There are many miniature painting techniques to get your miniatures into colour and shine. I have painting with this particular miniature painting technique for a while already. Thought I share with everyone my method of painting miniatures.
Its actually highlighting in miniature painting. I call it a system of one base colour highlight, which I use only the base colour chosen, then darkening or lightening, mixing with only black or white paint only, no other colour of paint involved. I am gonna use Citadel Blood Red for a highlight on the Vampire Counts Black Coach curtain as an example. Usually I will take a small amount of Citadel Blood Red, Skull White and Chaos Black on the painting palette.
I started of with painting the curtain areas with Citadel Blood Red. Next, followed by a wash with Citadel Badab Black, focusing on the the groove areas. Once the wash is dry, then I begin the shading and highlighting process.
Mix Citadel Skull White and Blood Red on a equal portion, paint on the high area portion of the miniature.
Next, take Citadel Blood Red and paint over the mix of Skull White and Blood Red high area. You should be able to see that the high area portion of the miniature standing to stand out a little. The concept is like covering a light tone base with a base colour to create a brighter shade, which would feels like a highlight.
Dilute a little Citadel Blood Red and try to wash the edge of the shade to blend to the base colour. If the blending forms a hard edge blend, mix Citadel Blood Red and Chaos Black, and blend the dark base colour to the Citadel Blood Red.
While the area is still wet or sort, take a little Citadel Skull White and paint on the high area, followed by Citadel Blood Red over the White highlight. Blend the wet areas by adding or washing as necessary to form a smooth blend.
With this miniature painting technique, I don’t need to use other colour or such, just the selected base colour, along with a White and Black colour to highlight and shade. Before Games Workshops came up with their new wash, previously I always mix the base colour with black to darken the deep groove areas before going on to the next part of highlighting. With the wash, it save an extra steps and it does the job well as well.
But for light tone of base colour, Citadel Badab black wash does not really work well, usually I will use other colours to mix and blend as needed. Most of my miniatures are painted with this painting technique of one colour base system painting. But do test out some of the colour when mixing with black or white, as the outcome for certain colours does not turn out suitable. Now, to wash my brushes and more painting… Cheers!
