Figure Painting

[DMurph]

Well guys how many of you like to paint Figures? I do BUT I really hate blending oil paint or whatever paint you work with.

 

I have developed a method that works for me and I think it works well. I use my airbrush to paint my figures at first I spray the base coat "say for the face it will be a warm tone flesh color, then add brown to the base pointing directly at the bottom of the head feather in ths color. you must becareful not to over do it. then add white to the base point directly at the top of the head and feather this color in.

Now what you have is varying shades of the base creating shadows and hightlights, after the face is dry you'll want to mix a wash of oil paint, I use Raw Umber I wash the face with this to pull out all the crevis detail of the figure. Once this is dry I dry bursh with an even lighter shade of base.

 

The rest of the figure

'ie the body" Is painted in the very same manner as the head

 

This is a great way to paint shadow and highlights on figures Try it I think you'll like it!

 

Cheers Murph...

[DMurph]

..

[Guest canuck63]

Yeah man.....way to go...show us more!Your technique sounds great and with a little dash from a brush here and there will be perfect...I'll definiterly have a go and stop making figgies that look like Alpo freshly regurgitated by my girfriend's pup !

The camo netting on the grunt's pot is particularly convincing!

Cheers

Manu

[Flip]

Great work. Another good result can be achieved with Humbrol colors.

I'm preparing some figures for an upcoming AFV project I'm working on.

 

Here's the result so far

 

 

 

Both heads are 1/35 scale.

 

This technique requires you to paint all the highlights and shadows. This results in a much finer finish compared to drybrushing technique.

 

Cheers

 

Flip

[DMurph]

Flip,

 

Those faces look really nice how do you find Humbrol paint blends together well? Is it enamel or acrylic?

 

Cheers Murph...

[Guest canuck63]

Great work. Another good result can be achieved with Humbrol colors.

I'm preparing some figures for an upcoming AFV project I'm working on.

 

Here's the result so far

 

 

 

Both heads are 1/35 scale.

 

This technique requires you to paint all the highlights and shadows. This results in a much finer finish compared to drybrushing technique.

 

Cheers

 

Flip

 

Has anybody noticed that just about every head from Hornet resembles the Prince Charles ?

[Schwarze 1]

Man!!! I envy you guys who are truly exceptional figure painters! I am planning to add a mechanic alongside my Fw190 Murph. Thanks for the tip mate.

[DMurph]

Hope it works out for you, and Practice,Practice,Practice.

 

Cheers Murph...

[Flip]

Has anybody noticed that just about every head from Hornet resembles the Prince Charles

 

Now you come to say it... indeed. They look much alike prince charles. Except for the ears though :-D

 

@Murph: I use Humbrol enamels. There's an article about this technique, written by a friend of mine, a very talented figure sculptor and painter, Marijn Van Gils. I asked Marijn for the english translation of this article. As soon as I have it, I'll post it here.

 

Cheers

 

Flip

[thierry laurent]

A tip from my AFV side:

 

mix Humbroll paints with oils!!!

 

This gives you a good mix of color choice and saturation (enamel) and drying time (oil). This is at least recommended for flesh zones. For uniforms or accessories, Acrylics such as the Vallejo ones are perfect.

 

Some of my friends who are more figure painters than modellers only use oils but I do not recommend it for modelling purposes.

 

Figure painters generally use the airbrush for primer or large areas on large figures (90mm and larger)

[Flip]

Here's the article I was talking about.

It's been written by Marijn Van Gils, one of the most talented figure sculptors and painters in the world. Check out his work on planetfigure.com.

 

Cheers and have fun trying it out :-)

 

Flip

 

Painting figures with Humbrol enamels

 

 

 

Introduction

I recently switched to Humbrol enamels for painting my figures. I already did the uniforms this way, but since I paint the faces with enamels instead of oils I’m happier with them.

I will try to explain my way of painting a face in four steps:

1. base coat

2. highlights

3. shadows

4. finishing

 

The technique used for uniforms is basically the same, only step 4 can be left out. A few tips when working with Humbrol:

- Always use odorfree white-spirit as a thinner (not turpentine).

- Always use the best brushes (Winsor & Newton series 7).

