How much do you water down when you do shading?

[MarcusMRB]

Hello all,

I've scoured all of the PP faction books, and they always say "shade using _____ color..."

The colors are obviously thinned to a certain consistency - they have a gradual gradient, not just solid stark lines. The question is, how much do you think them? A wash consistency (4 parts mix med, 3 parts water, 1 part paint)? What I was doing was approx 1 part paint to 8 parts water and doing extremely thin layers, but I grew tired of spending 10 hours to paint one section of armor I'm specifically referencing warjacks - such as around rivets, as the light goes down into shadowy areas, etc (in between muscles on an arm, for example, aren't hard to figure out). Thanks guys!

[PG_Ghool]

You shade using Two-brush blending. So, you're not thinning it to a wash consistency at all. You paint the shade on, and push and pull the paint to make a smooth gradient.
Part 2 is found Here, where I demonstrate on the miniature.

[MarcusMRB]

Those videos helped me a TON. I just did a warjack and it is coming along brilliantly - for shading. I'm messing up the highlights! So on a Khador Warjack, I did the shading down to his head REALLY well. But towards the top of his shoulder, I'm trying to do a highlight of traitor green (colors below are a darker hunter/forest green). It 1) leaves rings and 2) I end up having little blobs of paint that I push around =( What am I doing wrong?

[HeadHunter]

Both issues sound like they're related to improper paint consistency. You don't need to thin the paint too much, but you don't want to use it straight out of the pot, either.

[Blue Claw]

Sounds like you were talking about juicing which is described here http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpain...p?t=49&start=0 though you may have had it to too thin.
Try just scaling back on the water on a test model till you find a compromise of quality vs time investment. I personally love this method.
On quick work I still use this method, but done with a more opaque paint in a thin wash consistency '1 paint - 8 matte medium - 6 water' I find this to be super forgiving and gives pretty good results quickly.

[MarcusMRB]

I think I'm using too much paint. I end up having to swish around for forever for the paint to dissipate and then invariably have to go back and reclaim the original color. It's much more difficult for me to do h/l rather than shading, that's for sure. I did 2 models - my own take on the 5th legion below, and a cygnar. The cygnar came out so bad I won't even show it. I may be spending too much time working the paint instead of just swishing quickly and leaving it...

[PG_ratch]

I applaud you on your efforts and attempts.
unfortunately i have no $.02 on the matter. i dont shade at all.
I Barely highlight for that matter >.>
i have a fairly simple Tabletop paint Scheme that works great and gets me my unique army i want =]

[MarcusMRB]

I probably won't continue shading this way for much longer. I don't find the effort to be worth it. I did an experiment with my wife last night. I showed it to her up close and she says, "Cool!" Then I put it on the kitchen counter about 2' away and I said, "can you see the shading?" She said, "Nope, not at all." I then busted out my Ironclad that I painted like the tutorial DVD (the more GW style painting) and I said, "Can you see this?" And she said, "Yep! I like that way better."

[HeadHunter]

I do most of my shading and highlighting manually, but I do use washes to catch additional details (beats trying to blackline stuff!) and glazes to unify the finish so that the highlights don't look chalky or out of place.

[PPS_Meg]

It's ok to have gone a little overboard with shading using 2 brush blending. Reclaiming the baescoat is a step that I still do. Sometimes shading or even highlighting can get a little over zealous and you have to go back and lay down a little bit of the basecoat. Not a huge deal.

We only water down P3s a little bit and use 2 brush blending. It really does make things go faster if you can get comfortable using it. It does take some time to figure out how it works but once you do, you won't want to paint any other way. I rarely use glazes or lots of thin coats of paint any more. Still on some surfaces but 2 brush blending is my main technique.

[HeadHunter]

That's what I tend to do after my initial ink wash. Basecoat, ink wash, fix the basecoat. That lets me accentuate panel lines, rivets, and other small details without having to get in there with a fine brush - and it leaves the deep shade in areas that might likewise be hard to reach. Surface shading is better done by blending, I agree. I've never been one for many thin coats of paint either - I'm not nearly patient enough.

You're a professional and you don't often do it - that's good enough for me.

[Mod_Plarzoid]

I water paint down just a little bit - often my goal is simply to help it to stay wet on the brush longer.

Also, when painting colors I *know* will need several coats, I thin it some to help it not glop all over the place (whites, yellows and reds mostly). I do 1 drop water to three brushfulls of paint, and that lets me put down a liberal coat of paint without fear of destroying detail.

[Blue Claw]

Just to give an example of what I was talking about and how Khador looks with it, here is one of mine: http://privateerpressforums.com/show...y+fresh+khador
You can see some WiP shots down the page showing the stages it goes through.

[HeadHunter]

I generally run my paints just a little thinner - but it's as much for flow as it is for protecting surface detail. If I'm seeing brush marks, I know it's not thin enough. If I've got a lot of bubbles or there's just no apparent coverage... well, that's too thin. I usually use a drop of AV thinner for every 2 drops of paint, but I have recently discovered that this sometimes leaves the paint "sticky" and it doesn't always behave - so I'll add in just a little water.

I suppose if I painted solely with P3, I'd probably just use water to thin - apparently, that works better with liquid pigments than with the other lines, am I correct?