Unconvential Purposes for Convential Methods

[edonil]

So, last night I was painting Seamus, and realized that I've been painting for approximately 10 years. Which got me thinking about just how much my painting style has evolved over the years, from laying down flat colors on some of the original LOTR GW figs, to drybrushing Space Marines, and then blending with a few pieces here and there. The biggest thing it got me thinking about, though, was the different techniques I've picked up that I use in ways that no one else I know does. I wanted to share a couple of them, and hopefully get some discussion going on different things people use (I'm always up for learning a new technique or two!).

- Glowing eyes. This is probably one of the first that I started using, and one of the simplest. I've got some old GW inks (thank goodness for that too, although I'm not looking forward to running out of them), so what I do is paint the whole eye silver or gold, depending on the desired effect, and then I'll wash it, very carefully, with an ink, usually red. The ink dries semi-translucent, and gives the feel of a slight glow.

- Metallic dresses. This one I haven't used as much recently, but I'm probably going to try it some more with stuff in Malifaux. The idea behind this is similar to the glowing eyes, but over a much larger area. I'll paint the dress Boltgun Metal, then layer it without blending with Chainmail and Mithril Silver. The changes in color won't really be noticeable at this point. Then, an ink wash over it all, and the colors are blended together and make a really pretty dress, actually. I've tried this with the new GW washes, and it can work depending on the color.

- Washes. I hardly ever use these things for shading, instead I use them as a way to shift colors. One of my favorites has been Hormagaunt Purple washed with Asurmen Blue, which creates a neat dark Navy color. Some of the mixes I've tried seemed weird at the time and actually turned out decent. I also tend to use them while drybrushing to smooth out the color transitions.

- Speaking of Hormagaunt Purple and color shifting, one of the absolutely weirdest mixes of paint I've stumbled over is for flesh tones. I was painting an eSkarre for a friend (I like the model and volunteered to paint it for free) and wanted to try a limited palette with purple. As I was painting, I got around to the flesh tones, and decided to mix some Hormagaunt Purple with Tallarn Flesh, to give it a purple tint. Surprisingly, I ended up with a fairly natural color that was perfect for the basecoat for pale flesh tones. I've used it so much since that I mixed a pot of it.

That's all I can think of right now. Anyone got any others of your own?

Edit: And I just realized I can't spell today...Unconventional is very different. Damn you spell check for not noticing!

Edited September 19, 2011 by edonil