Small scale figure Step by step (SBS). A 1/48 freebie Paul Hicks sculpt is the victim.

[Tim Marlow]

OK, on with the paint……

I have a philosophy when painting. It goes like this….
Paint inside to outside.
Basically this means I paint the figure as if it was getting dressed. Skin first, then underclothes, then top layers, then equipment……I do this because I find it easier to get clean edges between the clothing items and so get better definition into the figure.

Additionally, if I am painting in layers I will paint from dark to light, so the bottom layers get paint before the top layers. Again, I find this gives a cleaner, better defined, result.

Sometimes I break these rules, depending upon the sculpture of the figure itself, but most of the time I use it. Nothing is set in stone, but I find having a forward plan certainly helps me.

In this case, then, we will start with the skin. It’s the lowest layer we can see, and unless you are painting some sort of transparent alien, always will be. If you are looking to paint Mr Clear, by the way, you are on your own :tongue-out3:

Right, time to stop rambling…..

These are the paints I used….


I gave him two coats of basic skin tone to get a fairly solid colour to work with…..

Not the best picture I’m afraid, but you should get the idea. Don’t worry too much about overpainting, that will be sorted out as we go along. I also find most of the Vallejo flesh colours a bit yellow, but the following stages sort that out.

After this dried, I gave him some highlights using light flesh. This is pinker so gives him some warmer tones. Places to work on are the top of the knees and calfs, top of the fingers, upper parts of the hand, nose, cheekbones, ear tips, point of chin, forehead, top lip…..in fact, anything that looked white after priming…..
You then get this…..

…another crap picture LOL. Hopefully you can see where the yellow has been attenuated. Trust me, he’s quite small and hard to photograph, but its there.

Last stage is bring on the secret sauce……I know you’ve been waiting for it, so here it is…..

If you struggle with figures, and want to spice up the definition and contrast in your faces, then give it a whirl. It really is like alchemy!

you just blob it on and let it dry…..

You can see here (just about, blurry again) I’ve used a good blob on each skin area. I find this does several things. It defines the shadows. It ties the highlights together, smoothing the transitions, and it warms up the yellow tinged Vallejo flesh colours, curing the figure of jaundice.

After it dries, you get this……


As you can see, the shadows are quite gradual. This is shown best on the knees because the highlights on the head have been blown out by my crude photography.

That is the basic skin painting sorted out. For the next session I will start on the face detailing, including eyes if you are lucky…..

Caveat alert…..this works on small stuff, but anything above 1/35 will need proper painting because this will look too crude in larger scales.

Remember, this is all just my way of doing the job…..take what you want, modify it or discard it as needed…..there are no fixed rules…

Cheers all

Tim

[Tim Marlow]

Probably time for a bit about painting equipment as well…….this is the kit I currently use.


Wet palette…….this is the larger one from Redgrass games. The black colouration comes from the time of RA flares and group builds…..I didn’t use it for a while and being damp and closed, the sponge and paper developed a bad case of pin mould! The paper was discarded, and the sponge and container have been dilute beach washed and rinsed. They no no longer have the problem, but the staining remains….


Water pots. The small ones are used to rinse brushes and dilute paint, the large one is mostly for the cat to drink out of when she gets thirsty….I regularly change the small ones when painting, and leave the large one with fresh water at the end of every session…..


Here’s the large one in use…..


Other tools…..dry palette for washes etc. Tweezers to remove stray hairs from the paint job, which always seems to happen….and brush cleaner. This is the most important thing you can buy in my opinion. Many years of trying other things, such as washing up liquid and bar soap have convinced my of this. I get much more life out of my brushes after moving to this stuff.

Next interminable episode will be about brushes…..

Cheers all

Tim

[Andy the Sheep]

I almost missed this, Tim. Very interesting. I'll follow from the gallery.
Love the cat!

Andrea

[Mini Me]

Yo Tim, I have found that a few drops of Hydrogen Peroxide in the wet pallet keeps the mold away.......mine will sometimes sit for a couple of months with no ill effects or discoloring.....don't remember where I picked this tip up from, works the Bomb! :thumb2:

[Tim Marlow]

I almost missed this, Tim. Very interesting. I'll follow from the gallery.
Love the cat!

