Highlighting

Sanguinis · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:44 am

Good morning,

I'm almost ready to get my painting going again, in the meanwhile I've been thinking. How do you guys highlight your mini's? By drybrushing? By hand picking out all higher parts?

I'm not very fond of mixing paints, so I go for the drybrush, just a bit afraid that the hand picking wouldn't blend in all that well.

How do you guys do it? Why?

Cheers

Dead Marsh Spectre · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:51 am

I water my paints down to about 75% paint to 25% water and then pick out the higher parts of the model. Painting using this method make sure that before you put brush to model that you dab the excess paint off the end of the brush - you don't want a drip on the end of the brush when you start to paint as it will just run all over the model. Brush in the direction that you want the colour to be strongest.

I use the above method as it gives a much smoother highlight than drybrush.

Sanguinis · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:55 am

Cool, I think I'll give that a shot sometime.

Dead Marsh Spectre · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:03 am

Sanguinis wrote:

Cool, I think I'll give that a shot sometime.

Just be sure to dab the blob of watery paint off the end of your brush before you touch the model or it will pool where you don't want the paint to go - don't be disheartened if it doesn't look exactly how you want it the first few times - stick with it the more you do it the better it will get. Good luck.

Sanguinis · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:06 am

Thank you very much. ^^

greendragon · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 1:21 pm

DMS if you released a book on painting tips, I'd buy it. You've alot of great techniques up your sleeve

Lord_of_the_nine · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:14 pm

DMS I think what you are talking is the two brush technique.
It's better to put the highlight colour with one brush and then with another brush which is wet you "dillute" the highlighted paint on the miniature

Dead Marsh Spectre · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:32 pm

Lord_of_the_nine wrote:

DMS I think what you are talking is the two brush technique.
It's better to put the highlight colour with one brush and then with another brush which is wet you "dillute" the highlighted paint on the miniature

Never tried using 2 brushes and don't really like the sound of it. To me the colour would stick where it was placed originally and be difficult to move along the area where the intended highlight should be. Much easier to apply watered down paint directly to the model with a single brush. Perhaps the two brush technique would be ok when blending 2 colours together but in my opinion not so good for straight forward highlights.

Walters · **Posted:** Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:53 am

I second what green dragon says. I would buy it too.

Hirumith, the Grey Knight · **Posted:** Mon Mar 04, 2013 1:50 pm

Drybrushing is quick and effective for some things, especially metals, so depending on the model and the texture of the surface I do that sometimes.

Generally I highlight by painting layers of lighter colors on the raised edges, though, picking them out by hand rather than letting drybrushing do the work for me. Layering is much more effective on folded cloth, for example, than Drybrushing, IMO.

Sanguinis · **Posted:** Mon Mar 04, 2013 3:05 pm

Your making alot of sense. I'll try to combine drybrushing and hand-picking, using both where they work best.

Lord_of_the_nine · **Posted:** Mon Mar 04, 2013 4:55 pm

Dead Marsh Spectre wrote:

Never tried using 2 brushes and don't really like the sound of it. To me the colour would stick where it was placed originally and be difficult to move along the area where the intended highlight should be. Much easier to apply watered down paint directly to the model with a single brush. Perhaps the two brush technique would be ok when blending 2 colours together but in my opinion not so good for straight forward highlights.

Here's some links to what I mean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5xy-bNSzQA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gamlrzh5BE8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gamlrzh5BE8

Crucium Giger · **Posted:** Wed Mar 06, 2013 10:13 am

I find a quick and simple way of highlighting is to lightly drybrush then apply a layer (or two) of slightly watered down wash. This tones down the harshness of the drybrushing leaving quite an effective highlight.

Sanguinis · **Posted:** Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:50 am

Sounds good, thanks for the input!

BizzareWarstar · **Posted:** Mon Mar 11, 2013 10:01 pm

Sanguinis wrote:

I'll try to combine drybrushing and hand-picking, using both where they work best.

I think your on the right track there, both are very good ways of highlighting.

If your painting really small areas, like a tiny crease in cloth, the edges of stuff or face detail, try lightly 'dotting' the paint on instead of swiping or pulling the brush across the area. I've found it quite handy to 'dot' those finer details especially if using a strong highlight colour like white with the base colour or pure bleached bone.

Highlighting

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