Yellow-Black chevrons part2

Yellow and Black Chevrons, Part 2

In this part, I would like to explain a little more how and why this method of drawing chevrons is used.
Firstly, a yellow underpainting with highlights is drawn in order to leave the impression of a single surface, but not a set of color stripes if you draw them separately. To enhance this, we also make glazings with brown at the end.

Secondly, a little about how exactly the place is chosen for the black lines, which will then become part of the stripes. In the general case, it is important for us to leave the most highlighted area part of the yellow strip (otherwise why did we make these highlightings:-). So we draw the first line (a) somewhere on the border of the most highlighted area, and the second line (b) we set the width of future stripes. The remaining lines are then drawn taking into account the selected width.

Chevrons
If we want to make chevrons, not strips, then after highlighting the yellow substrate:

1. draw a vertical line in the center (a)
2. two lines at 45 degrees from the top point (b)
3. draw two lines (c) with which we will set the approximate width of the stripes.

After that we draw the remaining strips and complete the work as in the general case.

P.S. Here I used NMM recipe from Traitor-Librarian project,
https://ravenswood-art.blogspot.com/2018/05/traitor-librarian-part-3-nmm.html

but you may use any other Golden NMM recipe as in part one
https://ravenswood-art.blogspot.com/2019/12/yellow-black-chevrons-recipe.html

Yellow-Black Chevrons recipe

Yellow-black chevrons, or stripes, are a fairly simple and interesting way to make a focal point on the miniature or diversify the color scheme. It does not require any special technique or perfect blending to do this element well . On the contrary, some roughness will only improve the result.
For colors, any Golden NMM recipe is suitable for us, in which only the application technique will be changed. We will consciously minimize the contrast.

For example, I taken a recipe based on Vallejo paints: Armor Brown, Scrofulous Brown, Gold Brown, Deep Yellow, Ice Yellow. I would like to add that the larger the surface - the more colors and transitions will be needed. For a small detail, you can do without yellow (DY), and for a large one - add orange.

1. For the base mix, we will use a mixture of AB and SB. If the surface is large - you can add red-orange, for example, Orange Red, it will look more interesting.

2. Gradually add a little SB to the base mix, reducing the highlight surface.

3. Highlighting with add GB to the mixture. Here, I deliberately did not try to be careful, if I wanted, everything can be corrected in the next stage.

4. Add DY to the mix ( and also IE for the focal point). After the highlighting is completed, you can gleze the surface to slightly adjust the color balance, if you want. But do not try too much, it will not be noticeable anyway.

5. Draw the base for our stripes by black. It is best if they are at 45 degrees, but depending on the direction of the surface, the angle may vary.

6. Draw the stripes themselves, while trying to ensure that the focal point remains in the yellow part. At this stage, you can correct the flaws of the previous stages.

7. Draw the battle damage. For black parts - pure GB, for yellow - a mixture of GB and IE. It is very important for the final appearance, so do not neglect this

8. In addition, glaze the dark part of AB (you can add orange there). This will visually combine such contrasting elements into one surface and dim the brightness, leaving it where we need it.

Painting yellow armor (for whom who don't have an airbrush like me)

When painting the Marines Malevolent, I encountered a small problem: the way I paint usually was not suitable for painting yellow armor. Usually I go from dark to light through a lot of layers, but in this case it gave a sad result, since yellow is very difficult to work with. I tried to go from light to dark, but it gave too little depth and color saturation.
In the end, I decided on the method used by a fairly large number of painters: I did a contrasting underpainting and then painted on it.
So, at first, I covered the black undercoat with a layer of Khaki (Vallejo Game Color) [Fig. 1] and then made base mixes for underpainting. For this purpose I used Brown, Dark Tangerine and Yellow from Pacific88 Art-Color.

