Freehand

[Aceldamor]

I\'ve been playin\' around with freehand art and I\'ve got to tell ya.....I SUCK!! I look at this site and see incredible freehand work on cloaks and armor and whatnot but I can\'t even come close!!!

I was just wondering if anyone would be so kind as to share some insight on how you get such great looking freehand work. I know practice is the main thing, but any tips on like straight or crisp lines would be nice....

Any advice for a newbie??

 

[Dragonsreach]

Thin paint , fine brush, control your breathing and tidy up afterwards.
That\'s the basics. but I\'ve yet to master some of the more intricate designs.

 

[Banshee]

I think that at least you can practice, is more, a question of talent...some people have talent to draw so is easier for these people to make a good freehand picture..
but it is only an opinion.
Anyway, I think is a work based of drawing and correcting...you made the general form of the draw and then you add shadows,lights, different effects..

excuse me for my bad english..it is difficult to me to express myself correctly in english..

 

[MaestroOfMayhem]

Paint a mini free hand is very hard. Unlike freehand on a picture or any thing else, you have to worry about coverage, texture and shading on a very small scale. There isn\'t 1 tip anyone can give you, the best bet is always exerience. It come quicker to people who work at it and have a natural talent. I am attempting some free hand \'swirls\' on some white bands I put on the bottom of my fusilers robes and I want to paint it all at the same time. I have to get into the freehand mode, it is hard to do so I only want to do it once. Sounds weird but if I don\'t prep or get the right music to listen to I shake and ruin the whole thing.

 

[Kith]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but hand shake can simply be taken care of by bracing your hands against a surface, or each other.

<end hijack>

For freehand, I like to put together ultra thin paints and brush on rough outlines of what I want over the surface of an object, then I paint in the rough areas of the insides with the appropriate colors and work my way outwards piece by piece. I also tend to blackline or at least use darker shades to give definition, but I\'m still getting better at it.

 

[DennisMech]

Free hand is essentially just normal, non-mini painting on a very small scale. I picked it up easily on my first try, because I do a fair amount of art not having to do with minis. To block in certain things, I first do a preliminary scetch on a peice of paper, and then sometimes scetch it out on the mini with a pencil. If you need practice, draw the general shape of the surface on some paper, and do some practice ones.

 

[farseerlum]

if you look closely at johnny ks\' inquisitor, you will see some nice freehand. the thing of it is. there are about three major lines then a bit of spotting. and viola!

think very basic and use color theory to \"make up\" the rest.

 

[Dragonsreach]

farseerlum:

if you look closely at johnny ks\' inquisitor, you will see some nice freehand. the thing of it is. there are about three major lines then a bit of spotting. and viola!

True but he makes it look so good. Even if I don\'t like the mini it\'s still a belting paintjob.

 

[tooshy]

Hmmm....

the trouble with freehand is.......if you are crap with a pencil and paper, then you are crap at freehand. At least that\'s what I find Again, lacking in any talent on the art front, I find it difficult to give an impression of something, so I tend to try and paint everything literally and it looks awful. Does that make sense? It\'s kinda hard to explain - but I know what I mean!

 

[farseerlum]

True but he makes it look so good. Even if I don\'t like the mini it\'s still a belting paintjob.

certainly is.
but the real beauty for me is the elegant simplicity.

 

[MaestroOfMayhem]

Originally posted by tooshy
the trouble with freehand is.......if you are crap with a pencil and paper, then you are crap at freehand. At least that\'s what I find Again, lacking in any talent on the art front, I find it difficult to give an impression of something, so I tend to try and paint everything literally and it looks awful. Does that make sense? It\'s kinda hard to explain - but I know what I mean!

I am pretty bad at drawing, I\'m improving but I\'m not the greatest. I think a pencil and a brush are 2 totally different things. I can do some nice pastel and brush work, but I usually need helping with a sketch. Brushes are alot different for some peoples, I geuss. Just a different medium.

 

[Garyo]

Stop this I can\'t draw crap! Go get this book. Anyone and I mean anyone can learn to draw. Just like mini painting it\'s technique and practice. So quit you\'re whining and get practicing.

Garyo

 

[DennisMech]

You tell \'em Garyo!

I just spent the day painting. I use mini paints for it, because that\'s what i have at hand, and that\'s what I\'m used to. I use methods of painting that I\'ve learnt from mini painting too. So you see, it\'s all linked. I\'m so tired of people looking at my drawings and my (coming soon) webcomic, and saying \"I can\'t draw at all.\" that kind of attitude will get them nowhere!

 

[Impernouncable]

Not really a contribution per se, but there are some strong similarities between the techniques used for freehand work on minis and the work of Flemish renaissance artists like Jan Van Eyck. They were using oils or tempra rather than acrylic, but the scale and minutae of the details are of a similar quality. You might want to read up on the subject.

 

[Valander]

Use decals to start!

To help get started in freehand painting, you might find it useful to start with decals.

After getting them on (which is an issue in itself...), use them as a \"template\" for your freehand work. Start adding shading and hilight right on top of the decal.

After you\'ve done a few of these, you\'ll have a feel for how to do hilights and shading for designs. When you feel comfortable with that, try blacklining your own design (or brown, or whatever the darkest color), and hilight it just like you did with the decals.

This is basically the same idea of learning how to draw by first doing tracings. It\'s kind of a crutch, but if you\'re in a hurry, it can definitely pay off with some practice.

 

[Jericho]

Originally posted by Garyo
Stop this I can\'t draw crap! Go get this book. Anyone and I mean anyone can learn to draw. Just like mini painting it\'s technique and practice. So quit you\'re whining and get practicing.

Garyo

Funny you should mention the revised version, since I recently started thumbing through the 20 year old copy I found in the basement a while ago Haven\'t done too much with it yet, but I plan to since my paper and pencil skills have dropped a lot in the last couple years, I\'ve really stopped sketching in favor of mini painting and that lack of depth is starting to bite me in the ass when it comes to planning complex conversions and sketching out freehand designs to try on minis

 

[Bendy]

What you could try is drawing the pattern/picture you want with a sharp pencil first and a black background then use a white pencil. The pencil should\'nt show through and it should help you get a neater result. its the same idea as drawing a picture then painting it.

Keep to the same principles of painting and it should be fine ie. do one area and then go to the next, highlight in the direction of the light, etc.

Hope this helps.

 

[Horak89]

its the eziest when u use the smallest brush possible, and u need a lot of patience

 

[Jericho]

Actually I don\'t try to use the smallest brushes possible when doing freehand... in my experience it can be a lot easier keeping the fine tip on a detail brush compared to keeping a point on a fine detail brush. If you can keep that tip in good shape, you can do pretty much the same stuff as the smaller brush size.

 

[Taer]

I have super old brushes that over the years have become needle thin and don\'t lose their shape which I use for my freehand; Should they ever die on me I think I will give up painting!