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I've never been particularly good at painting and definitely not fast. Therefore when I looked into Zenithal highlighting (priming) I was very interested in the technique.
Zenithal highlighting is mentioned in almost every video and article about it to be a way to speed paint models. However, in the same articles what it says (and what I discovered last night) is that for zenithal highlighting to work properly you must apply your base layers more transparently (too thick and it defeats the object), it being very often mentioned to reduce GW base paints to a 4:1 or 5:1 water:paint ratio and covering the base layer with 3 or 4 coats so that the Zenithal shading and highlighting still shows through...

This is in direct contridiction with the idea of speed painting in my mind.

Don't get me wrong - it looks damn good, but after applying an overall base layer glaze that I really liked the look of (3 to 4 coats so I'm glad I did), especially the pooling and contrasts, putting further base layers on and detail was excessively time consuming and I lost patience and put it on more thickly which looks poor in comparison since half the model has the shaded/dulled effect and half is thicker and brighter. I can remedy this by painting over these areas with a pretty diluted black wash but it's the furthest thing away from speed painting that I could imagine.


What am I missing?

People skip the multiple coats of brushing with a single pass with an airbrush.

Check out this video. Time stamp is to 10:41 in case the link doesn't put you at the right spot.

https://youtu.be/DQTYWLc3zLI?t=641


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A friend of mine does brush zenithal work but only uses inks. They're far more potent and he pops them on a wet pallete and dilutes them as needed. He often gets a single coat to get the colour he wants.


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Oh but if you use inks they are often a bit shiney so consider a matte varnish after.

Thanks for the reply. Love the idea of the smiley face test.
Guess I'm buying an airbrush.
Only issue I see there is that I would still have to do the clothing as multiple brushed layers. I'm doing a whole model Balthasar Gold wash after the Zenithal Priming (~3 layers) and the airbrush will definitely save time on this step. After this though the base coat for the clothing is Celestra Grey and an airbrush wouldn't help on this stage.
It's Scions so it's more armour than clothing hence the BGold instead of the CGrey first base layer.

Edit: How do I post an image from my phone?

The main thing you're probably missing is practice. You're not going to be quick at something the very first time you try it, even if it's a 'quick' thing.

As mentioned above its generally used with an airbrush to achieve the effects you're probably reading about, and this has its own learning curve.

Also bear in mind that quick is subjective. For example, I finished my last space marine in 2 weeks, and I was shocked as that is fairly quick for me.

The simple fact is that there is no golden bullet technique that will instantly give you results that are both good and fast (these things usually exist somewhere on inversely related sliding scales (eg faster painting will be lower quality and vice versa) if you want to achieve nice results, you're going to have to invest a little more time in getting your skills up at some point. It's best and easiest to do it early on, then the more you do it the faster you'll get.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
The main thing you're probably missing is practice...

So true. My first attempts at using zenithal were a mess because I made so many mistakes. For example, too much of the model was left black, so after applying the glazes there was a lot of pure black shadow still visible and it looked like an old fashioned 4 colour print. But now, a few hundred models later, I have a much better feel for what I need to do with my zenithal underpainting because I know how it's going to affect the later stages.

Even though it didn't work for me at first, I kept doing the zenithal highlights because it helped me to see the details on the models. Over time, I just got better at it and now I'm at the stage where I'm taking full advantage of establishing light levels and warm/cool highlights and shadows before I've picked up a brush. If I'm speed painting an army, I mostly only need 1 coat of glaze over the top of my underpainting - never more than 2.

My advice with any technique (zenithal highlighting, drybrushing, wet blending, loaded brush... whatever) is don't judge it based on your first few attempts. They will invariably be your worst.

Thanks for the replies.

Yeah I absolutely need more practice. I haven't painted models for years and back then I still wasn't great.

I wasn't looking for a magic bullet as such but I was looking for a technique that would improve my end product without taking longer than it used to to paint a model. So maybe a magic bullet lol.

Any particular advice on the painting after the Zenithal priming when wanting different base coats in specific locations (ie something that can't be applied with an airbrush)? Videos and articles tend to focus less time on the painting after the priming.

If you want the zenithal to remain on areas that aren't the main colour, you'll need to mask them off. Obviously this can become rather fiddly. If I use zenithal I generally use it for the main armour, and do everything else normally. An alternative is to paint in sub assemblies.

re posting images:
save the image to your dakka gallery page then grab the link from there.

I've only done zenithal priming brush-on to tabletop advanced.

Prime in black (or brown) then paint greyscale. Greyscale is faster than colors because you're not looking for paint droppers, getting the d*mn paint to mix after shaking the bottle, thinning different paints, trying to learn how a certain color works, switching and cleaning brushes, etc. If you're not even shooting for advanced tabletop, you can just drybrush the miniature in grey then white.

Once you have a decent greyscale, start glazing. If the paint's thicker than glazing (eg. basecoat), that's fine, too. Since you've done all this shading, you do less overall work.

Nowadays, I use colored primers followed by a wash, followed by whatever I need to do, sometimes basecoat, sometimes only detailing.

IMO, though, the best way to save time is to buy miniatures that don't have mold lines. Not sure if 3D printers are there yet, though.

Thanks for the further help.

I have done the next 5 in a slightly thicker base coat and it only took 2 layers this time without losing the shading. I guess it will just take a bit more time to get the hang of it.

[youtube] https://youtu.be/SvJjD6Hm1Es[/youtube]

I've only dabbled with it myself, but I'd say you really need an airbrush for it to be a quick technique.

I've tried zenithal highlighting on a squad of Khorne Berserkers, and got their armour done in under half an hour if I remember rightly. Think I went from a dark brown to Khorne Red to Mephiston Red.

I'm also in the very early stages of trying a zenithal prime on my Indomitus marines. Have primed them with Vallejo grey PU primer and then sprayed a Vallejo ultramariney blue onto the undersides. Painting warp lightning green contrast paint onto this (am painting them as Salamanders) is so far going really well. Gives a nice subtle shade effect.

@ OP What you're describing is essentially what GW's contrast paints do and not necessarily zenithal highlighting. Ink washing, or variant of, generates top-down gradient. This isn't always optimal for a proper zenithal highlighting, particularly so for models with flat top side.

Zenithal highlighting is essentially a type of OSL painting technique. The particular zenithal highlighting technique you're referring to is more or less the "easy mode" version where you set the base tone before the colors are layered on.

Having said, zenithal highlighting can be done with opaque layers. You just need to blend it in. So it comes down to either: 1. you wait for your watered down paint to dry or 2. spend more time blending in the colors. Sometimes, even the 'easy mode' ZH will need exaggeration using the OSL method.

You can zenithal without an airbrush but it's 100x harder. It's more or less a very light drybrush (barely any paint on bristles) where it will take at least a couple dozen passes for color to even show.

But yeah, AB is the best for zenithal and other highlight/shadow effects.

AB is just king. If you have a steady hand and nice small tip you can theoretically do edge highlights and even symbols on marine shoulder pads (but that's some truly advanced painting).

You can easily drybrush a black primed miniature up through grey to white, concentrating on downward motions. Then paint with glazes. It's not hard at all.