Nathan's painting thought/question of the day

[nathaniel]

As I'm new to oils as a medium, I figured I'd start a thread where I post my thoughts and any questions that results from that day's painting session.

Today, I had some paint on a cloak that was nicely blended and then dried. Then I needed to continue the same colour on the other side of the model. I found that painting wet on dry where the unpainted section connected with the completed section was much harder than wet on wet.

I've also seen in some painting guides that people but down a base colour, do a shade and a highlight and then let it dry. Then they come back with one more deeper shade and brighter highlight. From what I gather you have to feather the paint to make it thinner and thinner to get a smooth transition.

I'm currently leaning towards doing everything that is a particular section/colour at once with wet on wet. I think oil paints will stay wet long enough that I won't have to worry about it drying on me if I have to do it over a couple days. And if so, I can get a medium to slow the drying further.

EDIT: I found this thread with a search about the different drying times of different pigments: http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31188

If anyone has any thoughts on 'wet on wet' vs 'wet on dry' or how to better make 'wet on dry' work, I'd love to hear them.

If this is the wrong forum for an ongoing thoughts/questions thread as I begin using oils as a new medium, let me know or notify a moderator and ask them to move it.

Thanks!

 

[nathaniel]

Another day, another painting session.

As for yesterday's issue with 'wet on dry,' I found the best way for me to deal with that is to pretend that it's 'wet on wet' and just make the same brush strokes. Then after that's done, I took a dry soft brush and feathered all the transitions with just the lightest of touches. The end result was I couldn't tell it wasn't wet on wet.

Today I found I need to think more about model assembly if i'm going to go with oils. Witch acrylics I find I can layer and wash even into tight spaces. With oils, the brush motions get more specific as far as pushing, blending and stippling go. My figure has a arm with a weapon that comes within a millimetre of a surface I want to stipple. What I should have done when assembling the figure was keep that arm separate until i've painted the cloth underneath. Then I could attach it, do the putty work and brush on gesso to spot prime the putty.

Hope someone finds that useful.

Until tomorrow. :awesome:

 

[nathaniel]

So I finished up the cloth on the figure I've been painting. And I've noticed I've got my blue gray colour on some of the surrounding areas.

Since I'm done with the blue gray, I'm not seeing any reason not to smooth the errant paint and remove as much as possible and put the figure in the drying box.

Do I then cover the remaining colour with a brush on primer like gesso (EDIT: acrylic gesso)? Or perhaps just titanium white? Then proceed to the next colour once that's dry.

While I've also read that thick covers thin and I could just correct the errors with a white paint that the oil has been soaked out of a bit on a card and then do the drying box thing to lock in the finished pigment.

A search of the forums here found one thread:
http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18953&highlight=mistakes

This has given me a new thing to try. Load a brush with thinner and try to remove the paint that's still wet. Looks like i'll want the brush damp, but not wet.

 

[Steve]

Gesso dries to be extremely brittle, and is prone to bubbles that dry as holes. If you have a method of applying it so it is safe it is of course the perfect tooth for paint. I gave up on it. If you use a spray primer just spray a bit into the cap of the can and you can paint it on with a brush.--

 

[nathaniel]

The idea of gesso bring brittle baffled me enough that I googled it. Turns out there are two kinds, acrylic and traditional. I'm using acrylic gesso, not traditional gesso. Dries smooth and flexible. The traditional is thought of as better for oil paints to go over, but everything seems to be working on this figure with the acrylic and I read lots of people basecoat with acrylic in the mid tone before painting with oils.

As for decanting a spray primer so I can paint it on-- excellent idea! I'll give that a try.

 

[megroot]

Nathan,
I thought that Gesso whas for canvas painting, not for metal or resin figures.
I spray my figures with a automotive primer and that works fine for me.
Then i undercoat with acrylic as close as the basecolor should been.
When it is dry i go over it with the oilpaint (oils soaked out on a indexcard) and a brush damped with little whitespirit.
After that i go wet in wet with the highlight and shading color. With a stipplle motion i fade the colors together because i want a smooth transition.
After that it goes into the drybox.
The next day i do the highlight and shading again but then wet on dry, again into the drybox.
The thirth day i do the extreme high and shading wet on dry.
Hope you can do something with it.

Marc

 

[nathaniel]

Thanks for the post, Megroot!

Acrylic Gesso has been used on white metal miniatures for a while. Vallejo has a brush on acrylic primer that is actually acrylic gesso, for example. Traditional Gesso is not appropriate whatsoever for the reasons Steve mentioned. I've never tried traditional myself.

I've been spraying with an automative primer and then touching up with acrylic gesso on any area deep in a recess or under a limb or something that doesn't get good primer coverage. When I can't spray, I just brush on acrylic gesso over the whole miniature. Here's an article from a miniature wargamer about it:

http://underthemountain.wordpress.com/gesso/

I still haven't tried soaking out my oil paints yet. I've read that here and there and will probably give it a try.

