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I've been reading up on the use of glazes to create gentler transitions of shade than using highlights, and I think I've found a candidate for my first attempt.


The model is an AOBR SM Captain. I'd like to give him a white cape. Right now, his cape is primed with Armory gray. The approach I'd like to take is to basecoat it in 1-to-1 white and codex gray, then transition to the highlights with straight white over three or four layers.

Any suggestions or corrections before I dive into this project? Also, to what extend would y'all suggest I thin my paint for that number of layers?

Always thin your paints.

Kind of hard (read "impossible") to give you an exact recipe. Basically, the thinner your paints, the more layers you'll need but the smoother the transition between each one will be. As long as your mix is depositing color and not running everywhere (remember not to overload your brush, especially with highly dilute, and therefore extra runny, paint), you're doing alright. With sufficiently dilute paint and a healthy dose of patience, you can get amazingly smooth gradients with a single highlight color over a basecoat. Intermediary shades simply speed up the process.

I'd suggest starting on the thin side and dialing the mix back with additional paint if you don't like its properties or you want to reduce the number of layers necessary. Also, remember that you can always go back with highly dilute darker shades to soften overly stark transitions, should you lay any layers on too thick. Playing back and forth with light and dark can feel like extra work, but it really helps you get the transitions exactly where you want them. If you work fast enough, you may even be aided by a degree of wet-blending, even if that wasn't your initial plan of attack.