Friday, December 1, 2017

Fire it Up


Here's another example of the Vallejo fluorescent paints, this time on a Reaper BONES Fire Elemental.  I used the orange and yellow fluorescent paints, along with some of the Reaper Clear paints and Red Liner.

He's also here:



I have many examples of Object Source Lighting and other effects such as these using the fluorescent colors.  There is even a live Facebook painting session showing the early stages of another elemental:



I enhanced the base and the overall shape of the figure by using the Heavy Gloss gel to create additional "flames".  This was especially important to incorporate the figure itself into the base, instead of having all the flames suddenly end when it touched the base!

This is the same heavy gel that I use for water effects, as well as icicles.  That makes it very handy for a number of effects.


The fluorescent paints have a very different consistency from just about every other kind of miniature paint.  It is very thick, but it is extremely translucent.  That property is obviously what makes these colors so intense and saturated.  

Even though they are very thick, you almost have to think of them as a glaze.  So, in some ways it is better to begin with your lighter colors, and apply the fluorescent paints afterwards.  Any lighter opaque colors that are mixed with them will hurt the intensity of the colors and take away from the effect.

Mixing in darker colors such as the Reaper Clear paints and Liners does not have this effect, since they are also very intense colors, and they are not very opaque.  It is possible to preserve the fluorescent nature of the colors by adding the Clear Red and Red Liner, for instance.

I will be trying to do a few more live videos on these types of paints, using some smaller Dark Sword miniatures as well as other larger beasties.  The green and blue fluorescent paints are fantastic for sci-fi glowing effects, but I have also used them for fantasy figures.

The more support I can get on the Patreon Page will allow for more of the live videos.  They are handy, since people can ask questions during the broadcast, and that can add to the lesson quite a bit.