was just so odd to see that was how I used to paint. It has been interesting attempting to reverse engineer the current techniques a bit. ;-)

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  2. Hallo,
    please excuse my bad english, but it is not my mother tongue.
    Your blog is allways a great inspiration und so are your vids on you tube.
    I'm always amazed at what you do and how you do it.
    Is a bit like looking a Bob Ross painting-video - me, sitting in front of the screen, thinking no, not that big brush, noooo - not that Color, oh no, now he is gonna ruin the whole paintjob.
    But - ten brushstrokes later you see - tatatata - everything was like it had to be and the result is absolutely great.
    One of your main tools seem to be the secret weapon washes and so I tried them too. But for me they don't work as well. The always shine strongly, no matter if I take the one with more ore the one with less pigments in it. I also tried to dilute them more or less – allways the same result - shining.
    I really thought about throwing them into the thrashcan. But the tones of color are very interesting and they give such great results for you, so I would like to give them a second chance and continue to use them.
    Can you please help me?!?
    How do you avoid the gloss?
    Is there a trick you can reveal?
    Mixing them with another medium?
    Thank you for any kind of help!!!

    Thanks for al the inspiration and may the colors always remain your friends!!

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    1. Hello! Yes, they can get shiny. Since I am always mixing my washes anyway, I typically combine them with Vallejo washe, with Reaper liner paints, and especially regular paint colors. That really helps. Also, you can use the Army Painter brush on dullcoate to cut that down.

      Finally, I use them in a very controlled manner. Smaller applications with the smaller brushes. I hope that is useful!

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