Blending blue into white

[m0nk3yb0y]

So, I'm trying to finish up my Soul Warden #1 and I'm having a huge problem blending a lightish blue into white for part of the cloth. It's fairly long, so it needs to be pretty gradual. I've been at it for a while, and no matter how subtle of changes i make it seems drastic once it dries. I tried doing what I think is wet-on-wet blending in that i have both colors still wet on the mini and then try to bring them together and blend them right there. All this has done is cause either end to lose it's original color and end up being more blue or white and having a vague blending.

[Pr0fane]

Well, let's hope our resident expert reads this and can supply his advice and insight. Wappellious?

[m0nk3yb0y]

It looks like Alexi is our newest member, I'm sure she could help too. I don't think I ever saw her post anything besides pictures before though.

[saevus]

When I'm having trouble with either the highlights being too over drastic or too suble to notice easily, I like to continuosly mix more and more of the lighter color in small amounts into the darker while I paint it onto the miniature thinly. This takes a bit of practice, but it allows you to have better control.

You can also mix very small in your pallet, keeping track of what percentages you use. Let them dry next to your origional color and see what works best.

[Pr0fane]

There you go, some helpful tips from saevus, who is quite the artist. Check out his site if you need proof.

Alexi_Z is a reborn member. :D She was somewhat active before the forum cut over to the new version. Of course, she says her english is not so good, which is why she never posted much. But her pictures speak volumes!!

[Wappellious]

Sorry for the delay!

I have been bogged down painting two more trueborns and 10 little slaves! 8)

Over the last few years, I have developed a few approaches to blending, some of which are taken from my 'regular' 2D painting. :lol:

Sometimes I will paint a surface (like cloth) with the mid-tone or 'middle value', instead of the lightes color or the darkest color.

Once the middle tone is established, I gradually paint in the shadow areas with a darker color, then eventually start highlighting.

This method is particularly helpful when you are trying to do some of the unusual fleshtones that you find in Dark Age characters. It is a lot easer to paint a fleshtone that has purple as its shadow color and seafoam green as its higlight when you use this method.

Wet into wet blending just leads to problems, I have found. The paint either dries in come areas, or is too thick in others, and the paint either smears or gets removed.

Also, the watercolor approach can work well. Rather than black washes to shade an area, you do something called glazing. Glazing can be done with a lighter color to highlight, or to shade with a darker tone.

You are basically taking a color and thinning it down, but applying it in a very controlled way. It is not like a broad wash over the whole surface. Glazing might take place in only a smalla area. The idea is to gradually lighten an area with small controlled strokes with very thinned down paint. This will reduce those nasty splotches! :wink:

You can even use cross-hatching strokes while glazing, as the paint is so thin. If you do all this using a magnifier light, your brush strokes will be mostly indistinguishable! :o

Hope this helps!

[m0nk3yb0y]

Thanks for all the advise :D

I had an idea that maybe you could tell me if it'd work or not.

Basically, I would put both the extreme colors (In this case white and a mid blue) in there respective ends up to the middle where they meet. The I would take the mid tone and mix it with some glaze medium and go from end to end and gradually use less glaze to paint ratio as I aproached the middle.

Think this would work?

[Wappellious]

I have never used glaze medium myself (except for water, I suppose) so I don't quite know how that will react.

However, that is the exact principle of the glazing method. I have been using something similar to that with these two trueborns in a huge way. I will be posting the pics very soon, so you will get a good idea of how that works from the images, I think.

Don't be afraid to glaze with your lightest and darkest colors on the edges as well. I do that a lot with NMM.


I have recently discovered that Reaper paints have amazing glazing properties, even when mixed with just water. I have been painting armor in mid tone blueish grey color first, and then 'dark glazing' in multiple layers all the way to black. It takes a fraction of the time than layering up from black, and even smoother.

I don't know what it is about the compostition of Reaper paints that makes them so good for this technique, although my wife says that they are more transparent than most other colors, even without water mixed in. That makes them great for these dark glazes.

Sorry to ramble on there! 8)

[Wappellious]

to Saevus...

Checked out the art... very cool!!

Good luck with submitting the art. I hope you get very busy doing illustrations!! :D

[m0nk3yb0y]

Yeah, I have the Reaper Master Series set up to 54. I really need to complete it and get a restock on my colors :/ I'm pretty sure that the Reaper MS have a finer pigment which is why they thin so well.

[Wappellious]

Come to think of it, nearly all the colors I have been using on this latest project have been Reaper.

I have given up on Vallejos, as no matter how much I shake those squeeze bottles, everything sinks to the bottom, and all that comes out is a messy clear juice :cry:

GW Paints still work out all right here and there.

I just wish that Games Plus was not 45 minutes away. It would make getting Reaper paints a whole lot easier!

At some point, we will have to get together to kill off some DA armies :P

[m0nk3yb0y]

Yeah, Games Plus is about 45 minutes away for me too. I've only been there once, and that was to pick up the Dark Age rule book. They have Warmachine there every saturday but I don't think I could drive 45 minutes there and back every saturday. I used to go to Crooked Hat games in Schaumburg but they recently closed down.

There's always teh intarweb to get your paints. I ordered mine from dungeontrader.com. A guy named Leonard runs the site and he's a good guy. There's also thewarstore.com who I've ordered from before as well. Only site I can honestly say to stear clear from is NewWaveGames.com as I'm sure many people would agree.

[gunslinger]

i have also found that painting a dark base coat onto the model, and dry brusing with increasing lighter highliths and then washing the model with either a glaze or was of a light color works very nicely


for example.. white primer a model, then base coat it with blazing orange.. (GW paint) dry brush with fiery orange, sunburst yellow, badmoon yellow and then white.. with white being the strongest of all the highlights and covering the majority of the model etc.. then wash with a yellow ink.. makes a very nice yellow model with good dark shadows.. then you can add lighter colors etc. to make it better if you chose to..

you see there are other methods besides the dip & dunk and rock-n-roll methods. ewwww

[Stunke]

you see there are other methods besides the dip & dunk and rock-n-roll methods. ewwww

No matter what the motif, It's always nice when someone grants you a thought.

:tongue2:

[YoungWolf7]

misterfinn's article on Painting White (http://www.brushthralls.com/White/index.php) might be of some help to you with your blue to white blending. He blocks the extremes in and then works on the transitions. It's a stellar technique if you can get the feel for it.