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G'day all,

I've been working on my Space Hulk models, namely Zael, and my mind has been blown as to how 'Eavy Metal achieved such fine text. At this point I'm wondering whether they cheated and casted a larger model for the pictures because I just don't understand how you get lines that fine, they look to be less than 0.1mm.

Even some top commission painters I've seen paint the same model haven't managed to paint the text anywhere near that well. For those who don't know, this is the model...



The other part is the eye lens, the tiny little streak of white (or pale green) at the top of the eye lens is mind bogglingly fine.

My personal best attempt to paint the text is this, and it took me AGES to do (probably about an hour or so to do the 2 names) and I had to resort to using oil paints to do it, if 'Eavy Metal can manage to do it with acrylics then my mind is truly blown, lol.



How on earth do they do it? Are they cheating somehow? I've seen pens go down to 0.1mm, but to me these lines look even thinner than that and they also don't look like they were done by pen because the lines appear to taper slightly.

lots and lots of practice...
a gentle touch, and the right paint consistency is needed...

i find that painting the hollow lines is easier if you don't worry about getting it perfect with the black...
itis easier to paint a thicker line with the black, and then come back over it with the off-white, and painting in the hollow spot...

yours turned out pretty damn nice!!!
keep up the good work...

cheers
jah

I think if I'd ignored the hollow lines I probably would have produced something neater, but the hollow lines look so cool that I had to give it a go

I actually think the 'Eavy Metal lines are so incredibly fine that you wouldn't even see the text from more than about 6" away (given the model is zoomed in about 4x on their website).

There are actually very slight differences between the 'Eavy Metal model and the model I have which is what made me put on a tin foil hat and wonder if they had a larger model for the photos

Even the edge highlights on the armour and incredibly fine.

I have the old WD issue where the guy who painted those does a tutorial. He's really good.

 Radiation wrote:
I have the old WD issue where the guy who painted those does a tutorial. He's really good.

You mean the one from last year when SH came out again?

I had a look at that, the model they use as an example was much lower quality than the one of the website. Though looking through that white dwarf the do have an image of the same model at the back of the WD.

It's very impressive work that you can zoom in on it to such a high magnitude and it still looks good.

People like to have a go at 'Eavy Metal's paint jobs in recent years, but painting my own Space Hulk models is making me realise how well the 'Eavy Metal ones are painted, lol.

In the end I resorted to oil paints because there's just no way I could get lines that fine with acrylic. Because oils take ages to dry, you can mix up a reasonably thick batch, put some on the brush and then spend a bit of time gently coaxing the tip to a sharp point and then carefully swipe where you want the mark. Any attempt I had with acrylics (even with retarder) didn't work nearly as well. And then with the oils I could have a clean brush lightly moistened with white spirit to clean up any mistakes (a few times I drew the lines too long and had to fix it up).

While it may not be the case here, they absolutely must cast larger versions to do better detail. The Gandalf from the Escape From Goblin Town box set is a prime example - model literally doesn't have eyes on the real cast, but the site shows eyes (and crows feet).

Your version makes me hate you and your talent, so take some heart in that

Also wasn't it confirmed a while ago that the eavy metal folks don't use citadel paints but rather Tamiya and such?

Models this size are most of the time done by hand, I've seen them in the displays at HQ... But... Some of the vehicles, with rows and rows of honoured names in script are printed on very fine paper and then painted over and weathered. You can't tell online, but you can in person.

KB, they do make three-ups (or bigger), but I've never seen one painted. They do however put most of the box art figures out on display as soon as they can. For the life of me I can't remember if the Hobbit set was out.
Buuuut I do know that certain digitally sculpted figures like the Officio Prefectus Commissar do not actually match the pack art in terms of sculpt. (Before you think I'm just jealous if their ability to paint eyes, he's missing an entire vox headset) so maybe the painting studio get earlier castings.
I can't comment on the paints, previous local manager told me he's seen them use others. Previous manager also said "Sisters: Soon." One salt cube.
Infuriating tricksy painters. Breaks their fingerses, precious...

the White Dwarf that had the quality tutorial was the 2009 issue, from the first release of this set...
back before they dumbed down the Masterclass articles to the Paint Splatter level...
might be worth a look...

