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hello dakka,

I could use some pointers on painting flames. as a salamanders painter, fire iconography is pretty important and my efforts to date have been fairly meh. they get the job done, but I want to improve.

what I'm doing now is loosely based off this tutorial: http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6011 I'm usually painting flames onto a black surface so I'll start with a layer of something like GW iyanden darksun (foundation color) as a base coat, then mix up some heavily thinned blazing orange and use that to glaze the outline of the flames and then fill in the middle with a few very thin layers of sunburst yellow and maybe a dash of white.

the problems I'm running into are a) I'm not real fond of the hotrod-style flame pattern, but don't know what else to do, b) the GW yellows and oranges are horribly chalky, so getting a smooth layer down even after lots of thinning is beyond me and c) the colors don't feel like they have enough pop to me. not sure if that's because it's sitting in a black field or because I'm just not using the right colors.

anyway, any tips, tricks and tutorials would be greatly appreciated

cheers,

v

Hm perhaps this will help: http://hot-lead.org/advance/fire.htm

The new GW base red (Mephiston red) is SUPERB. That combined with your usual reds/ oranges / yellows should see you right.

I can not find the guide I used to produce this effect but it was really simple. Not to keen on the shoulder pad guide shown ( i admit I didnt read it ) but it was really fiddly.


( please excuse the WIP just my best example of flames )

This effect was really easy.
All paints are thined to 2 parts water 1 part paint. My brush strokes ALWAYS go down so any concentration of paint ends at the base.
Follows the theory of fire in some ways as it has the hottest part of the fire at the bottom.
1)
Firstly on a Necron Blue Hull , I painted my whole flame area Mechrite Red
2)I switch to Red Gore and paint the entire area but leave a outline of the Mechrite red.
3) I keep building this effect with more colour, Orange, 1:1 Orange and White , then onto Sunburst Yellow 1:1 Yellow White, 1:2 Yellow White and finish with a 4: 1 White Yellow mix.

Sorry if this is a bit unclear, but basically you just build up your flame over layers.

Have used this on a weapon and knee pads also to great effect

@spincr: thanks for that. seems more applicable to textured surfaces rather than the flat surfaces I'm working with (shoulder pads, knee pads, rhino doors, etc.). pretty awesome amount of info, though. who knew that fire in zero-G was a different color?

@nexus6: that's a nice look. something about the shape of the flames doesn't quite feel dynamic enough for me, but I like the color choices you've made. that's a good tip on always ending your stroke at the brightest part, too. very helpful I may re-basecoat the rhino doors I'm working on and try this instead.

so, what's the secret to working with chalky paints (e.g., any GW yellow)? thin with something other than my usual 10:1 water/flow-aid mix? thin more or less than I usually do (I generally do 1:1)? sacrifice a virgin (model) to the paint gods?

I hate working in Yellow, White or Black.

Normally I go with a double layer of yellow. And I never use the colour pure.
I always go with 1:1:1 Water, yellow , White. The water and white yellow seem to help the yellow smooth out a bit.

Also I always do two coats of any yellow work.

You can check out my Ork Buggy, it was pretty easy to paint.





http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-59981-27630_Orks.html

So that was done by painting the whole area with Averland Sunset (yellow has the worst coverage so I paint it first), paint the flame outline with Blazing Orange. Mix up some Averland Sunset and Blazing Orange and just smooth the transition between the two colours (you could use an airbrush if you have one). Lastly, go back over and paint the black section (black has great coverage, so painting it last means you can keep the flames looking neat and clean without having to do heaps of careful coats).

Think about the shape you want for the flames, look at flame jobs on cars and things and decide how you want them to look. I think a good basic flame has broad flames and the flames curve one one direction and then just before the tip curve back the other direction to make them look like they're "licking" back and forth. I personally like a mixture of forked flames and also lone flames. It can really affect the look of your model how many flames you want to apply to an area, just a few thick ones vs many small ones, how much you want them to lick back and forth, if you do forked flames where to you fork them, how does the flame narrow to before and after the fork, do you maybe have very long flames that each flame forks in multiple locations (appropriate if you have a long but narrow section you want to flame). So yeah, just think about how you want them to look, I chose the style of my flames because I think they looked cool but also still looked like something an Ork might slop on rather than something a human might spend many hours doing with an airbrush. If I were doing it on Space Marines I might have done them slightly differently.