Andrea

Cheers Andy. She’s a good lass, except on the frequent occasions she brings in livestock :sad:

[Tim Marlow]

Yo Tim, I have found that a few drops of Hydrogen Peroxide in the wet pallet keeps the mold away.......mine will sometimes sit for a couple of months with no ill effects or discoloring.....don't remember where I picked this tip up from, works the Bomb! :thumb2:

Might be worth a try Rick. The sponges are supposed to be mould resistant……..proved that wrong didn’t I LOL….

[yak face]

Excellent SBS tim , very useful tips for us non figure painters , cheers tony

[Tim Marlow]

Excellent SBS tim , very useful tips for us non figure painters , cheers tony

No probs Tony. No need to be a non figure painter, it’s really are not that hard to get acceptable results, as I’m hoping to show.

[Tim Marlow]

OK, face details…..
These are not strictly necessary, but I think they add life, and once you are used to it, they don’t take very long…..

Mouth details -

The burn‘t cadmium red is used to paint the interior of the mouth. Even if the mouth isn’t open I put a small line down between the lips. It helps define the face. Remember to thin the paint well, only pick up a little, and test flow on your left thumbnail, or vice versa if you are a southpaw. If the paint doesn’t flow well off the brush on to the nail it won’t flow onto the model either. The thumb test will also unload the brush so you don’t flood paint off the bristles. The observant amongst you will notice that this breaks the inside out rule LOL…..if you do this first, the flesh wash will obliterate it…..

I then paint the bottom lip with brown rose. I don’t paint the top lip unless it is clearly sculpted, because it isn’t usually visible.

if you overpaint other areas while doing either of these, just tidy them up with the relevant colour, which should still be active on the wet palette.

I use a fine 2/O brush for this, and for other face details, and usually rinse between strokes because that size of brush is very prone to tip drying.

OK, most peoples’ bete noir next…..eyes…..

The eye socket should be clearly defined by the flesh wash……what you need is an oval shape inside that.

Here are the colours….

I use the ivory to paint the eyeballs. I find it flows better than pure white, and covers better as well. Again, 2/O brush, and well thinned paint, that you have tested flows properly……I also use that for teeth if they are sculpted (not in this case).
Once you have both eyeballs coloured in, you will probably need to tidy them up. That’s where the red leather comes in. It‘s a decent match for the flesh was so use it to cut the eyeballs back to shape and size if you need to.
Now the ticklish bit…..pupils. For this is use the black, again well thinned and checked for flow.
The cheat I use is this…..paint a thin line along the top of the eyeball to define it, then paint a fine vertical line down through the position of the pupils. This should leave you the whites either side. Any overpaint can be clipped back using either ivory or red leather. In effect you are painting a T shape centralised in the white of the eye.

Once you have done that he looks like this…..very enlarged and nowhere near as rough in real life……

Be aware he’s about five mm across the head…..but if I can do this, so can you…..take it slowly, keep the brush clean, thin your paint, and check for flow before putting the brush in the figure…..all mistakes can be corrected in seconds by overpaint and starting again. Keep the paint thin and you shouldn’t get a build up.

Last point, you can tell the sculptor isn’t a painter…..that right arm made the right eye a real beast to paint…..it gets in the way of the brush :smiling5:

As always, any questions just ask…..there are a lot of words here, and I’ll try to demonstrate in a different way if you like…..

[Tim Marlow]

Just realised, that one should have been about brushes…….sorry….

I have lots of brushes….almost as many as I have paint. look after them well and they last a long time…..


These are just the ones in use at the moment. I have a “reserve” stock on the shelf……..
Store them point downwards if you can, using the protective sleeves they come in. Any residual paint will then drain away from the ferrule and not damage the point. I think this has helped extend the life of my brushes, because even when they are quite worn I still find they point well.


These are both the same make and size of brush. The top one is unused, and the bottom one is about four years old…..getting to the end of its life, but still holding a point.


Just in case you think I’m telling porkies :tongue-out3:


Here are my current tools of the trade…..


