Washes and highlights (at the same time?)

[johntoenjes]

What are your thoughts for using washes and highlights together? Wash first then highlight? Highlight then wash? One or the other? I'm trying to figure out a way to highlight Rasputina after doing washes but I don't want it to be a jarring difference. For beast-y things I tend to base, wash, and drybrush, but I don't feel that will have the same effect on humans/cloth.

[Ratty]

I generally.. Base, Highlight, wash, Highlight, wash, Final Highlights. Sometimes more stages back and forth.

[nilus]

I am not a super painter but I generally base coat, wash, then highlight. I find if I highlight then wash I end up having to highlight again after I am done.

That, of course, is if I am not being super lazy and using a dip

[Requirement]

I generally.. Base, Highlight, wash, Highlight, wash, Final Highlights. Sometimes more stages back and forth.

Generally pretty good. With my minis, especially masters/unique models, I put in the extra time to shade and highlight separately, instead of just doing a big wash. There are tons of really good fabrics tutorials out there though.

[Undisclosed]

I now go base, wash, base colour highlight, highlight, final edge highlight and maybe a wash in the places i want darkened.

[Ratty]

Generally pretty good. With my minis, especially masters/unique models, I put in the extra time to shade and highlight separately, instead of just doing a big wash. There are tons of really good fabrics tutorials out there though.

Yeah I will wet blend highlights, and then when applying later washes paint wash just into the creases. Also I won't use a single wash across the whole model in most cases.. But it depends for example with my Death Marshall puppets they are lots of shades of brown so I base coates and then washed the whole thing with a brown, then painted in a mid tonne and then highlighted up, then washed individual areas then highlighted.... Then I picked out details and in some cases washed back again.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Ratty

[Math Mathonwy]

I am not a super painter but I generally base coat, wash, then highlight. I find if I highlight then wash I end up having to highlight again after I am done.

That, of course, is if I am not being super lazy and using a dip

Next time you dip, try to make extreme highlights before the actual dip. You see, the problem with the dip is that it doesn't take into account the direction of the light but mindlessly shades all the recesses the same.

With extreme highlights for the direction of the light you can make a huge difference. And they don't need to be neat but can be done really quickly and messily. And you only need them for the places that you wish to accentuate with the illusion of directional light.

So yeah, very quick but a huge, huge difference.

[Malersatz]

I find that highlighting, or even painting in general, a shade or two brighter than seems proper before giving a good wash works quite well as the wash will tone down/blend the model as a whole. If I'm painting for high quality I will take more time and steps, but as a general rule for "table quality" this works quite well.

[Requirement]

Yeah I will wet blend highlights, and then when applying later washes paint wash just into the creases. Also I won't use a single was across the whole model in most cases.. But it depends for example with my Death Marshall puppets they are lots of shades of brown so I base coates and then washed the whole thing with a brown, then painted in a mid tonne and then highlighted up, then washed individual areas then highlighted.... Then I picked out details and in some cases washed back again.

Your brilliance is untouched, Ratty. You made what I was trying to say sound smart and thought out.

[*Jack*]

I generally Base, wash, highlight with the base colour, then work up to however high I want to go with normal highlights.