@kb_lock: according to the 'EM painters that i know, the studio uses Citadel paints...
they also paint the models at the same scale that we do, but they usually paint higher quality resin casts...
that is why they are some of the best painters in the world...
5 days a week, 8 hours a day, makes for some great brush control...
this is why i am always bummed when people talk bad about the 'EM painters, without understanding that there are also army painters who do the bulk of the rank and file for the big photos, and White Dwarf crew painters who do the Paint Splatter stuff...
the showcase minis that the 'EM team paint are top-notch...

Forge World painters do use Vallejo and pretty much anything else that works...

@Skink: thise fine line highlights are just a matter of brush control...
practice makes perfect...
the main thing is not to press the brush onto the mini, but to drag the tip across without putting pressure on it, which will keep your line very fine...

cheers
jah

The superfine text is a great example of how brushes give you the finest resolution if you really want to dedicate yourself to it. The double-lined text isn't really my favorite look, but it's definitely impressive. Like consistently writing any fine text, practice makes a big difference.

I've grown very fond of Lahmian Medium to help write text; I find that just a little bit makes the black or brown paint work the way I want it. As some people have said, having the right amount of dilution is really important. Too thin, and it runs; too thick and it dries on the tip or doesn't slide off the surface.

Also, I think the brush is quite important. If a brush is too stubby, it will hold paint, but apply any pressure and you get a mess. If the bristles are too long, control is difficult. If the point is too fine, the tip dries too quickly. My preference is a Raphael 8404 6/0, which holds enough paint to get at a good stroke in, but has few enough hairs that the brush won't hold too much paint.

The Citadel Artificer brush isn't bad either; the point runs really, really long and fine, which isn't ideal for a lot of tasks, but felt good for writing. It think if I practiced with it, I'd get used to it, and probably do a better job. The thing is, I'm really used to the 8404, and I can write with it pretty hassle free, so I haven't given the Artificer brush a fair shake from this perspective.

Whatever you do, avoid one of those cheap Royal 20/0 or PMX 10/0 synthetics. Or the Army Painter Insane Detail brush. They don't hold enough paint; in my experience, the only way I can keep paint wet on the brush is to overthin it, and then it's too runny to be useful. I used to write text with them, and I couldn't believe how much easier it was when I started using a Winsor & Newton 2/0 brushes to write.

@jah: Yeah, the edge highlights look to be similar width to the text, which was hard enough to achieve and I still didn't get down to the tiny width they seem to have achieved. I'm not sure I can get much thinner with my current brush, using oil paints and just doing the most gentle of swipes I can only just barely get down to those widths.

I've actually had better luck, again using oils, by painting a very thin line and then going back with a clean moist brush to sweep along the back side of the line, making it thinner and also blending it somewhat.

It actually looks to me like the edge highlighting wasn't done with acrylics at all anyway, the way the edge highlight lines seem to blend, that's an effect you can't really get with acrylics unless you did multiple layers and if they did multiple layers it's even more mind boggling


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
Whatever you do, avoid one of those cheap Royal 20/0 or PMX 10/0 synthetics. Or the Army Painter Insane Detail brush. They don't hold enough paint; in my experience, the only way I can keep paint wet on the brush is to overthin it, and then it's too runny to be useful. I used to write text with them, and I couldn't believe how much easier it was when I started using a Winsor & Newton 2/0 brushes to write.

I swapped between my Kolinsky #1 and my Delta 942 synthetic (a cheap synthetic I bought from the local hobby store to paint enamels, but it actually has a pretty good tip to it). I found my Kolinsky brush has a nice long tip, so was more forgiving to accidentally applying too much pressure, but the Delta I could actually achieve thinner lines, but was less forgiving because it has a broader taper, so any small mistake would mess it up.

I tried some brushes smaller than #1, but they all have a worse taper on them, so while the point is just as fine, they're even less forgiving. In the end I found the #1 brushes to be best.

I completely gave up on acrylics after I couldn't even paint the text at a reasonable size on test pieces let alone the actual model I tried enamels and oils and settled on oils because it gave me the time to sculpt the tip and do a couple of test strokes before even approaching the model without the paint changing behaviour.

