Does anyone know a good book or thread on how to paint miniatures? I have the GW book and it speaks to you as if you've been painting for awhile, not something I could use as a noob...any suggestions?
Painting in Layman terms
- Thread starter Skillmatic11
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I wanted mainly to understand How to Highlight and what it actually brings to a piece...also how to basically know WHEN to highlight...
I would like to know that as well.... also what ti means to progressively go towards a colour.... like with your elf skin description for example.
Right, let's get classes started. I'll be adding more stuff to this post as I get more stuff finished. 
I'm going to focus on the highlighting you need to get a good TT standard that is still quite fast to paint. However you can still adapt it quite nicely if you want to add more detail or want to have smoother transitions.
1) Where do I put my highlights?
There are actually a couple of different ways to apply highlights to a model, but they can be put in 2 main categories:
1: The GW way which means you put highlight on the edges and raised areas as can be seen on the pieces of cloth on these Glade Guard.
2: The second way consists of applying higlights as if there is an exterior light source. As this is more for showcase models I'm not going to ellaborate on this.
Sad Pirate, courtesy of Mathieul
There is a very easy way to know where you have to put highlights according to the GW way. After you've sprayed your models (either black or white or whatever other colour), drybrush it lightly with a colour which stands out against the base colour. You will see that some areas will get more paint on them than other areas. The more paint they've gathered, the more light they catch, so the brighter that area is. After a couple of times doing this, you'll learn where to put them and will be able to do it automatically.
2) Method of applying highlights
*Will be aded later today or sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions about the first part or thinks anything should be simplified, just ask away.*
Cheers, Wolfie
I'm going to focus on the highlighting you need to get a good TT standard that is still quite fast to paint. However you can still adapt it quite nicely if you want to add more detail or want to have smoother transitions.
1) Where do I put my highlights?
There are actually a couple of different ways to apply highlights to a model, but they can be put in 2 main categories:
1: The GW way which means you put highlight on the edges and raised areas as can be seen on the pieces of cloth on these Glade Guard.
2: The second way consists of applying higlights as if there is an exterior light source. As this is more for showcase models I'm not going to ellaborate on this.
Sad Pirate, courtesy of Mathieul
There is a very easy way to know where you have to put highlights according to the GW way. After you've sprayed your models (either black or white or whatever other colour), drybrush it lightly with a colour which stands out against the base colour. You will see that some areas will get more paint on them than other areas. The more paint they've gathered, the more light they catch, so the brighter that area is. After a couple of times doing this, you'll learn where to put them and will be able to do it automatically.
2) Method of applying highlights
*Will be aded later today or sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions about the first part or thinks anything should be simplified, just ask away.*
Cheers, Wolfie
I recently bought "The Ultimate Painting Guide" from coolminiornot.com ( http://www.coolminiornot.com/store/product.php?xProd=2331 ). It's a huge miniature modelling guide that pretty much covers everything you need. The basic painting section goes through color theory as well as shading and highlighting techniques. I haven't read through all of that as I bought it mostly for the later sections on NNM (non-metallic metals) and green stuff sculpting. It also explains object source lighting (the pirate picture wolfie posted). For only $10 I can recommend it to anyone really.
Thanks guys...keep the help coming...you know what should be done...all the best Painting advice should be stickied into one thread...