Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I've never tried wet blending before but I had an idea I wanted to try. I used the same technique. Nothing special there
But I tried inverting the colors, light on bottom, dark on top, with the darkest spots where the light strikes the model. The idea here being that the skin is tanned as if the character were out in the sun for a long time. But still light-ish underneath where the skin isn't as exposed to the sun.

I haven't seen... Any examples of this as far as I can remember so I was just workshopping it. It's still WIP but i was hoping to get some comments on if maybe I should go forward with this or try to work out something else to play with? Here's my first example attempt:



The "highlight" came out almost... Scorched? Not sure if I like it or not yet. It reminds me kind of of the soot-covered face make up from Mad Max. I might just tone it down to a lighter brown and maybe lighten the middle of the blend a little more.

Congrats, you’ve described basic glowing effects!

However if I’m interpreting what you wanted to do correctly you made a mistake. Right now it sounds like the ghoul has an internal light when I believe you want something closer to basic animal coloration with a dark topside and pale underbelly. Similar to this guy:


While I didn’t use wet blending the basic theory is the same. You still highlight normally you just don’t necessarily take it all the way up on the tanned skin and you start with a lighter color in the recesses of the un-tanned skin.

What I did for my guy was dark blue base over the “tanned” area, mid-tone blue base on the “un-tanned” areas and highlights for the “tanned” areas, and light blue highlights on the “un-tanned” areas.

The angle your guy is at isn’t showing off much of your blending beyond the (excellently done) red to black so I can’t really give much specific feedback.

Yeah if you try and wet blend on something so small you're going to have a hard time. Just work up the colours in layers.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah if you try and wet blend on something so small you're going to have a hard time. Just work up the colours in layers.

Please do not heed this advice... you can definitely wet blend on something that small; you can wet blend on a face, a hand, anything. If you can get your brush on it, you can wet blend on it without much difference between small and large.

Describing what you've done as a 'glowing' effect I think is definitely wrong, but I understand where that comment comes from; the photo is pretty poor so doesn't clearly show what you are talking about, and if you had highlighted something with the GW base/shade/edge philosophy then sure it would be a 'glow'.

From what I can make out from the photo and from what you are saying, you've attempted an inverse 'zentihal' highlight, which I think definitely sells the sun-tanned idea. I would say that you have probably gone a little too hard on the darker colour; particularly on the face, there isn't enough of the pale shade to really sell the effect. I think it'd be best with the face being mostly pale, with darkening around the forehead and brow predominately. The same probably goes for the hands and the arms; have the pale colour be a little more dominant, coming up the 'sides' of the hands and arms. I think because of the hunch of the model, it's easy to lose all of the pale areas to being directly underneath the model, masking the effect; you need a little more showing going up the sides to make it look good.

In terms of the taking the effect further, a few edge highlights would go a long way. Do it subtle so as not ruin your gradient, but a few little edges picked out on the face and the folds and ridges on the back I think would make a big difference.

shmvo wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah if you try and wet blend on something so small you're going to have a hard time. Just work up the colours in layers.

Please do not heed this advice... you can definitely wet blend on something that small; you can wet blend on a face, a hand, anything. If you can get your brush on it, you can wet blend on it without much difference between small and large.

Please point out where in my post I said you can't wet blend on a small surface? I said they're going to have a hard time.

Wet blending is a difficult enough technique to get looking good regardless of surface size or type, and beginner painters would be better suited learning layering techniques to acheive colour transitions.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

shmvo wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah if you try and wet blend on something so small you're going to have a hard time. Just work up the colours in layers.

Please do not heed this advice... you can definitely wet blend on something that small; you can wet blend on a face, a hand, anything. If you can get your brush on it, you can wet blend on it without much difference between small and large.

Please point out where in my post I said you can't wet blend on a small surface? I said they're going to have a hard time.

Wet blending is a difficult enough technique to get looking good regardless of surface size or type, and beginner painters would be better suited learning layering techniques to achieve colour transitions.

