Figure painting. Any tips for me? :)

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Stefan290790

Guest
Hey everyone! I been doing models for a while now but recently I have gotten into doing military figures. I am currently making the Tamiya US Armoured Troops Vietnam War 1/35 scale with 5 soldiers which I picked up for $8 AUS which is a bargain!!!!

I saw a great thread on putting shadows by thinning some paint (darker paint than the uniform colour) in the creases of the uniform and I must say looks great! I been practicing and would like to ask a simple question.

Here are the troops

http://www.modellbau-koenig.de/catalog/images/35117.JPG

Here are the paints I am using

Tamiya Color - Acrylic Paint

I used a Tar colour (another brand) for shadows. I admit I accidentally applied a bit too much of it in some areas and need to fix this but in photos the tar colour looks too dark but in person it looks better but I am not 100% sure.

For the uniform I used a combination of XF-49 Khaki and XF-61 Dark Green and it came out a dark khaki green (much darker than the box). I am not sure if I should use black for the shadows cause of the dark colours already or a dark green.

Any help, advice and tips would be appreciated!

Also I am having trouble doing the eyes!!!!!!!!!! 1/35 is such a small scale!

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Fenlander

Guest
Not really a good figure painter but there are some very good threads on here by people who are. One rule I have found is to get the correct uniform colour and then add a very small amount of very light grey to lighten it up. White is too strong, the idea is to get what would be the highlight colour, and paint the uniform with that.. Then with the same base colour, add a very small amount of darker grey, and I mean very small, to get the shadow colour. Thin this down to a very watery wash and paint it all over the uniform so that it gathers in the folds. On 1:48 figures I just do this with a dark wash, near black.

I personally do not think the eyes should be done on 1:35, certainly not on 1:48 as you would not be able to see them at that size. To see what I mean, hold out a 1:35 figure at arms length and then get someone to walk away from you until they are about the same size as the figure, you will see that the eyes, if distinguishable will be shadows, you will not see the white of the eye or the pupil. For the faces and hands, I do a basic light flesh with a very thin brownish wash to hit the shadows.

Once you have the highlights and shadows done, paint any belts or equipment and then along the lines of belts or flaps on bags, run a pin wash of near black to give depth to the shadow at this point. A pin wash is where the wash only runs along the line of a seam or belt, not all over like the original shadow wash.
 
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Stefan290790

Guest
Thank you for the advice! I found a great article on painting figures just today and it mentions what you said about mixing the base colour with a lighter colour (grey). If the base colour is dark, mix light grey but if it is a light base colour would you mix a dark grey?
 
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Fenlander

Guest
I would personally go for the darkest colour as your base colour, i.e. get the flesh tone to be the shadow tone simply because it is easier to lighten than darken if you are not going to use a wash. However, you have to remember that shadow areas are often effected by the ambient light, more so than highlight areas. This being the case, shadow on large scale figure flesh are often tinted with purples and such. Sounds wrong but it looks right.

I always tend to use a warm wash, i.e. brown tinged, to create the shadows which may be the way to go when darkening a skin tone for painting. Too much grey in the shadow cast of a face may make them look a little ill to say the least.

In 1:35 and certainly 1:48, this is too small for such subtleties I believe, though I am sure some will disagree with me. I would suggest getting a spare figure and trying out different techniques on it to get the effect you want. remember that when painting and putting together things like this you see them so close up. Once completed, it is unlikely that anyone will see them that close again other than in photographs which always show models too close.

Work at getting the effect you want as seen from a normal viewing distance and you will save yourself a lot of heartache.
 
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