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How does one go about doing this effect? Besides having the cooler areas black and the hot stuff red / yellow / orange I am at a loss of what to do.

Usually, you under light (paint lower surface light) and apply OSL around to exaggerate the light effect.

Dark surfaces with bright orange flecks work well for just-glowing embers.

I'm ignorant, what's OSL?

Super Newb wrote:
I'm ignorant, what's OSL?

Object source lighting.

So if you have someone carrying a torch, you paint the light affect onto the mini. Same with plasma coils, etc. Looks very cool when done right.

(A lot of the abbreviations on Dakka are described in mouseover text, FYI)

Also, I need to mention this is going to be on a small scale on a base, so I can't be painting and blending 4+ colors together like people do with lava. Pretty much limited to drybrushing, your orange fleck idea, and maybe weathering powders which I've never used...

Super Newb wrote:
I'm ignorant, what's OSL?

Object Source Lighting.

In most minis, the 'light source' is coming on to the mini from somewhere off the mini (or diorama). OSL is the act of taking an object on the mini that would give off light, and paint the mini as if the object was the only source of light for the figure.

here are some (in my opinion) well done examples of OSL:

 Nevelon wrote:
(A lot of the abbreviations on Dakka are described in mouseover text, FYI)

Curse my standard print friendly mode that doesn't do this! Lol


Ps - Wow, cool pictures, thanks.

Hmm, I thought I would have gotten more responses by now. Has anyone done some sort of drybrushing effect to simulate hot coals or embers? I found a bunch of lava tutorials, which are awesome, but since I can't actually paint medium sized gravel on a base with that method, I am wondering what to do.

I'm not sure if what your wanting can be done with dry brushing. You could try to lay a down a base of orange then dry brush your yellow and finish with a lighter brush of grey/black for ash. I would say try it on a test base and see how it goes.

 darefsky wrote:
I'm not sure if what your wanting can be done with dry brushing. You could try to lay a down a base of orange then dry brush your yellow and finish with a lighter brush of grey/black for ash. I would say try it on a test base and see how it goes.

Might want to reverse that color order to yellow, orange, red, dark ash (reverse drybrush). Using fluorescent yellow, orange, red can really make the "fire" glow.

Tim

for coals, you'll want to start with yellow, and go down to orange. for OSL, you'll want the reds only at the extremest range. Add black as appropriate, and add grey/white as appropriate as well. That's about all I can think of..... you'll have to experiment. try with different media.

what are you using to model the coal? large basing gravel? medium basing gravel? sand? there's alot to think about there as well. Another idea would be to look for a bush that's dead, who'se roots you can get at. Power-wash, and set to dry. then crush, and mix with a coarse gravel, or some other gravel that at maximum matches the guage of the size of "logs/twigs" you added from the dead shrub........

Have you thought about painting everything that is to be hot and fiery in a bright yellow or orange, then picking out the coals themselves with a red, or dark orange, blending it into the brighter colour? No idea if it'd work, just a suggestion.

Try something like this?
http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1302

Pretty much what I meant, but with drybrushing instead. That would look good if used on larger bits of gravel to create the coals

TigerMask wrote:
Try something like this?
http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1302

Ah ha, nice find, yes something like that could work.

poda_t, I was planning on doing it on medium sized basing gravel, but that might be too small, huh?



This is too closely related for its own thread. How would I go about painting an already finished burned / charred skeleton? Black underneath and then a few shades of some kind of grey drybrushed or blended on top?

it really depends on what you are trying to do. I've had bonfires where we throw whole logs in and they started glowing whole, and then there's also the twig-size pieces of charcoal..... it comes in many sizes, so it depends on what you are going for.

i mean, a house for instance will have a couple large timbers, a few more larger pieces, then a lot of smaller stuff.

my suggestion is to prime white, and wash with red, then orange and finally yellow PAINTS (not washes or inks) using less and less paint, followed by a drybrush of black and MAYBE a real quick, lightly done ultra dark grey to give it more of an "ashy" look.

TigerMask wrote:
Try something like this?
http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1302

That works quite well and is what I was suggesting below. Fluorescents will make it pop.

timd wrote:


Might want to reverse that color order to yellow, orange, red, dark ash (reverse drybrush). Using fluorescent yellow, orange, red can really make the "fire" glow.

Tim