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Keep in mind first that I am very much a novice painter. Not very good. I never really did much shading or highlighting up until a month or two ago, and I'm somewhat happy with what I've done so far. However, I recently had someone ask me after I showed them one of my better jobs "why didn't you finish the highlights on it?"

First off, I'm DA, so pretty easy to highlight armor, robes are a bit more work. When I do my highlighting for my armor, I shine a light on the model from the angle I want (always from my upper left) and highlight the areas that I actually see a difference. So one of the balls on the shoulder gets a strong highlight from the center outwards, the other just gets it from the left edge radiating outwards. I highlight the left shoulder more, darken areas on the right side sometimes. then for the robes I do a similar thing, darkening all the recesses and highlighting the edges that the light is hitting.

I asked around my store a bit, and other than 1 person no one else does this. They all just highlight all possible edges and some darken every recess, and none of them lighten curved edges like the balls on the pack or the shoulders, or the tops of helmets.

Am I honestly a bit unorthodox in my method, or do others actually do it similar to my way? I personally just like my Dark Angels to be a bit darker, the other DA player has his a much lighter look. Is there some way I can do it better and still get that dark look?

What you're describing simulates light from a source (like the sun). It's a perfectly valid technique *if done correctly* but the resultant model looks better in photography than it does in real life. Just like non-metallic metals, when done right, it's convincing when you look at it at the "magic angle" -- the angle at which the best photograph is shot -- but it looks a off on a gaming table, when you look at it form other angles.

In order to pull off this illusion, you need to do more than edges -- the armor from that whole angle needs to look brighter, not just the edges of the armor. The areas closer to the light source and less obscured need to be brighter than areas that are more obscured and further away need to be less highlighted. To do this quickly, some people use an airbrush, because you can fire a lighter color from a particular angle (like 30 or 45 degrees), layer your basecoat over it, and call it a day.

In contrast, edge highlighting doesn't seek to simulate light from a source. Instead, the principle is that contrast is good, and the aesthetic that defining edges is eye-pleasing. This is why the "modern" Citadel style of painting miniatures places great emphasis on brightly highlighted edges (all edges). The goal isn't really to simulate light; it's to accentuate the edges of the model.

If you look at old Citadel models (from the 80's), they didn't do that then, at least not to the degree that they do now; and if you look at a lot of historical models, painters barely highlight edges, or sometimes not even at all. This is because highlighting all the edges gives the model a distinctly fantastic look.

Also, keep in mind that the color of the highlight can drastically change the perception of the model's color. For instance, paint a tank black, and highlight it with thin Russ Grey edges, and the tank will actually look blue. Take a very dark blue model and highlight the edges bright green, and the armor plates will take on a green tinge (even though there is no green there).

Anyhow, TLDR: for what you want to do, in my opinion, it would be easier for you to skip the flashlight thing, and just highlight all the edges

To give it more zing, you can "extra highlight" the more pronounced areas like corners and the center of rounded edges a lighter (closer to white) shade of your highlight.

When I'm painting I like to simulate that light is coming from a particular spot, but also agree that that gives it a 'magic angle', like Talys pointed out. To cope with this, I use my imagined light source as a guide as to where I want to accentuate the highlights the most, as compared to the only place I will put them, but will often imagine a second light source. I painted some miniatures but realised that if I have the light source to the front right of the model, the back was agonisingly boring to paint and look at as all the light is pretty much directed at the front. The second light source gave the back some direction and made the model pop more. In the end though, I had to accept that the model would look under done unless I at least did some mild highlighting and shading, even in areas where it would realistically make sense for it to be monochromatic.

Hope that helps somewhat, and all the best!

 AkhilleusK42 wrote:
When I'm painting I like to simulate that light is coming from a particular spot, but also agree that that gives it a 'magic angle', like Talys pointed out. To cope with this, I use my imagined light source as a guide as to where I want to accentuate the highlights the most, as compared to the only place I will put them, but will often imagine a second light source. I painted some miniatures but realised that if I have the light source to the front right of the model, the back was agonisingly boring to paint and look at as all the light is pretty much directed at the front. The second light source gave the back some direction and made the model pop more. In the end though, I had to accept that the model would look under done unless I at least did some mild highlighting and shading, even in areas where it would realistically make sense for it to be monochromatic.

Hope that helps somewhat, and all the best!

