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Another edge highlighting thread... oh, joy.

A friend and I were looking at some of my miniatures under a magnifying lamp (thanks to Brightech.) We noticed something about my painting style which looks like it's always been a problem. He says he has the same issue.

Edge highlights on a 45 degree edge result in a crisp, clean line. Edge higlights on an angle that's 30 degrees or less result in a blotchy, fuzzy, inconsistent line. How do I get them to be the same? Or, more accurately, how do you deal with lines on corners that are not 45 degrees?

I did an exercise where I sat down with a Rhino and went through the process with water. For sharp angles, I use the side of the brush to put on the highlight and that works great. For other angles, I paint a straight line between 2 points. It's just not the same, and I have to change my mechanics to make this work properly.

Now that I've noticed the problem, it annoys me and makes me want to go back and redo parts of my miniatures for the last few years. Wondering if anyone else has been in this situation and what you've done to resolve it.

Not sure if I understand what you mean by having problems with different angles. If you are talking about highlighting raised details you should pretty much always be using the side of the brush, you should only need to paint a straight line between 2 points if you are freehanding.

Brush Pressure and Brush tip are critical in fine hobby painting.

Which is why people buy expensive brushes, it's not because we like wasting money on a consumable resource.

With a good tip on a brush and the RIGHT flow characteristics in the paint I can paint a line just as thin as an edge highlight on a 45.. on ANY SURFACE. Did so recently.. like yesterday.

But what you need to deduce is the: angle you hold the brush at relative to the surface and the direction of the stroke and the pressure needed to result in the thickness of line you desire.

A proper flowing hobby paint will transfer with the lightest tip of the brush touching the model but not run off like if it's too watery.

I find when doing this you need to use only a little paint and you need to clean and re-up the paint pretty much every inch or so of work, sometimes more depending on your humidity levels, your paint, the temp, etc.

In low humidity or higher temps I actually lick the brush because salavia dries slower than straight water so the paint remains workable for a few seconds longer. This isn't get paint, on brush stare at model for a minute then paint, this is a figure it out, get paint on brush do stroke within less than 20-30 seconds because that tip will start to dry and will screw up transfer. You can have wet paint further up but that nice fine point is already dry and you then have to apply too much pressure and you get a thicker line.

And if you mess up anyway, you use the base color to clean up the edge highlight.

As meatybtz said, buying expensive brushes does help incredibly, I picked up some Series 7 Windsor and Newton brushes and while I don’t use them for everyday use (I have some cheaper nail art brushes for that) when I need to do some detail work or something that requires some patience and a good flow off the brush, they are invaluable.

So long as you remember to clean them, put the protective cover back on and then put them back into the case you’ll have a brush that will serve you well for a long time!

Having the right paint helps too, check out the store if you’re interested or swing by Tale of Painters and check out the review there where Garfy did some fantastic edge highlighting on a Dark Angels Primaris Marine as well as a great write up too!