A Fox's Guide to Figure Painting (Part 5)

When I paint figures, I like to build up depth through a couple of layers. 

In some cases, that might be starting with a colour approximately what I'm after, then shading the crevices darker with thinned paint or ink that sinks into all of the cracks and details, then applying a highlight layer through a technique like drybrushing.

In some cases it might be starting with the darkest shadow tone, then gradually building up layers of lighter colour with progressive stages of drybrushing.

The latter technique is what I've done here.


The first layer of drybrushing (applied to all of the figures) was a mix of two parts base colour to one part white. The five figures on the right have each had two more layers of drybrushing applied to them, the first of these extra layers was one part base colour to two parts white, and the final drybrushing was pure white. Remember that these figures are designed to look like white armour with shadows. It's not quite a "stormtrooper armour" all-white finish, because I'm aiming to bring out more of each miniature's detail through the shading technique.

I've applied more highlighting to the tops of arms, shoulders and head, and in a few cases where there are flat panels of armour I've just painted the whole thing white (to reinforce the brightness of the armour. It's just instinctive as to which panels get whitewashed in this manner.

I think that's about it for the white armour, time to start playing with the metallic secondary colour.

At this stage, I've also cast up a bunch of generic circular bases from resin (but that's an entirely different set of tutorials). 

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