I can't put it off any longer, the time has come where I need to paint my Rohan minis from the starter set.

Two things have put me off this previously, the obvious one was painting horses but it is also the cloaks I seem to have trouble with.

The problem is I just can't seem to get the green to be nice and smooth highlights with the commonly recommended colours. I either get stuck with too bright and cartoony or they are a too flat with not enough contrast. Does anyone have suggestions or recommendations for doing the cloaks?

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Cloaks are harder to paint well than people might initially expect and it took me some practice to get them down. The simplest answer for how to get smoother results is to water your paint down more than usual or use more medium. Either way should work. You will probably want a 3:1 water to paint ratio, if not 4:1 or higher. When you apply the paint, you should have control over it with your brush and it doesn't run into the cracks like a wash does. If the paint does that you, know you've watered it down too much. The thinner the paint is, the lower the effect it has on the miniature, particularly if it is being applied over another color.

I usually layer cloaks by taking the GW base color and adding some dark brown or black and then basing the cloak in that color. This will be the darkest shadow color on the cloak. Then I had some more of the base color and do another layer in all areas except for the deepest shadows. I then repeat the last step by adding a bit more of the base paint and then apply another layer. I continue doing this using the two highlight colors that GW recommends over a smaller and smaller space (these will only be on the raised areas that you want to highlight). It takes some patience but it works well for me and I'd definitely recommend it. I hope this info helps and you may want to try Youtube to see this in action.

I hope this helps and let us know how you get on with the cloaks!

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You can find me at: https://KuribosPainting.com/ and on Instagram @kuribospainting.

what kind of green exactly are you using?

i'd recommend mixing in some earthy brown to help getting rid of the cartoony look

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My WIP: http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=22962

Thanks for the advice both.

The green I was using was castellan green to base, with agrax shade then highlight with loren forest and straken green.

Ideally I want something easy to replicate across many warriors so I will do some more test models I think to see what I can get to grips with. With that in mind I've picked up a few more greens to expirment with including one of the new contrast paints.

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If you've got the motivation, here's the method that I would use on Rohan cloaks, using that choices of colors.

1- Base with Castellan Green
2- Shade with Agrax
3- Re-apply base color of Castellan to all but the deepest recess area
4- Mix Castellan with Loren Forest 50:50 and highlight
5 - Highlight with pure Loren Forest
6 - Mix Loren Forest with Straken 50:50 and highlight
7 - Final edge Highlight with pure Straken

Yes, it's a lot of steps, but it will be worth it. Each highlight should cover a bit less cloak than the previous one. And most importantly, you must add water to steps 3 thru 7. Usually a 50:50 Water to Paint ratio works best. It will help with the blending of colors, and will help avoid "cartoony" or garish changes from one color to the next.

If this is too many steps for you, you can try it skipping steps 4 and 6, but if you chose to do so, you will need to add more water in steps 3, 5 and 7 and you will likely need to do two watered down, blended coats for those 3 steps.

Good luck

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T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair..
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her..

Thanks again, I will try these methods out once I get a bit of time and see what I can do !

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