Wet blending - HELP?

[Furyhound]

I started painting the gorgon, what can I tell you, it sucks.
I am quite a good painter, I can create high table top quality, but I am one of those who likes display minis so I wanted to take this a few steps further. I started with feathering but after discovering wet blending is the method GD winners use, I sought after that.
I think I don\'t understand the method (After I read every article possible to me about it)

Let\'s take this one step at a time, we\'ll go through this together and find out what I missed:

Step 1) I basecoat the model. Let\'s take a simple example. Basecoat of chaos black and dark angels green.

Step 2) I use 1 part the same mix dilluted with water and with my other brush I use the green only dilluted with water.
Here is the first problem, if I mix 1:1 pigment and water, it\'s smooth but turns hard on the model and very unblendy\'.
1:2 is hard to create although its a good mix. Usually water runs everywhere even if I wiped the brush off.
1:3-1:5 is a total mess, the model swims inside the pool that\'s created.

Let\'s say I reached step 3) There is not much space to create another layer, since blending the model demands both a line of the highlight and of the color which served as a highlight earlier. I suddenly find myself already on the extreme edges.

Step 4) There is no space at all for the blend. So I feather the last layer.

The final result: Too strong highlights on dark surfaces and light surfaces get a too contrasted model, it\'s horrifying and ugly.
Man, my heavily pigmented, simple layered models look better than the nightmarish results I achieve with wet blending. The method is fun but the results are disastrous.
So where did i go wrong?
Could you create your own view of how the steps should be done?

 

[Avelorn]

Almost no of the GD winners I know of is using wet-blending for the majority of their minis so don\'t worry about that.

It demands highlevels of brush control to work properly so if you still want to try it out.. start with large flat surfaces, like a dreadnought.

This is the best tutorial I\'ve found on the technique http://www.maxpaint.de/kb.php?mode=article&k=9&page_num=1

The most important thing is to stop at the right moment.. and to be ABSOLUTELY sure that everything is entirely dry before applying another layer. Try using a hairdryer to speed up the process. A dryingtime retarder is a really good tool. Like W&N \"Blending medium\" or Liquitex \"slo-dri\" fluid retarder.

And it takes some time to master.. but when you do it saves you a lot of painting time, and that\'s the greatest advantage of the technique. Apart from the smooth finish of course.

 

[Furyhound]

So feathering is the method they use?
If not, then what is?
Do you know which method the top ten artists (At least some of them) use?

If it\'s feathering, then two things I don\'t understand about it and they are -
1) When you pull the bright color into the recesses, a tiny amount of colored water flows into them too so at the most shadowy part Iv\'e got a little colored area.
2) Sometimes when I apply the pigment and start drawing the water, then it like \"breaks\" and leaves a very thin line of pigment in the middle of the smooth toning...

 

[generulpoleaxe]

furyhound, keep your paint thin and just do layers.

with practice it become smooth, if you find it\'s not quite smooth enough just highlit two stages further and then use a glaze to help blend the layers together.

once you have these techniques down you can then work on feathering and layering with translucent layers.

the darksun painting guide is quite good for bits of advice like this.

the only other sugestion i have is to find a painter within an ok travelling distance and some a one to one painting tuition.
most painters will be more than happy to do this free of charge.

remember, some patience and a lot of trial and error practice will pay big dividends.

 

[Spacemunkie]

Seriously, wet blending is mostly a waste of time with acrylics. You can put all sorts of shit in your paint to stop it drying so quick, but it makes it taste bad!

Put your highlights on the raised areas, then use a damp brush to fade the edges - I simply lick the paint off the brush and use it like that. Make sure you don\'t overload the brush - paint shouldn\'t pool on the mini. Work quickly. Don\'t overwork the paint. Apply lots of layers.

Practice!

 

[Wren]

I\'m copying this over from a reply I wrote on the Reaper forums a while back, my apologies if anyone has a deja vu reading it:

Marike Reimer is the queen of the wet blend, if you have the chance to take a class with her, jump on it. She also wrote an article for an issue of a magazine called Undefeated. The magazine didn\'t do very well, so you might still find backissues in game stores, certainly they\'re still available online. I can find the issue number if anyone wants it. This technique again starts with painting the midtone colour in. Then roughly paint in the shadow areas where you want them in your darkest colour. Take your brush and dip it in your midtone colour so the paint goes at least halfway up the brush. Then dip the tip of the brush into your shadow colour. So you should have a two-tone brush end, with half shadow, half midtone. And a two tone area of your mini where you painted the edge of your shadows. Lay the brush against that so the lines match (so hold the mini so the line between your shadow and midtone is vertical and hold the brush horizontal). Drag the brush down along the line. If all has gone well, you should see a smooth transition between the two colours. Depending on the translucency of the colours in question, you may need to let it dry and do another pass or two. This technique works best in larger areas, and from what Marike said, she tends to do it most for shadows. She uses the layering technique on small areas and for many highlights.

