Monday, November 22, 2010

From the Desk: Speed Painting the Scrutator

I got a request to explain the painting process for Vindictus, and since I failed to get my latest "review" installment together, I'm replacing this week's normal review article with a quick overview of my speed painting technique for this latest model. First I want to share a little bit of my philosophies on speed painting.

1) Use techniques that bring out details quickly and easily. Washes and drybrushing are the most common. But some smaller controlled shading can go a long ways toward a finished product. And blacklining can really make things pop as well.
2) Make effective use of your time. Washes in particular are very quick to apply, but you have to account for drying time. Either work different areas of the model at the same time, or work multiple projects at the same time (including assembling the next thing to paint).
3) Think of speed painting as practice. I found that practicing speed painting techniques, but pushing myself to do just a little more quality than tabletop really helped develop my speed with more advanced techniques, particularly 2BB. And the reason for this was...
4) The end result still needs to have decent tabletop quality. This model was probably 1.5 hours of basecoating work, and 1.5 hours of detail work. It's definitely not my finest work, but I'm not at all ashamed to put it on the table.

Ok, enough of that. Here's what I actually did.
Step 1: Basecoat BLACK - When painting models with a lot of exposed metalics, I always prime black. The metals pop better when painted over a black base coat. If I prime white, I always end up basecoating black before applying metals.
Step 2: Silver metalics - First I heavy drybrush with GW Boltgun Metal then wash with GW Badab Black wash.
Step 3: Yellow metalics - Next I do a very heavy drybrush of GW Burnished Gold, then wash with VGC Sepia Ink, then a light drybrush of GW Shining Gold. (sometimes I also toss in some P3 Turquoise Ink into this step, but not for this particular model)
Step 4: Final metalics - Very light drybrush of GW Mithril Silver over all the metalics. Where necessary, I apply some specific point highlights using Vallejo Metalic Medium, and some specific point shadows with some thinned VGC Black.
[Note: At this point I'm done with all my drybrushing work.]
Step 5: Blacks - Basecoat P3 Coal Black, 2BB some VGC Black into the recesses, and then some thin highlights of P3 Trollblood Base.
Step 6: Reds - Basecoat GW Foundation Mechrite Red, then 2BB P3 Sanguine Base into the recesses, highlight with P3 Skorne Red, then a final highlight of P3 Khador Red Base.
Step 7: Finish basing and seal. That's all there was to it!

2 comments:

Aranan said...

Thanks for posting this, Scott. I've been "painting" for a few years now, but the amount of finished models I have to show for it is embarassingly low. I was starting to think I should adopt a speed painting method and not even an hour later, I checked my RSS feed to see you posting the (quite good looking) results of your own speed painting.

I've also been attempting to get the hang of the two brush blending technique. So far my results haven't been horrible, but I definitely need some practice. Maybe if I can focus on being a bit more speedy with the other parts, I can get more time to practice the 2BB.

For a comment, have you tried basecoating your yellow metallics with the same color as your silver metallics, but then following it up with a wash of sepia? I used this method for the bronze on my Ripjaws and it seems to have worked rather nicely. It might save you a bit of time.

Scott said...

Jake: You're very welcome! Thanks for asking for it. I'm thinking I may do a series of installments on speed painting techniques with step-by-step guides. 2BB definitely takes a while to get used to, but makes for a pretty fast technique once you get the hang of it.

I'll have to try out your sepia wash suggestion. Thanks!