I divided these mixtures into three parts: for shades the mix of brown + dark tangerine, for lights - dark tangerine + yellow, and something mean for the middle. With the help of these mixtures I made the underpainting [Fig. 2]

The next task was to make the transitions smoother. I started with light areas. For this, I first made a few glazes with a mixture of yellow and dark tangerine made several openings on the borders of the underpainting to blur them. After that, I used pure yellow to brighten the lightest areas, and finally all those openings blurred the boundaries remaining after the highlighting [Fig. 3]

Then I started to use shadows in a similar manner, only using brown and dark tangerine with different proportions for glazing. [Fig. 4]

After smooth transitions, I needed to increase the contrast. To do this, I first made extreme highlights with a mixture of yellow and pearl white (Pacific88 Art-Color), after which I made them glazed by clear yellow, so as not to lose color. And, finally, once again, a mixture of yellow and pearly white, but thinner and more accurate [Fig. 5]

And, finally, I drew additional details of black and battle damage by the brown and a mixture of yellow and pearly white [Fig. 6]

For reference, a color track and used colors are attached. And as bonus for whom who don't have a P88 paints: the alternative variant with more common paints used. It do a little less color depth but looks very similar.

Sigismund's black armor recipe

The time of Friday's painting recipes! I already wrote about my experiments with black on the example of Krieg's engineer (https://ravenswood-art.blogspot.com/2018/05/paint-it-black.html), but for Sigismund I decided to try something new. I needed a brighter and more contrasting version of black.

The base mix was a mixture of Black (Vallejo Model Color) and Falcon Turquoise (Vallejo Game Color), where I gradually added more Falcon Turquoise.

When the mixture began to go strongly into turquoise, I began to add a first Sky Blue (Pacific88 Art-Color), and then Iraqui Sand (Vallejo Model Color)

Since the armor was painted as "black metallic", that is, according to the principles of the NMM, I took a mixture of black and FT, for reflexes, much more turquoise.

Also, to increase the contrast, I walked through the shadows with a liquid diluted black paint, and also made light glazes Hexed Lichen (Vallejo Game Color).

A quick dark leather recipe

Long time since we had no recipes. There is something to share, but the total lack of free time affects :-(
Here is a small recipe for "leather" products of small size, pouches etc.
Basically now I use browns and oranges from Pacific88 Art Color for this, but now I was asked to do it based on Vallejo / Citadel.

So:
base - black + Dark Fleshtone (Vallejo Game Color)
highlights gradually adding Flat Brown (Vallejo Model Color) to the pure
then Flat Brown highlights with the addition of Skrag Brown (Citadel Layer)
add a very little Scrofulous Brown (VGC) and highlight up using Iraqui Sand (VMC).
At the end, we paint the little lines with a semi-transparent Iraqui Sand.

Traitor Librarian project: the final

The Traitor-Librarian project is finally over and went yesterday to a new home. This project took considerably more time than I had originally planned and was one of those rare works that I would gladly leave in my collection. While working on this miniature, I came up with several interesting ideas that I will definitely try to realize when I make such an uncle for myself.
I hope you were also interested in watching the process and liked the result.

CMON voting link: http://www.coolminiornot.com/427318
Putty&Paint voting link: https://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/17870

All list of project log
Traitor Librarian project, part 1: the begining
Traitor Librarian project, part 2: - the Base
Traitor Librarian project, part 3: NMM
Traitor Librarian part 4: Reds
Traitor Librarian part 5: Burn Fire Burn!

Traitor Librarian part 5: Burn Fire Burn!

The last part of the Traitor-Librarian project log will be devoted to the fire demon and glow effects.

The first thing that I would like to note is that the fire and all sorts of similar effects are better drawn on a light undercoat. Because I primed miniature with black, I need to do a layer of the light undercoat. I used Khaki (VGC), but in principle, any extra opaque light colors would work.

Usually, I paint from dark to light, and it can be difficult for me to change to another method of painting. So I chose a compromise option: first cover everything among the middle color, and then go both ways. As an basic middle color, I chose Scrofulous Brown (VGC).

It should be noted that painting a flame is a rare case when I do not make a color transition, but paint with pure colors or individual mixtures of them.
For the highlight of the base color, I used Dark Tangerine and Yellow from Pacific88 and Ice Yellow (VMC)
For darkening - Scarlet (VMC), Flat Red (Andrea) and a mixture of Flat Red and black.
The tips of the horns and  flames on the demon's head are painted purely black, also I put some dot of pure Ice Blue to simulate sparks.

To do some reflexes from fire, I used Scarlet and Flat Red, adding, if necessary, Dark Tangerine.

Traitor Librarian part 4: Reds

Since I have repeatedly written about working with reds in previous projects, I'll just describe the used colors and techniques. On this model I used two variants of red, warm on a cloak and a tabard and a cold red-magenta on a book and a staff.

