Dear all !
Over here in the Bavarian Army Museum at Audi-Town Ingolstadt there is an annual contest on figure painting
called "Duke of Bavaria" (Napoleon I made the Wittelsbachers kings not until 1806...).
They show figures painted by masters a la Sheperd Paine , too.
It is very revealing to see those live and one literally falls to one's knees...
The most important thing in painting to modelers is the re-creation of texture. In our digitalized world dozens of people
in movie production are specialized in creating texture via computer.
It is demanding to succeed in showing surfaces according to the material they are made of: leather, cloth, metal etc. .
This may be more important than closing in on they exact hue.
As we all have noticed day in - day out: we are able to judge the material from surface reflection, we feel it much more than
we actually see it.
Uniforms are a matt theme and they are worn out by washing and sun rays.
Often one notices figures (in diorama / vignette photos) with a sheen . That is no good. Looks like plastic toy soldiers.
As I experimented with Tamiya acrylics I once put in to the colour a good dose of matt base.
This almost does what in the heyday of Punk music was done to jeans with toilet cleaners.
But without an overdose gives a nice worn out and deadly matt surface.
Shades are made by pre-painting the figure in a darker hue of a different but matching colour or by the same but darker hue.
So you can even use your trusty airbrush with uniform painting.
With Humbrol enamels one gets a deadly matt look by taking paint out of the can with a toothstick and thinning it with petrol
/gas that you use for cigarette lighters.
If you paint , for example boots matt black with enamels, you may polish them afterward with a Q-tip to get a sheen.
This can be done with other leather items or metal items, too , like a canteen or a barrel of a carbine.
But the hardest part always is human skin.
A painter ofte uses a blue priming under skin colour (veins) - didn't test it yet.
viele Grüße, Gunther
