I have recently been revisiting my old no name air brush. I picked up a wide variety of Vallejo paints, primers, thinners, and washes so that I could paint my latest round of bust sculpts. It has been a trying time, to say the least. But as I progress through my eight recent builds I am finding a stable, and repeatable method to getting half way decent results.
I am working off of the following methodology. A flat black primer over the whole bust, followed by a grey primer that I spray top down for stark contrast high lights. Then I use a mid tone, straight from the bottle to cover the whole sculpture. I use a darker colour to then paint from the underside only. Then I use a 50/50 mix of mid tone to first highlight, spraying top down all over. Then the high light colour at 100%, top down only. Focus primarily on head shoulders, and ear tips, and maybe belly if my character is fat/barrel chested.
At this point I pick up a tooth brush and then fleck a deep red, blue and green paint all over the bust, avoiding armor if at all possible. Once dried, I go to my last 100% colour and knock those flecks back a tad. And then use my final highlight colour to brighten up the face and very tops of the shoulders only.
After this point it’s all brush painting for metallics, leather straps, skulls, and anything else that wasn’t skin tones.
I’m not actually finished with my Ogre royal guard yet, so I’ll have to cut it here. I should note I’m using craft paints that I have thinned with a Vallejo acrylic thinner. I wanted something a bit different to my regular green, brown, red or blue palettes. Looks nifty. I think. Still has a long way to go. Catch you around.
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 