Yeah, pretty much this To compound things, if you really want to make a model perfect for photography, you pick the lighting point based on the miniature's best pose, and most of the time with GW model's that's the front of the model, with the head looking at you, or slightly offset. It's *always* some aspect of the front; the back, tops, and even sides of GW models are always much more boring. Unfortunately, when you have the models on a tabletop, nobody ever looks at a model from the front, so you don't get to enjoy the fruits of your labors... except maybe the setup table :(

This is actually why I pretty much quit doing NMM, and have gone to just shading metallics -- on the tabletop, I don't really get to enjoy the NMM work, and the models just look kind of off. I mean, not "terrible" off, just not quite right.

Note that object source lighting is still very effective, though, because on the model is the source of the light (like a glowing sphere or a flaming sword casting light on the model with a tinge of green, blue or red).

Alright, I guess I'll try highlighting all the edges and see what I think of it. When you do your edge highlighting do you say that edges more "revealed" on the model get more highlight than, say, the bottom of the arms or the bottoms of the pauldrons? Or still just highlight everything equally?

Thanks for the opinions and recommendations though, like I said I'll at least try it out and see what I think of it. I tend to paint things the way I like it more than other people do, but we'll see

A lot of people do as you say - give every edge a bit of a highlight, for definition, then take the most pronounced/upper edges a step futher, with a shorter and/or narrower pass of an even lighter color.

Not the most realistic method, but it's effective at accentuating the sculpt and is generally the more attractive option. I know what a rivet head projecting from a horizontal surface looks like, in real life. When I go to paint one, though, I surround the entire circumference with a pin wash and highlight the upper face. There's no reason for there to be a shadow above the protrusion, but if I only shade below, I lose the sense of roundness. It's a compromise that I'm happy making and I would also suggest you try, at the very least. You'll find our preference soon enough.

 oadie wrote:
A lot of people do as you say - give every edge a bit of a highlight, for definition, then take the most pronounced/upper edges a step futher, with a shorter and/or narrower pass of an even lighter color.

Not the most realistic method, but it's effective at accentuating the sculpt and is generally the more attractive option. I know what a rivet head projecting from a horizontal surface looks like, in real life. When I go to paint one, though, I surround the entire circumference with a pin wash and highlight the upper face. There's no reason for there to be a shadow above the protrusion, but if I only shade below, I lose the sense of roundness. It's a compromise that I'm happy making and I would also suggest you try, at the very least. You'll find our preference soon enough.

When "shading" models I've never really considered it to be "shadowing" so much as "accentuating". It could be a shadow, it could just be a dirt build up around the rivets, shading a face you're just exaggerating the natural colour variations, or maybe simulating someone who hasn't washed their face after a week of marching/digging/fighting so they have layers of grime built up and wiped away.

Personally, if you flick through my gallery, the vast majority of models I paint I just speed paint, so I don't think too much about it, they tend to just get rough washes for shading so everything gets shaded together. But on the few models I do decide to spend more time on, what I try to do is work with the natural lighting rather than fighting it. When you try to impose a specific lighting condition, like shining a light or 2 and follow that for your highlights, or even certain effects like NMM or OSL, I find it only really looks good in heavily diffused lighting from lots of angles (like when people put their models in a light box to photograph them), that way you don't get natural lighting effects that clash with your imposed lighting.

But I mostly assume my models will be viewed under more realistic and more directional lighting which will produce it's own shadows and highlights. So I attempt (however poorly) to accentuate that.

So areas where the light would typically catch I highlight (not a specific location created from a single light source, but the general vicinity where I would normally expect light to fall). Given I assume models are lit from above, that means upper surfaces get the bulk of highlighting. Using an airbrush to zenithal highlight works really well because you just sort of spray downward at the model from various angles, but always from above, so viewed under normal lighting you hardly notice it because it works with the natural highlights and shades, but then if you view it next to a model that doesn't have the zenithal highlighting it strikes you how much more the detail on the highlighted models stands out.

But the same applies to brush highlights, if I'm doing say 5 layers of highlights, the entire model might get the first 2 highlights, then lower regions (between legs, under arms, etc) won't get the 3rd highlight, the final highlight will only be on upper facing surfaces, and the 4th highlight will lie somewhere in between to bridge it.

So I'm not trying to impose a specific lighting condition, but rather just accentuate whatever natural lighting the model will be viewed under. The exception to that might be edge highlighting on Space Marine armour, I do a typical zenithal highlight with an airbrush with no specific lighting imposed, but for some reason on Space Marines I think the edge highlighting looks better if you do pick 1 or 2 lighting locations to exaggerate the edge highlight rather than just picking out all edges equally.

i layer my highlights up to the edges, and also curved areas, but i generally only use a specific light source as a guideline..eg..the light is usually above (the sun) and i highlight for a stylistic effect. edge highlights are important though. i usually lighten most of the edges with a few layered highlights, then pick out a select few to acentuate further to give points of interest.