Blending questions...

[Traulen]

Hello,

I have questions regarding blending.
I would like to give it a try but am not sure how to do it and I would not want to go in the wrong direction.

- I have read articles on blending and it seems that there are two ways of doing it:
1) having two colors near each other and melting the frontier line or
2) applying one color and painting on top of it with lighter and lighter (or darker and darker) colors.
What is the good (best) solution ?

If the solution is 1):
- Do you put a lot of water in your paint to make it take more time to dry or are you really quick ?
- Are your brush strokes directed along the separating line or perpendicular to it ?

If the solution is 2):
- Do you paint on top of the darkest color or the lightest one ?
- How many layers do you put ?

Thanks a lot to those who will take the time to answer and excuse me for my english (french people are not good at foreign languages...)

 

[Coyote]

I use method #2.

I generally go dark to light. Some people say light to dark, because dark covers well, but I find dark to light easier to control.

What I generally do is thin my paint so that it barely covers, then clean most of the paint off my brush, so it\'s damp, but not so that it leaves a pool of paint on the miniature.

By whiping the colour onto a papertowel, next to my previous colours, I\'m also checking to make sure I\'m using the right shade.

Anyway, then I paint in small and small areas with that colour. I create part of the transition using just that colour, since it is so thin that it isn\'t covering. Multiple layers cover better then one, so I can blend without mixing a tonne of different colours.


I\'ve never tried step #1, and assume it\'s better suited to large, smooth surfaces.

 

[Aschul]

I believe method one is normally called \"wet blending\" and the second method is called \"layering\". I definitely believe the layering is the easier method, so try starting with that. Generally, with either method the paint is watered down a lot to keep it nice and thin and often for the first method, a \"extender\" medium is added to keep the paint from drying too quickly. Vallejo makes one, also Liquitex Slo-Dri is pretty good. I would use the wet blending for large areas and the layering for smaller, precise areas like faces. As for the brush strokes...well, generally I believe along the dividing line, not perpendicular to it, but it\'s a judgement call while you\'re doing it. For the layering, I have heard as many as 9 layers being used for the same area. Generally the method I use is to paint a medium shade of the colour and then use a darker wash [of approximately the same colour] to fill in the shadows, then apply any highlights with lighter shades of the original colour. I hope this is of some help - remember it does take practice.