Though I'm not an expert painter I tend to agree with jah, do anything for 8 hours a day 5 days a week and you're going to get pretty good at it. I remember a friend telling me about Steve Vai the the guitar virtuoso who apparently used to train for 10 hours a day for years, something that apparently isn't all that unheard of among guitarists.
Actually jah I have to say your work looks amazingly clean too. Maybe the real skill lies in having the patience to sit there hour upon hour until the result is just right, refusing to accept anything less than perfection?

Those lines are ridiculously fine and controlled though, I wonder if there's any chance they could've cheated with one of those Sakura pens.
Getting back to brushes having tried Raphael 8404's for the first time recently I have definitely put the 6/0 on my shopping list for freehand work and I noticed Da Vinci make a 10/0 too. Adding a little retarder might be a good idea in fact I'm doing that with my freehand attempts already.

Do you guys happen to get much use out of magnifying glasses for this kind of stuff?

kb_lock wrote:
Your version makes me hate you and your talent, so take some heart in that

Don't worry, I have absolutely no talent, it's all just patience I think most people if they were willing to sink 12+ hours in to a single Terminator could paint as good or better than what I'm achieving, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Minimachine wrote:
Actually jah I have to say your work looks amazingly clean too. Maybe the real skill lies in having the patience to sit there hour upon hour until the result is just right, refusing to accept anything less than perfection?

Well, when I finally gave up it was actually my third attempt Using oils I just washed them away when I made a mistake too big to fix and started from scratch, lol.

Those lines are ridiculously fine and controlled though, I wonder if there's any chance they could've cheated with one of those Sakura pens.

I did consider that but to me they don't look like pens. And I thought pens only went down to about 0.1mm, these lines look skinnier than that to me (that whole band where the name is written is only about 5mm wide)

Do you guys happen to get much use out of magnifying glasses for this kind of stuff?

I tried a magnifying glass years ago and just found it a bit too awkward to get used to, it seems the limit of my abilities is my hands rather than my eyes. Though maybe I should give it another go, because there was a couple of times where I thought I hadn't laid down a line when actually I had and just couldn't see it

I consider winterdyne one of the best painters I know of, and winter did a far better job of Zael than I have, but still didn't achieve that super-fine text that 'Eavy Metal achieved....

http://blog.winterdyne.co.uk/2011/05/space-hulk-terminators-complete-squad.html

http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/images/commissions/victor/zael_done_final.jpg

@Skink: from what every 'EM painter has told me, they just use Citadel acrylics for the studio models...

@Minimachine: you hit the nail on the head...
my work is just the result of hours and hours of trying to paint better...
the pressure of client expectations, and the desire for a bigger paycheck, are great motivators to constantly improve...

nothing fancy in my arsenal, though...
i just use a drop of water on my palette, paint straight out of the lid of the P3 pot, and some 8 year old Kolinsky sable brushes...
pretty much the exact opposite of all the advice one reads about online...

cheers
jah

I should say I'm not entirely unhappy with my results. In the context of the whole model I think they look fine...



It just sort of blew my mind how fine the 'Eavy Metal text was, and I am struggling to find other painters (even high end commission painters) who have achieved similar results. So it did make me wonder if GW had some tricks up their sleeves.

Ultra fine pens?
And the steadiest hand ever existing?

You can get some truely tiny pens etc down to things like 0.05 mm

I gave the text a whirl with my Space Hulk Zael terminator- Not fantastic but pretty good IMO.

FYI, I got some sakura pens at 0.03mm

I must have missed those! Where abouts did you get your sakura pens in Australia?

Eckersleys

I'm also a filthy liar, they're copic multiliners

They have any colour in 0.3, but replaceable 0.03mm tips

They paint them veeeeeerrryyyy carefully.

Some people also make use of technical pens for such things.

Anyway, it also helps to have really good eyesight and hand-eye coordination to go with it. Some people use magnifying glasses (wearable kind or the kind on an arm with light attached), to help get past the eyesight limitations. I could never accomplish such fine detail with a brush, as my eyesight isn't good enough, and my hands aren't steady enough.

another option is using a needle point and ink ...

kb_lock wrote:Eckersleys

I'm also a filthy liar, they're copic multiliners

They have any colour in 0.3, but replaceable 0.03mm tips

I might grab a few and see what I can do with them.

