How do YOU blend?

[elouchard]

I wet blend with thin layers. Works with some kinds of paints and not others. It\'s the same as layering as you guys are calling it but the layers get blended with small brushstrokes before the next one is put down.

This works the best with paints in some sort of medium or has extender added. I get the best results with gel paints.

Eric

 

[Grizzix]

hi. my name is Grizzix, and im a layerholic. i never have gotten the hang of blending. layering,while i still need work, is far easier for the novice painter to pick up.

 

[Valander]

Originally posted by supervike
I agree with yrret.....I blend poorly.

I was trying layering but starting with my darkest shade color and working everything up with progressively lighter shades.

I think I am going to switch over to Valenders \"tweening\" it makes good sence, and gives you visual clues of the shades to come. Plus it really is fun to say.

It is absolutely a blast to say! Tweening!

Plus, one of the advantages I\'ve discovered about it is that you can work on it a bit at a time. You can do the base color one day, a couple of hilights later, a couple of shadows a week later, and eventually get around to doing the tweens.

Of course, for this kind of extended painting, a wet-pallete is absolutely essential, but it\'s pretty much the same requirement for layers and wet-blending, anyway.

 

[Cerridwyn1st]

Another Thierry Fan

Originally posted by Valander
For me, I tried the wet-blending thing, and I got ok with it, but it\'s really, really time consuming, and takes a lot of patience. I pretty much decided I could get similar effects, with much less headaches, just doing a bunch of layers.

Recently, though, I\'ve started playing with a technique that I like to call \"tweening.\" Partly because it\'s such a fun word, and partly because it concentrates on doing blocks of the basic colors, shadows, and highlights, and then working the areas in between them to make them smooth (a lot of computer animators call this process \"tweening\").

Check out this article on PlanetFigure for a really good discussion on it.

Apparently, Theirry (a former Rackham painter, goes by Arkaal here on CMON) uses this technique as well. I\'m definitely nowhere near his level yet, but my initial work with this technique has been really encouraging, and it\'s definitely something I\'m gonna spend more time on.

Ooh, another Thierry fan! How green will you get, Val, if I tell you I OWN a couple of Hussers? They are only familiars, mind you, but I\'m darned happy to have them all the same. They are in my gallery, if you care to take a look.

Mostly I layer. I will start with a base of my darkest color and work my way up from that.

For NMM on a larger surface, it\'s straight out of Thierry\'s book, which for me ends up being layering to beging with and a little wet blending on the final transitions.

I guess it would be safe to say I use whatever I can get to work at the time I\'m trying to do it.

 

[Valander]

Originally posted by Cerridwyn1st
Ooh, another Thierry fan! How green will you get, Val, if I tell you I OWN a couple of Hussers? They are only familiars, mind you, but I\'m darned happy to have them all the same. They are in my gallery, if you care to take a look.

Mostly I layer. I will start with a base of my darkest color and work my way up from that.

For NMM on a larger surface, it\'s straight out of Thierry\'s book, which for me ends up being layering to beging with and a little wet blending on the final transitions.

I guess it would be safe to say I use whatever I can get to work at the time I\'m trying to do it.

Yeah, Thierry\'s freaking amazing, and I\'ve found those posts over on the English Confrontation forum incredibly helpful.

I\'d love to see some of his stuff in person, but being a poor college student, I definitely can\'t afford bidding on any of his stuff.

I recently tried using this tweening thing on some NMM, using the colors suggested by Thierry for steel, and all I can say is:

1. It\'s the best damn NMM I\'ve ever done.
2. It took about 1/3 of the time that some of my earlier, crappier attempts took.

 

[freakinacage]

damn - couldn\'t load up that tweening article.

i generally layer and use wahes to smooth the transition. but it generally looks crap. i\'ve been trying something lately that seems to work well - it\'s a mix of drybrushing and layering. i use really watered down paint to drybrush the main areas and touch up the smaller stuff with a little layering. as long as the paint is thin for the drybrushing, it looks quite smooth and a wash will make it look ok.

i read something (by simon bradley i think) about layering but once a layer is finished, wet the brush and thin out the edges (a sort of feathering technique) to smooth the transition. haven\'t tried it but will.

as for blending did it once and it looked really good. dunno what i did because i can\'t do it now for the life of me. need a wet pallette and a good extendor i think

 

[DragonPaint]

My blending approach use multiple layers of semi-transparent paint.
Starting from a dark base (usually black) I paint all the area with the darkest color of the blending (I\'ll take the reds from this miniature as reference http://www.coolminiornot.com/24367 - the first color was Vallejo red 926)
Then I select the lighter color of the blending (Vallejo scarlet 817) and mix it 50/50 with the darker color.
This will be my medium tone and I start to add water to diluite it as much as I can.
Usually I paint two or three layers with this mix insisting on the parts I want to highlight.
Then I repeat the same thing using the lighter color diluited for two layers.

Adding semi transparent layers of the same color will build the highlight without hard transitions and the numbers of layers required is lower than the classic layer painting.

I have nothiced that my approach works really well with Vallejo colors and not so well with GW paints.

Ok, the description was confusing enough?

Paolo

P.S.
can I have some more details/reference about Thierry\'s books?
His technique sounds really interesting.

 

[Horak89]

Originally posted by Koradhil
Ask GOATMAN.....

He is tha Real Blending Master

Greetz Koradhil

pshhhhh! ask cyril or bobbywong!

 

[Cerridwyn1st]

Originally posted by Valander

Originally posted by Cerridwyn1st
Ooh, another Thierry fan! How green will you get, Val, if I tell you I OWN a couple of Hussers? They are only familiars, mind you, but I\'m darned happy to have them all the same. They are in my gallery, if you care to take a look.

Mostly I layer. I will start with a base of my darkest color and work my way up from that.

For NMM on a larger surface, it\'s straight out of Thierry\'s book, which for me ends up being layering to beging with and a little wet blending on the final transitions.

I guess it would be safe to say I use whatever I can get to work at the time I\'m trying to do it.

Yeah, Thierry\'s freaking amazing, and I\'ve found those posts over on the English Confrontation forum incredibly helpful.

I\'d love to see some of his stuff in person, but being a poor college student, I definitely can\'t afford bidding on any of his stuff.

I recently tried using this tweening thing on some NMM, using the colors suggested by Thierry for steel, and all I can say is:

1. It\'s the best damn NMM I\'ve ever done.
2. It took about 1/3 of the time that some of my earlier, crappier attempts took.

I had the same experience. I was very frustrated after my first attempt at NMM. It took forever and still looked, well, mediocre. I tried the method Thierry showed, and not only did it look great, it was very quick. I was able to get a decent looking sword in a single sitting, as opposed to futzing with it for days, as I did with my first attempt.

By the way, I didn\'t bid on the pieces I have. They were commission work. PM Thierry via the Confrontation board to find out his availability and to negotiate a purchase.

I must warn you - when I talked to him last month, he was booked for commissions through August.

 

[Valander]

Originally posted by freakinacage
damn - couldn\'t load up that tweening article.

Looks like they moved the page somewhere.

I did find a link to the article as a PDF, though. Saved this puppy to my hard drive (it\'s better, actually--has bigger pics).

Link: http://www.planetfigure.com/articles/jaume_face_eng.pdf