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I've searched for a topic, but couldn't really find one, so apologies if there is one (I'm sure there is somewhere...)

These Harlequins will be the death of me. Painting the Death Masque set for my FLGS and I end up having to redo the diamonds on these things at least three times per model. I'm already almost done with the troupes, so this will be just for future reference, but I have my own Harlequin army and as much as I'd like them to have the diamond patterns, is there an easier way that I have maybe just skipped over???

Checkers are fine, it's when these Emperor-forsaken diamonds come in that things get weird. Even doing bigger diamonds to save time, they always manage to not meet up right...am I missing something? A trick to keeping them aligned? Something different than sketching the lines out and then filling in the opposite colors? I was thinking about doing the base color, then striping the second color around (think barbershop pole), then striping it around the opposite way, blacking out the edge lines, and then filling in the every fourth diamond or whatever would be concealed with the original base color to ultimately bring out a diamond pattern, but something tells me that's more effort than it should be...

There's a Warhammer TV tutorial for that.

You know, I had seen that before. I watched it, and it makes complete sense, don't get me wrong. But, for some reason, getting the bigger diamonds to line up is much harder than smaller diamonds.

I'm mainly taking the approach of bigger diamonds to (what I had hoped would) save on painting time, but I was mistaken.

This seems simple enough, and is the same method I'm using, although I'm making the diamonds much bigger as a time-saver. Goes to show that the diamonds cannot be quickened

The diamonds I am doing on my Harlequins are pretty simple, but this technique has worked for me. I have some mesh netting that I use as a mask. After priming them black, I apply the netting and hit it with a bit of white primer and it leaves a grid for me to work off of. If you have an airbrush, this technique is even easier. I then go through and fill in the diamonds with my brush.

 rollawaythestone wrote:
The diamonds I am doing on my Harlequins are pretty simple, but this technique has worked for me. I have some mesh netting that I use as a mask. After priming them black, I apply the netting and hit it with a bit of white primer and it leaves a grid for me to work off of. If you have an airbrush, this technique is even easier. I then go through and fill in the diamonds with my brush.

Brilliant! I actually have some diamond mesh "fencing" that would go perfect for that....

Well, the other option is to change the pattern. I did a different kind of diamond scheme on mine. Can't promise it'll be any quicker to paint though.

The technique I use for diamonds is this:

1) Do a vertical line of tiny dots. Each dot is the top/bottom of a diamond. Space regularly, the size of the diamond you want.

2) Approximately the height of the diamond away do another line of dots at the same spacing, same height. Repeat spacing lines evenly. I tend to do lines on opposite sides, then between them, then between them, splitting a cylinder into 8 sectors.

3) Between each of those lines do a line of dots spaced halfway 'down'.

4) Fill each diamond working from the 'bottom' of the higher dot to the 'top' of the lower, and to the left/right of the middle-spaced dots.

winterdyne wrote:
The technique I use for diamonds is this:

1) Do a vertical line of tiny dots. Each dot is the top/bottom of a diamond. Space regularly, the size of the diamond you want.

2) Approximately the height of the diamond away do another line of dots at the same spacing, same height. Repeat spacing lines evenly. I tend to do lines on opposite sides, then between them, then between them, splitting a cylinder into 8 sectors.

3) Between each of those lines do a line of dots spaced halfway 'down'.

4) Fill each diamond working from the 'bottom' of the higher dot to the 'top' of the lower, and to the left/right of the middle-spaced dots.

Interesting method...that might actually help solve my problem...will definitely be giving it a try. Thanks!