- Take some paint from the bottom of the bottle (the thick part), put it on a non-porous pallet (glass, aluminium foil, artists paper pallets, …) and thin it with white spirit. This will reduce the risk of the paint drying shiny.

- Throw the paint away when it becomes thick or gel-like.

- Wash your brushes with water and soap to get rid of the white spirit. They will last 5 times longer.

 

Used colours:

-base colour: flesh 61+ wine 73 + natural wood 110 + a little black 33(to break the colour)

-first highlight: base colour + flesh 61+ a little white 34

-second highlight: natural wood 110+ flesh 61+ white 34

-third highlight: flesh 61+ white 34

-fourth highlight: flesh 61+ a lot of white 34

-first shadow: wine 73 + natural wood 110 + black 33

-second shadow: wine 73 + black 33

-third shadow: wine 73 + a lot of black 33

 

 

Step 1: basecoat

-Just paint it on and let dry for at least one day. Remember that two thin layers are better than one thick

 

Step 2: highlights

- Paint with base colour again and let dry for a few minutes

- Paint the first highlight (just thin it a little bit to make the paint more liquid) very precisely

- Blend the border between the basecoat and first highlight (just the border, nothing more!!) with a mildly wet brush (dip it in white spirit and then wipe it on a cloth to take most of the white spirit out)

- Repeat this for the second, third and fourth highlight. Since you are putting the highlights on smaller areas time by time, you are blending them with the previous highlight, which isn’t still fully dried so it can be blended.

- It mostly takes me about 1 to 1.5 hours for this step. I then let the figures dry till the next day.

- When painting uniforms, there’s most of the time a shine on the painted area. That’s why I put on a layer of unthinned Humbroll matt varnish. Try to avoid the tiny white spots by keeping the layer of the varnish as thin as possible.

 

Step 3: shadows

- Where you thinned the paint a little bit when doing the highlights, now is the time to thin it heavily. Watch out that you don’t put too many paint on your brush, so wipe it every time on your pallet until you can paint very fine transparent lines.

- Try to avoid blending by building up very slowly the effect and by working very precisely (same as with painting with acrylics). You can always use your clean, almost wet pencil for corrections. I usually let it dry for a night although this is not really necessary.

- This step takes about half an hour.

 

Step 4: finishing

- Apply heavily thinned red (wine 73 + a little natural wood 110) under the cheek-bone (on the cheek), lips, below the nose, on the ear-lobe and possible other places where it can give some effect. It is not the meaning to put make-up on the face, just to make it more lively. Keep your paint heavily thinned. You’ll see that this gives immediate effect.

- Stubble-beard (five o’clock shadow): heavily thinned dark grey (black 33 + a little flesh 61). Take your time for the moustache! Leave a very thin line unpainted above the upper lip (very highlighted) and don’t touch the corners beside the wing of the nose (also very highlighted). Also, don’t touch the extreme highlights on the chin. The stubble-beard gives a lot of character and colour to the face.

- Eyes: first paint the basic shape with off-white (white 34 + a little flesh 61). Here, a clean pencil comes in handy to reduce the amount of paint. Next, paint a little black line ABOVE the eye (so not below). Paint the iris with dark blue (this fills most of the eye so only a little white remains). Eventually paint a tiny spot of very light blue (white + a little blue) in the middle of the iris. Very important! Don’t paint the eye on the lower eyelid. When your subject squeezes his eyes, just paint a black shadow line. Painting the eyes always takes me a long time, constantly correcting and repainting until I am satisfied.

- Don’t forget other details, like tongue, teeth, …

- To give a realistic texture and shine and extra life to the face: paint satin varnish over all the highlighted zones. (not over the shadows or reddish zones)

- When there are no eyes or other details to paint, it usually takes me about fifteen minutes for step 4. With eyes it takes me about 45 minutes.

The great advantage of enamels over oil paints is that it is very easy to correct and head back to previous steps. The reason for this are the better covering capacities of Humrol enamels.

 

paintingfigureswithhumbrol1.doc

[Schwarze 1]

Hey Murph,

 

I replaced the figure for my Fw190 with a pilot figure from ESCI. I will be posting photos of it soon.

 

Dominic

[DMurph]

Sounds great Dom can't wait to see it.

 

Cheers Mate..