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Advice for painting Hannah - shading / highlighting - painting newbie


CapnBloodbeard

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So this is my first real foray into painting, and I'm painting Hannah.  I'm painfully, incredibly, stupidly slow - so I'm trying to keep my workload at a minimum.  I'm happy with 'tabletop standard' - I'm not going to be trying to win points at any tournament painting competition :)

The power armour suit is dark purple - so far I've done a base coat with Vallejo Heavy Violet, using Chainmail (citadel metallics - the old name, their lighter coloured one) on the silver parts, and so far using Heavy Red to base coat a couple of the pieces behind her as an accent.  Intending on keeping the armour a fairly deep purple, with the red accents going to a more vibrant red.

So, I figure washing with Badab Black will help with the shadows - I figure Black will give a cleaner look than Devlin Mud (or 'Miracle in a pot') this time.  I figure I'd wash the entire thing - some people promote using the same colour as the paint (eg paint over the purple with purple wash), but I'm concernd this may not give enough depth in the recesses.  However, given that the wash invariably leaves some black on the raised areas where I don't want it, I was considering doing a thin purple wash over the black.  Not sure if that will do anything.  I've watered down the black somewhere between 50-50 or 70-30 (wash-water).

But there are plenty of areas without recesses - such as the shoulder pads.  I was thinking of washing over those anyway just for consistency in appearance and texture, but there's nothing really for the wash to hold into there.

The feet/lower legs have a number of lines in them, like plate joins in the armour - the wash isn't filling those as deeply as I thought it would so I was thinking of using a micron pen in those lines.

So, thoughts on my plan so far?  I figure the closest online that I can see in terms of tutorials on how to paint her fast is in space marine tutorials, but given all of their armour has recessed or raised edges (like the shoulder pads), there's also some big differences.

So, assuming I go ahead with my plan - what next?  I know I'll need to go over the armour again with some purple over where the wash left black, not sure if a drybrush or just a thin but controlled layer will be best here.Will the same purple suffice?  I'm concerned about going to a lighter one in case the difference is too evident and it looks stupid.

From there, will I need to do anything to shade the armour?  I was thinking of edge highlighting with some warlord purple, only in some areas - but her top shoulder pads, for instance, will have nothing.  So what will I need to do in order to highlight areas like this?

I know layering/blending is quite time consuming so my concern is unless I'm spending a very long time on the one part, the transitions will just be too 'sudden' and look stupid, and I'm trying to reduce my time on this.

Also, I chose to go for a cleaner look rather than a weathered one.

I figured the metal joins, bolts and things wil just need a tiny dab of chainmail again on the highest parts.  Because the metallic is so thick I probably won't worry about painting over the flatter join parts as I'd just end up pushing paint into the recessed areas - and this way it just looks well oiled anyway.

tl;dr:

Inexperienced painter with limited time/skills.  

Base coated Hannah with dark purple

washing with badab black, might use micron pen too

Seeking advice on whether I need to wash with purple as well

And how to highlight/shade the armour without risking it looking stupid and block with severe tone transitions, and without spending way too much time.

 

Thanks brains trust!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi there, i just stumbled over your post. But you really have to take a picture for us to help you out there.

I´m not sure about washes on her big armor pieces though. If you posess a wet palett which i would recommend to start with, you could do some wet in wet blending on the miniature.

But again a picture would really help if its not too late.

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