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Frankly, I am embarrassed i had to resort to this. I'm new at the hobby. while i've made a few models, my painting skills are pretty weak. The problem is (dont laugh) I dont really know how highlighting and shading works. i've been relying on washes to get depth to my models. but it just doesn't cut it. Ive tried highlighting, but it came out terrible. What i think the issue may be is i don't have the eye to see where the highlights will go or how they will work.

I need some kind of "newbies guide" or something, because i really cant get my highlights or shading to work at all.

Shine a really bright light right on top of your miniature and see where the shadows go and what parts are lighted up while you are painting it. That could work as a guide.

OR

if you prime your models black, get a white spraycan (or an airbrush if you have it) and spray down on it from the top. The parts that end up with white paint it, will automatically be the areas where you want to build up more highlights.

Highlighting is suprisingly easy. You dont want to have very much paint on the brush when you do. Take your time and slow smooth brush strokes.

That's how i learnt.

Hope this helps

let me try to help you

You need to add some water to your paint. That will enable you to get a smooth line. a mix of70% paint and 30% water should do. When you put the highlight on your model, dont use the tip of the brush, use the side. Drive it along the edge you want to highlight. Only use the tip in places where you cant use the side of the brush.

MrMerlin wrote:let me try to help you

You need to add some water to your paint. That will enable you to get a smooth line. a mix of70% paint and 30% water should do. When you put the highlight on your model, dont use the tip of the brush, use the side. Drive it along the edge you want to highlight. Only use the tip in places where you cant use the side of the brush.

my issue is not how to highlight, but where. when i attempt, it ends up looking unnatural and wrong, so im not sure what i am doing wrong.


I can try the white/black spraypaint method. ill do that on my next mini and see if that helps me any

Easiest way is extreme armour edge highlights, take a lighter shade of the colour your highlighting and using the edge of your brush put the paint right on the edge. You may have to mix paints to get it to work though...

Obsidian Raven wrote:
my issue is not how to highlight, but where. when i attempt, it ends up looking unnatural and wrong, so im not sure what i am doing wrong.

Ok, so simples. You should try this on some test models.

You've said that you've used washes, so use that as a start. Take a model with large clean slates of armour, maybe a space marine or chaos warrior or something. Paint it all one bright colour. Then give it a liberal wash with Badab Black. Tons of the stuff.

Once it's dry, you'll see exactly where the badab runs to. Any area that's NOT got some badab black on it is where you put the highlight. Easy.

(It will be the edge of armour plates, and anything raised)

Another easy way to figure out where to highlight is to do a quick, and very light drybrush first

Elmir wrote:Shine a really bright light right on top of your miniature and see where the shadows go and what parts are lighted up while you are painting it. That could work as a guide.

OR

if you prime your models black, get a white spraycan (or an airbrush if you have it) and spray down on it from the top. The parts that end up with white paint it, will automatically be the areas where you want to build up more highlights.

While this is overally simplistic, it is not a bad idea. I dont know what your situation is like, but go spend some time at an art museum, look up paintings by the masters, and learn about the techniques they used. If you look at a painting you can see how they used color, shadow, and highlight to place focal points, give depth and feeling to a picture...although they are 2 dimensional techniques, they are very applicable to a 3d model.

Ashton

Thanks for all the comments guys, I appreciate it. I'm especially glad I didn't get the ridicule i was expecting to receive. I've been extremely embarrassed about being unable to highlight, because it strikes me as one of the most basic painting techniques you should learn.

I think I'm going to try a few things to nail down the techniques. Ill get some of those cheap clip together space marines/chaos space marines for practice, do some research on artwork, and try the technique with spray paint and bright lighting.

It's fine dude, you're not an Ork, you didn't hatch out of your spore knowing instinctively how to do these things. It's much (much) better that aknowledge a weak link in your hobby and ask for help shoring it up than that you just plough ahead regardless.

If I recall correctly there's a couple of reasonable guides to the basic principles out there - have a leaf through CMoN's painting articles and run a couple of google searches and you'll probably turn up something useful.

For essential basics like highlighting the GW painting guide books aren't bad either - you'll outgrow them quickly, but they give you a fairly solid jumping off point.

Tracking down some basic step-by-step guides is the most important thing imo. If placing highlights is what's bugging you, find someone out there with a step-by-step on a mini with similar shapes and textures yours and see where they put their highlights, it'll give you a starting point for developing your own methods. From The Warp have a couple of good step-by-steps, and even some of the ones on the GW site aren't bad (some of them are ghastly though, so you take your chances..)

If there's anything mini-specific you want advice on highlight placing for, post a pic and I'll do my best to advise - other than that, practise. Can't be stressed enough. practise is everything. practise on spare bitz from your bitz box, non-essential minis, even chunks of sprue can work.