Tannhauser42 wrote:Some people also make use of technical pens for such things.

Anyway, it also helps to have really good eyesight and hand-eye coordination to go with it. Some people use magnifying glasses (wearable kind or the kind on an arm with light attached), to help get past the eyesight limitations. I could never accomplish such fine detail with a brush, as my eyesight isn't good enough, and my hands aren't steady enough.

Yeah, maybe I just lack the coordination and artistic ability, even my regular hand writing isn't tremendously neat

SilenzZzz wrote:another option is using a needle point and ink ...

I'll have a play and see what I can do with it.

http://www.cultpens.com/i/q/CP00819/copic-multiliner-sp-drawing-pen

that link has the smallest i have ever seen ... i have used the .05 before on purity scrolls in the past (and also for lineing the armor plates, as in the attached picture)... been meaning to try out the .03 but i would think if you dont mind dipping a needle into the ink directly you would get close to the same results ... but would have to go a small amount at a time.

SilenzZzz wrote:
another option is using a needle point and ink ...

needle point, drying retarder, and a little bit of water and dishsoap, and just play out the ink, then go back and clean it up in a similar fashion.

SilenzZzz wrote:
http://www.cultpens.com/i/q/CP00819/copic-multiliner-sp-drawing-pen

that link has the smallest i have ever seen ... i have used the .05 before on purity scrolls in the past (and also for lineing the armor plates, as in the attached picture)... been meaning to try out the .03 but i would think if you dont mind dipping a needle into the ink directly you would get close to the same results ... but would have to go a small amount at a time.

The lines on that purity seal don't really look any finer than what I'm achieving with a brush (assuming the purity seals are similar size to the ones on my Zael that I posted earlier in this thread), was that a 0.05mm?

I tried a needle and didn't get too far. It is easier to produce a single straight line than a brush, but each time I go back and forth between the paint and the model I get a different weight to the line as it's hard to get the paint sitting on the needle in the exact same spot every time, so it's not very consistent. I also don't think the lines are any finer than what I was doing with a brush (though they're easier to get perfectly straight).

I might try the needle again tomorrow but using thinner paint.

when writing with a fountain pen it takes practice (the needle is the same thing)

the pic was .5 for the lines .. trying to find one of my mini's that i used the .05 on at the moment ...

I just looked through my pics for comparison.. the double lined text does look nicer now that I look side-by-side again. I will have to try to do it on a model and re-evaluate



I think I painted this guy in a period when I was doing the scrollies in grey (to make them look stone-like); I don't really like that -- Rakkarth, I think is the nicest background for them.

By the way, writing ZAEL on the bottom right leg in double lines would be quite a challenge. It's a tight space, and you have to write upside down and at a awkward angle (not even close to 90 degrees). Sweet job on that by him!

 Talys wrote:
I just looked through my pics for comparison.. the double lined text does look nicer now that I look side-by-side again. I will have to try to do it on a model and re-evaluate

Try it on Zael and see how you go I can do the double lined text on spare bits of plastic, but not quite small enough to fit neatly in the box on the actual model.

I think I painted this guy in a period when I was doing the scrollies in grey (to make them look stone-like); I don't really like that -- Rakkarth, I think is the nicest background for them.

I actually saw your model when I was looking for inspiration for mine, the GW model has a the name-scroll slightly greyer/cooler than the other papers on the model, I assumed you were trying for the same look

By the way, writing ZAEL on the bottom right leg in double lines would be quite a challenge. It's a tight space, and you have to write upside down and at a awkward angle (not even close to 90 degrees). Sweet job on that by him!

Nah, the leg is easier. if you look at my attempt, the leg is the image on the left...



You don't really notice it in the pictures, but the leg scroll is SLIGHTLY larger than the shoulder scroll, the 10 to 20% extra space makes it much easier. I think I pretty much nailed the leg one (could be finer lines, maybe the vertical part of the E is a bit slanted, but overall it looks neat to my eyes ), the one on his shoulder is a pain in the arse to do though.

So how did you do it?

Just super thin brush strokes and a small animal sacrifice?