Not interested in bickering over the internet mate. Someone asked for feedback on their wetblending and your response was to say "don't wetbewnd". That's clearly an unhelpful and patronising response.

If you didn't want a response, then why did you quote my post in the first place? Just say your piece and be done... But again, nothing in my post was patronising or unhelpful. I provided an alternative suggestion. Anything else you want to incorrectly claim about my post? I'm all ears.

I just wanted to chime in and say ChaoticMind and shmvo were both super helpful.

@Chaotic, the description of glow effects and animal coloration at great. You're right I wasn't going for glowing (although it's a super cool idea for ghouls or undead and I will *definitely* be doing it in the future) but the tips on how to get that two tone look are great. I might try breaking up the colors by dark and light, and then blending within those and using the tried and true wash and highlight method.

@shmvo these are great tips as well. Ill try picking out the face and arms with edge highlights of that black/brown instead of the heavier dosing. I've painted another ghoul yesterday that doesn't have any of the black/brown, instead just blends from the light skin underbelly to the brown on top, but I'll try adding just a touch of the black to the brow/head and the back to see if I can make it pop even more.

I'm just glad the effect is working well enough because it will be much more exaggerated and easier to picture on the bigger models like Horrors, Flayers, and the Ghoul royalty that will be the core of my army. These ghouls themselves won't see the table for a while so they're mostly practice for the big guys as I haven't really been painting for quite some time.

Yeah. You mean like how a reptile like a lizard or grog has a white underbelly because its never exposed to the sunlight.

Check out youtube Vince Venterulla for a fantastic skin blending tutorial.

 Dynas wrote:
Yeah. You mean like how a reptile like a lizard or grog has a white underbelly because its never exposed to the sunlight.

It is often an evolved form of camouflage.

I did something similar to you although with countershading in mind with some drakespawn I'm using for my Exodites and it's turned out pretty well imo.

I did use drying retarder to keep the paint wet so I could wet blend it effectively though. Keep us updated, it's a cool technique to use!

shmvo wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

shmvo wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah if you try and wet blend on something so small you're going to have a hard time. Just work up the colours in layers.

Please do not heed this advice... you can definitely wet blend on something that small; you can wet blend on a face, a hand, anything. If you can get your brush on it, you can wet blend on it without much difference between small and large.

Please point out where in my post I said you can't wet blend on a small surface? I said they're going to have a hard time.

Wet blending is a difficult enough technique to get looking good regardless of surface size or type, and beginner painters would be better suited learning layering techniques to achieve colour transitions.

Not interested in bickering over the internet mate. Someone asked for feedback on their wetblending and your response was to say "don't wetbewnd". That's clearly an unhelpful and patronising response.

I have to chime in that QAR does have a point.

When wet blending smaller areas it is harder to perform an actual there are significant technical difficulties when wet blending due to the amount of paint used. More often than not, the paint dries up too fast for wet blending to be of a use.

It's not that wet blending-esque finish cant be achieved on smaller areas - it's just that it's difficult to actually use the wet blending technique.

And yes, there is a mix up of terminology here - what you've done is fundamentally an OSL, not a glow effect.

Having said, there's not a true "correct" method of wet-blending as it is first and foremost a technique of blending colors on the actual surface being painted (as opposed to mixing it on the palette) before they're dry and not necessarily a highlighting technique. So, while many painters use wet-blending for highlighting (the dark & light mix) this doesn't mean that when you do it the opposite way it becomes "reverse wet-blending".

OP here, just thought I'd update with some smartphone shots of how my Crypt Horrors turned out.



All things aside, I am quite happy with them. These were actually a repaint of Horrors that came to me with an uninspired Blisterskin paint job. It was fine, just not very creative. And I feel like these came out superb, especially for a quick hour-ish paint jobs, not including the bases, bone bits and blood spatter that was already on the models. I'd be happy to display/showcase/field these as is and the only thing I really want done differently is the bases changed to grass rather than rock, and the details like eyes and pimples done over again to bring them out more.