Cotman brush used for mixing paint and dry brushing….
the other two are used exclusively for varnishing….there are others on the rack, flats and cheap synthetics, but these are my go-tos most of the time.



Workhorses…..Rosemary and Co series 93 sables and a couple of series 307 synthetics for rougher jobs. The number 2 set 93 doesn’t hold its point well when loaded, so doesn’t get used much. The number 4 is OK, but I probably wouldn’t repurchase series 93s above size 1 again.



As you can see, they all have pretty good tips…….if a brush doesn’t hold a point it will just frustrate you, so relegate it to the second division, for washes, drybrushing etc……

Best use brushes…


Raphael 8404 are the bees knees I think. Better than Series 7 W and N. As you can see they all have very sharp points. They are all at least a year old now, and are still in superb shape. The top three get regular use, but the finest is rarely used. They NEVER get used for dry brushing, stippling, or metallic paint. These things quickly age the brush, and kill the point. Very quickly! They are always moistened with clean water before being loaded. That stops the paint wicking up into the top of the brushes in the ferrule, which is the primary cause of splitting the point..

Just out of interest….all brushes are not equal when it comes to size…..


The top one is a number 4 R and C series 93 sable, the second is a Raphael 8404 number 1, and the bottom is a W and N series 7 number 1. As you can see they are all different……

Ive never seen the need for anything less than a 2/O sized brush, and to be honest, very rarely use anything below a size O brush. The most important thing I find is the sharpness of the brush tip, not the number of bristles. I could (and have done) paint an entire figure with the number 1 Raphael, eyes, lacework, and all. I just used the smaller brush on this guy because I could see the right eye was going to be awkward and the thinner ferrule would be easier to get in.

No hard and fast rules, use what brushes you like, but a good sharp point is pretty much essential for accurate work. Personally, unless you are a figure nerd like me, series 93 Rosemary and Co’s will more than cover your figure and model detail work painting needs, especially if you learn how to take care of them :thumb2:

[PaulinKendal]

After discovering (via your goodself, Tim) the joys of great quality brushes, I trashed my first Raphael 8404 in just a few months, because it was so enjoyable to use, I ignored the advice not to use it for drybrushing, for metallics or for inks.

I now have a batch of good quality synthetics that I use virtually all the time. My mantra now is: "What's the worst brush I can use for this job, that will still give me an acceptable finish?" - this means I only use best when they're absolutely required, not just because they're nice to use.

[Tim Marlow]

After discovering (via your goodself, Tim) the joys of great quality brushes, I trashed my first Raphael 8404 in just a few months, because it was so enjoyable to use, I ignored the advice not to use it for drybrushing, for metallics or for inks.

I now have a batch of good quality synthetics that I use virtually all the time. My mantra now is: "What's the worst brush I can use for this job, that will still give me an acceptable finish?" - this means I only use best when they're absolutely required, not just because they're nice to use.

Good mantra to have Paul.

[langy71]

Looking good so far Andy, those highlights really make the detail pop before any paint gets added..... it's good to see your quality control supervisor doing exactly the same as mine does when I put a pot of clean water on the bench, (I think he thinks he's checking that the contents are safe for me to use...lol)

I like the brush holder you use, what make it is ?

[Tim Marlow]

Looking good so far Andy, those highlights really make the detail pop before any paint gets added..... it's good to see your quality control supervisor doing exactly the same as mine does when I put a pot of clean water on the bench, (I think he thinks he's checking that the contents are safe for me to use...lol)

I like the brush holder you use, what make it is ?

Cheers Chris…….as to the moggy, her great aunty used to do that as well, only more refined. She used to dip her paw in and lick the water off……

Nice to see karma in action as well…..for ages I kept calling Andy Bob by mistake, and now you’ve called me Andy by mistake…..LOL…..

[langy71]

Cheers Chris…….as to the moggy, her great aunty used to do that as well, only more refined. She used to dip her paw in and lick the water off……

Nice to see karma in action as well…..for ages I kept calling Andy Bob by mistake, and now you’ve called me Andy by mistake…..LOL…..

Apologies Tim, been a long day ...