From here forward is not copied.

I don\'t know if EricJ is technically in the top 10, but if he isn\'t, he\'s not far off. He has a tutorial on his techniques up at Wyrd Miniatures. I would venture a guess that most of the top painters use the same layering/glazing techniques that a lot of other painters do, just with more skill or practice. With thinned paint and good brush control you can achieve an excellent visual blend (aka your eye sees a blend but it\'s not a physical blend of paint as in wet blending or oil painting) using acrylics and layering. There\'s an article from Vallejo paint that demonstrates this with good examples and suggests exercises you can use to practice the technique.

I have found NMM and gray scales to be the hardest for this, so if that\'s what you\'re trying high quality layering OR wet blending on, I\'d humbly suggest starting with skin, cloth or another lower contrast and more coloured item.

 

[Furyhound]

Thanks a million!
The article by EricJ just made me realize some important issues that Iv\'e missed, I didn\'t understand it all but with time I\'ll get better.

By the way, top 10 or not, Eric is one of my most favoured artists

 

[Furyhound]

Oh and one more important question:
Is there supposed to be a \"mist\" on the area I\'m working on in the first layer?

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
Seriously, wet blending is mostly a waste of time with acrylics.

I beg to differ! I use it a lot! It\'s my favoured method of applying basic shading and highlighting on big areas of cloth (like capes, coats, skirts etc.). I then go on and add extra highlighting with thin, transparent layers.

Wet blending is not the easiest thing to learn, though. It takes a lot of brush (and paint) control and to get it smooth you need a lot of practice. It\'s also a technique that is almost impossible to describe in words other than in very general terms.

 

[Wren]

Originally posted by Furyhound
Oh and one more important question:
Is there supposed to be a \"mist\" on the area I\'m working on in the first layer?

Hm... I\'m having trouble visualizing this, is there any chance you could snap a photo or expand on the description of what\'s happening?

Oh, and a note I forgot about wet blending - Marike suggests using an old crappy brush, not your finest sable, as the sideways motion is hard on the brush.

 

[penguin]

I simply applythree to four colours keeping them wet. I would start with black, wash in Dark Angels Green, then highlight with Goblin Green all in one minute, then tidy it up by layering over with Dark Angels Green to bring it all together. It takes practice to get an OK result with that method (and it involves control and intuition as well as just slapping paint on), but it works ok for me You can see that method on the trousers of my ogre.

Hope that helps and keep practising!

~Bill

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by Wren
Oh, and a note I forgot about wet blending - Marike suggests using an old crappy brush, not your finest sable, as the sideways motion is hard on the brush.

There\'s different versions of wet-blending, apparently. I never move the brush sideways when I use my version of wet-blending.

Basically what I do is the following (I use shading as an example, but it\'s basically the same with highlighting):

- Paint the base coat (a mid-tone of the colour I\'m currently using)
- Make sure the brush is moist with the base colour paint
- Dip the point of the brush into your shading colour
- Start at the darkest part of the area you\'re painting and draw the brush in the direction where the transition should be
- As the darker paint runs out it will mix with the base colour and soon you\'ll have only base colour on your brush
- The transition should now be completely smooth (if you\'ve practiced this enough

The method requires a lot of intuiton and knowledge about the properties of the paints you use and also brush control. Once you\'ve nailed that, it\'s incredibly fast.

 

[Spacemunkie]

Notice how I said \'mostly\'!

You can get exactly the same effect wet on dry. All depends how you want to work.

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
Notice how I said \'mostly\'!

You can get exactly the same effect wet on dry. All depends how you want to work.

I noticed! I just had to object since the very reason why I like wet-blending is because it\'s fast. (Although, if you take the years and years I\'ve spent learning it, when I didn\'t know any other way, into the equation it might not be that fast... )

 

[Wren]

I meant to come back to this a while ago and got distracted, sorry. In thinking about your original question, it sounds like your difficulty currently is more to do with working with thinned paint than anything else. It can be a difficult transition if you\'ve been painting for a while. There\'s some excellent advice in this thread, and there\'s also a nice article here. The vallejo article I linked to earlier also has some tips on working with thinned paint. That article suggests wicking your brush against something like a damp T-shirt. I used paper towel/napkins for a long time. Lately I wipe the majority off against the side of my palette, then brush briefly across a page of newspaper, then test consistency against my thumb. Brushes can hold a lot more paint than you\'d think, particularly if you\'re using natural hair brushes.