Is the main reason for drying between the highlights/shades to ensure that the previous work doesn't get messed up?

 

[nathaniel]

So I tried having the figure dry before moving on to my final shade and highlight. I'm glad I did. I'm still not sure what Marc's reasons are for doing it, but I was right that it might be a good form of protection for previous work that you're happy with. I put my last highlight on way, way too thick. Had I been painting wet on wet, my stippling (before I realized) would have ruined the previous blending. Instead, I was able to take a brush damp with thinner and remove the excess paint.

The cloth portion of the figure is done. The only part I'm not pleased with is the area directly under the arm/weapon that should have been attached after the fact. It's not something people are going to notice unless I point it out (as the limb is hiding it from view as well as the brush). It is a lesson for the future though.

 

[nathaniel]

I ended up not having a painting session because I was waiting for oil colours I bought off of eBay to arrive. All I had was the titanium white and Payne's grey I bought to try oils out on that one cloak.

I ended up getting an introductory set of Grumbacher's pre-tested oil colours (their artist grade oils) off of ebay for less than $25 after shipping. They finally arrived and it's time to paint the next colours.

So my thought of the day today is that if you're just starting out, definitely consider a introductory artist oils sets off of eBay. Just make sure you're getting the artist grade.

 

[nathaniel]

So I spent about an hour and a half trying to blend a 28mm miniature's forearm and hand to look like it was molten lava. Like this, but tiny and blended with oils rather than dryingbrushed with acrylics:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1302-hot-lava-bases

I found out that black goes a long, long way when blending. In my previous work with payne's grey, I never once put pure payne's grey on the figure. It was always mixed with some white first to be more a blue grey than a dark near black. So when I put on the ivory black like it was any other light highlight colour, I ended up turning the whole upper area to dark mud by the time I got the paint removed/smoothed out with the stippling brush.

I ended up removing all the paint with thinner and once the figure is dry, I'm going to give it another go. I've got about 20 or so miniatures that will have some part painted like it's glowing black rock like in the link above, so I think I've spent some valuable time learning what not to do.

 

[nathaniel]

So I spent a few hours painting since my afternoon plans got cancelled due to weather.

I was right that the black was overpowering everything and that I was putting on too much of it. What I also discovered was that while I want a gradient from white hot to black, that doesn't mean that white or black is present through all of the transitional colours.

My problem was that I was blending the darker colours too far into the gradient. Any amount of dark pigment mixed into the yellow in the deep recesses of the fire/ember greens it out and muddies the transition.

I think for this application I'm going to want to do the light colour transitions from white through red and then dry the paint before doing the dark colour transitions from red through black.

So the figure got stripped yet again. I'm really liking how with oils I can undo my mistakes.

Then I spent a while blending white to yellow to orange to red to brown to black on a piece of paper. I tried blends where white was tiny and black was huge. Areas of high contrast and rapid transition and areas of gradual transition.

The breakthrough came when I remembered something said by an artist. Paint what you see. If I want to get a good replication of something glowing white hot from internal heat, I should look at hot things. The hottest things typically have less red in them and more orange, yellow and white.

So it ended up being that my blends with high contrast and less red in them looked the most realistic. Once the figure dries again, I'll be giving it another go.

 

[nathaniel]

So I had some busy work days and didn't manage to paint with oils for the last couple of days.

I did however, spend a few moments doing more test blending for the fire effect. I've basically discovered that I don't really need any red at all. The yellow I have has the slightest hint of orange to it and looks like it will provide the hint of red that I need.

 

[Carlos69]

Hi Nathan,

I paint in oils,I work the base colour and the first round of high and low lights wet on wet,you can only do so much wet on wet.Next I add another round of high and low lights working wet on dry.I find it really starts sharpening up working wet on dry adding more contrast each round... I do this three or four times over a couple of weeks.You would never be able to get a real tight sharp look in one wet on wet session. If you struggle blending wet on dry,add a tiny drop of liquin or Linseed oil,may cause it to dry shiny but I
Allways dullcote once complete so not a problem.Also working wet on dry you can add seams etc and fine lining in with thinned oils which are superb for this,the beauty is you can touch up or cut the lining back with white spirit without harming the underlying dry oil paint.

Oil paint rocks ! :lol:

Carlos

 

[nathaniel]

The only two techniques I've been doing so far have been the wet on wet blending and some wet on dry feathering. I just got a 40% off coupon for a local art store from their booth at a local figure/comic convention so I'll probably grab some liquin or another appropriate medium to help with the feathering.

I always dullcote as well as I paint primarily for miniature wargaming and you have to handle the figures during the course of the game.

I have yet to try thinned oils for detail lines. I really, really like the idea of removing mistakes with thinner without damaging the underlying paint job.