Paint it Black!

A little bit about painting black on the Engineer of Krieg.

As you know, there has three variations of black tones: warm, cold and conditionally neutral. In this miniature, three versions of cold black were used, their differences should show the difference in the materials that they imitate.

"Praetor-Tribune" project log, part 6: the lollipop sword

"Praetor-Tribune" project log, part 6: the lollipop sword
In the last part of the project, I will touch on one more important focal point of the our praetor miniature, which is the sword. I decided to do his blade is bright red and very contrast both in light and in color. This scheme is very similar to the one I used when painting crystals on the Demonsmith's base last year, but it has some changes.

Firstly, I finally bought my favorite Basic Red from Andrea Color (and a few more of their colors), which I'm incredibly happy with. And secondly, the shape of the blade forced alternating two variants of red, to achieve greater contrast.
I note that from the point of view of the display light and color on the blade a certain number of errors are allowed. But they are made deliberately to increase the contrast between the surfaces. In addition, after a series of tests, it was decided to abandon the glowing stones on the blade and reduce the OSL effect a minimum (because of which it was half repainted one hand)

The Light. Here everything is standard, as for the previous parts. First I chose the place for the main highlight and made a shadows, midlights, additionals light and reflexes. The most important of which I proceeded - with fracture surface should be strong contrast. This visually emphasizes the shape and along with the color makes the blade of the sword a focal point.

Colour. When working with the blade, in addition to the contrast of light and shadow, I decided to add a color contrast between the surfaces. The brightest part will be cold red (due to white), the second - a warm yellow-orange. You can notice that one of the surfaces is partially made in one grade, partly in another. In this case, I sacrificed "correctness" for the sake of greater contrast and dramatic effect.

As the base color for the "cold" part, I used Dark Red (Andrea Color) sequentially flashed through pure Basic Red (AC) to Scarlet (VMC). For final highlights and highlights, I used a mixture of Scarlett and Pearl White (P88), which gradually added white. In addition, as far as highlighting, I periodically made Basic Red frosting to keep a cool red tint.

The base color for the warm part was a mixture of black and Dark Vermillion (VMC), which was consistently bleached from the beginning to the pure Dark Vermillion, and then to Scarlet. The final highlightings were made by a mixture of Scarlet and Amarantha Red (both VMCs).

Praetor Tribune Project, part 5: bronze

Working with this miniature, I wanted to revise my painting experience of the previous
 Iron Warriors praetor. On that model, there were few surfaces that could be bronze made, so I'd have to make them very bright and contrast so that they stand out. There were much more such surfaces, because of what I decided that this bronze should be "more calm", both in color and in contrast.

The Light. Before the beginning of work on bronze, I mentally divided the miniature into three levels of illumination: the high level included the shoulder pads and the torso, medium - the belt and the legs to the knees, to the low-the lower part of the leg armor. I needed to divide these parts according to the illumination to create a focal point near the head of the praetor. In addition, this would distribute the lighting at a remote light source.

You can notice that in the part with low illumination, there are almost no bright spots, and those that are not as bright as in other parts. In addition, in the part with low illumination, the shadows are much darker, while the midlight are shorter.

In the middle part bright patches of light appear, and somi surfaces become more contrasting and more elaborate from the point of view of midlights.

In a part with a high level of illumination, the surface of most highlighted area is much larger than in the middle part. In addition, I added a lot of additional sparks in the form of thin, bright lines on the most illuminated and enlongered areas, which is especially noticeable on the shoulder pads.

The Colour. As already described above, I tried to make this version of bronze a little less contrast and not so bright orange. To do this, I replaced the "Dark Tangerine" and "Brown", "Orange" and "Brown Ochre" (all the colors here and further on Pacific88 Art Color) as the main colors, leaving them for auxiliary purposes. As a result, I got two color gradients: the main "Black" + "Dark Red-Brown", "Brown", "Brown Ochre", "Orange", "Pearl White" and auxiliary Black "+" Dark Red-Brown " , "Brown", "Dark Tangerine".

During painting it was very important to balance the more yellow main gradient in the lightest areas and orange reflexes. In addition, the closer to the most illuminated areas, the larger the flat occupies the main (yellow) gradient. In addition  I actively used glazes with the high diluted "Orange" and "Dark Tangerine" to bring the effect that I conceived.