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Hello fellow members of dakka. Not too long ago I went into one of my local GW stores with a nice fat pay check, and walked out with £170 worth of wood elves. Now, at the time it seemed like a good idea, but now that I'm trying to paint them...I'm stumped.

I'm trying to avoid just painting, drybrushing then washing, but I can't for the life of me get any natural shading on the cloaks, which unfortunately are a very large part of the models. I can't blend, I can't wet blend, and I can't find any tutorials that show a way of getting the natural shading that I like.

So in short, if anyone can tell, link me to or show me how to paint wood elf, or any kind of cloaks with nice shading, that would be very helpful.


Thankful as always,

LazzurusMan

Here are some I found online:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m820034a_ChaosLord_Masterclass.pdf

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wijkubusdvl2rs1/m960010a_Space_Hulk__'Eavy_Metal_Masterclass.pdf

Thank you very much, I didn't realise GW did a master class pdf, and even better, it showed me how to blend colours on a cloak!

 LazzurusMan wrote:
Thank you very much, I didn't realise GW did a master class pdf, and even better, it showed me how to blend colours on a cloak!

You should most probably save those pdf, these are leftover files they never took down.

Generally when I'm doing cloth I use a layering technique, work shadow-highlight in layers moving from the deep shadows out to the highlights.

Glazes are your friend. If blending is problematic, an ink glaze (even a layer of premixed wash, applied thinly enough to avoid pooling) can help smooth out stark transitions after less than subtle drybrushing or layering. Takes relatively little time and skill, but turns merely passable results into moderately good ones.

You'll still need to apply those shadows and highlights, of course, and that's more about proper placement and color selection than application technique. You'll need to develop your eye as much as your hands, so look at lots of reference pics along with those articles/tutorials. Glazing is a merely a tool (a shortcut, if you prefer) for the mechanical side of things, but it's been quite helpful for me.

Hmm...is there any way to glaze using the new washes? I'm completely out of cash (I'm in minus figures) until thursday, and I need something to do between physio and job hunting XD

Adding some matte medium to thicken the consistency and maybe some drying retarder should do the trick if you have them.

Semi-related recommendation: Always have a cash backstop, never spend yourself down close to $0 on luxuries.

Yep. I use Thrakka Green (not the current wash line, but same idea) twice on my Ork skin - first as a heavy wash for shading, then again later as a glaze to tie the layers together and up the color intensity. Pre-mixed washes already have the translucency that makes them ideal, they're just thinner and flow-ier than inks, having already been diluted with water/mediums and mixed with a surfactant.

The key is simply to apply them thinly. There's sort of a critical mass of wash necessary to really start pooling, like we usually want for shading. Load your brush relatively lightly, then just keep spreading the wash around, dragging it out of those recesses where it wants to pool. It may take a few such applications to get the same intensity as a thicker ink glaze (can't compare to GW's glazes, as I've never used them), mind you, but it's still effective.

 Yonan wrote:

Semi-related recommendation: Always have a cash backstop, never spend yourself down close to $0 on luxuries.

I had money, then my phone bill came, and I now owe the bank money.

I'll post what I've got so far just using agrax earthshade and mournfang brown at some point today, just not sure where to put the highlights.

Drybrushing!

Dark base colour, do a wash over it, use your dark base drybrushed over the higher points of your model, then next higher colour up from your base, and then finally a brighter stage up from that

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/282438_10152378159570574_1758751217_n.jpg

My Grima Wormtongue model

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/481889_10152378662170574_457569222_n.jpg - and Balin from The Hobbit

and some Dark Angel stuff.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/820734_10152571096040574_856370240_o.jpg


Gandalf
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/s720x720/306072_10152365169190574_234176039_n.jpg

My Tau Cadre Fireblade
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/531770_10152777600020574_1187802945_n.jpg

oh, and you need a glaze (if you're working with red/greens etc) over the top to tie everything together

These are all my table top quality, it's simple and quick, especially if you're painting a quite a lot

 LazzurusMan wrote:
I'll post what I've got so far just using agrax earthshade and mournfang brown at some point today, just not sure where to put the highlights.

Please do - it'll help us advise you more directly. Highlighting cloaks can sometimes be a bit counterintuitive for painters used to relying on washes and drybrushing or edgelining, due to the drape. Capes generally flare out as you travel downward, reversing the usual light gradient (stronger highlights at the bottom than the top). The vertical (or nearly so) folds further complicate things, as they render an even gradient unnatural - ignoring the horizontal movement and merely shading the creases isn't particularly realistic. Reference pictures may be helpful when trying to determine placement. Silk or velvet costume cloaks give very high contrast, which helps with more extreme highlight positioning, while plain cotton or wool cloaks generally exhibit softer gradients. A quick Google image search will net you plenty of examples to study. Taking a picture of the "naked" or primed (you want an even, universal color) miniature in stark, top-down lighting can also be a helpful reference, as it shows you directly how to tackle a particular model instead of building a general sense of how light falls.