On Blending Paints

On Blending Paints...

A lot of people have heard me harp on keeping your paints thin, etc. And I do get asked about blending/layering paints a lot. Sometimes when I'm painting, I do forget my own rules and jump over things, but when I get totally serious, and follow the rules is when I'm most pleased with the results of my efforts. However, since I paint for a living sometimes I do have to stop and consider the end result versus the time spent... but experience lends itself to speed and I'm able to work better and more efficiently at times. But the whole key to blending is smoothness. We'll use the Gold NMM from Gargram to illustrate the theory I work under.

So, let's start with the basic colors. With the figure I used Reaper Master Series Paints. Now, it doesn't matter which paints you are using, as the basic principles will stay the same. The key is the TRANSITION of color from one to the next as well as the thinness of the paint, and finally the direction in which the paint is applied.

Here are the colors used: Chestnut Brown, Chestnut Gold, Palamino Gold, Buckskin Pale, Linen White, and Titanium White.

Now these by themselves are quite the color transition. But I break these down to blends using a three part system. I started by painting on the darkest color - Chestnut Brown - and then lightening as I went. The three parts are a simple formula... each main color used has three parts, the steps inbetween are a ratio equal to three parts. So between Chestnut Brown and Chestnut Gold I use this:

First is three parts Chestnut Brown, then two parts Chestbut Brown/one part Chestnut Gold, then one part Chestnut Brown/2 parts Chestnut Gold, and then finally three parts Chestnut Gold. And the paint itself is thinned at a 1 part thinner to 1 part paint. Now, that's thin, and that's a lot of transitions. Sometimes you can get away with a two part (a 50/50 mix) but I prefer the transitions using the three parts. Now for smaller areas, this isn't necessary, but for larger areas, you may have to do even more!

Also, I use (and prefer) paints in dropper bottles and to keep my thinner - water, flow improver, slowdri, etc - in a dropper bottle so I am using the same ratios. I also use dimpled paint palettes so that I can lay out all my colors at once. Sometimes if I'm just doing small areas, I will lay out and thin just the named colors and create the transitions on a piece of palette paper. But generally I avoid this as I like a bit more precision in my color mixing.

If you are going from Chestnut Brown to Linen White by three, you are going to have a total of thirteen mixes and one just plain Titanium White for your edge work. That's a lot of colors/paint to say the least. Even at a 50/50 mixing it is nine layers - and you're going to run into problems when the paint loses transparency and becomes more opaque in the lighter colors with your transitions. But the lengthier method is what I did on the dwarf. I'll leave it to you to be the judge on whether or not to do it...

If we look at the colors, here you'll see the expanded blend from the Chestnut Brown to Titanium White.

Now let's talk about the direction of painting, in other words, the brush stroke. The manner in which the paint is applied is critical as well. If you are going to apply the paints from dark to light, the direction of your brush stroke needs to be applied in the same direction. Because where you "lift" your brush off of the miniature is where the greatest concentration of paint is going to be left behind. I've got some examples of what I mean below...

So we have first what we want it to look like. So in painting from dark to light on the surface, each brush stroke will follow the same direction as indicated in the second image. Sometimes I have tackled an area by first filling in the main color, then directionally painting the shadows AND highlights on as illustrated in the third image. The brush stroke for the shadow starts in the base color and ends in the shadow, as the highlight stroke starts in the base color and ends where I want the highlight to be. In the fourth image, I'm just showing and reinforcing that the direction of the "highlighting" needs to be done with the same stroke direction.

Breaking down all the color transitions on the gold, they would look something (hey, it's not easy to write this out, so bear with me) like this:

1.    3 parts Chestnut Brown
2.    2 Chestnut Brown/1 Chestnut Gold
3.    1 Chestnut Brown/2 Chestnut Gold
4.    3 Chestnut Gold
5.    2 Chestnut Gold/1 Palamino Gold
6.    1 Chestnut Gold/2 Palamino Gold
7.    3 Palamino Gold
8.    2 Palamino Gold/1 Bucksin Pale
9.    1 Palamino Gold/2 Bucksin Pale
10. 3 Bucksin Pale
11. 2 Bucksin Pale/1 Linen White
12. 1 Bucksin Pale/2 Linen White
13. 3 Linen White
14. Edge with thinned Titanium White

And then the paint is applied lighter over darker as I work my way to the lighter edge. Here's an approximate example using the numbers above with the arrow indicating the way I'm layering all the colors... But remember I'm covering the surface needed to be covered, and also you may need - and can - adjust to the surface as needed and to the amount of color/highlights/shadows desired Color mixes #6, #7 and #8 are really the main colors of the gold, so the greatest areas I would try to show would be those colors.

I hope the above wasn't all that confusing. Again, as I've said before, this is how I do things. If it makes sense to you with practice, then use it. If it doesn't then keep on trying to you find a way that does make sense to you and your style. There's more than one way to paint a miniature! Good luck, and good painting!

Jester