The Importance of Painting Light on Your Miniatures
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- You need to accentuate the highlights and the shadows of your miniatures - and Uncle Atom explains why, and how to do it quick and easy.
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"So.. miniatures, as it turns out, are small."
Got an upvote just for that intro :D
There's a great Penny Arcade comic about that.
Unless you discount the 1:1 scale Gundam model... :P
There is a is a Cool Mini or Not Kickstarter that includes a 2' tall C'thulhu "mini" :D
Hey It's my buddy from over at BolS! :)
Haven't you heard, "What happens on BoLS, stays on BoLS", bro?
I just want to say. I love your voice. The deepness and how much bass comes through sounds great. Kind of soothing too. Whatever microphone and settings you’re using it’s working well for you. You kind of sound similar to a deep voiced radio host. The good kind of radio host. : )
beatmetodeath same here!! The information is great, but the voice is a great "broadcaster" voice.
I almost always use zenithal highlight after priming. Not only is it good if it will show through, but it is helpful in showing you the the most shaded areas and most highlighted areas, before you get down to the proper painting phase. So it works well as a kind of guideline to where you would like to add in highlights and shadows by hand.
But another thing worth mentioning with why we accentuate light and shadow on the miniature, is that the shadows will never appear as deep as they do on the full sized object. Because a crease is a bit of fabric say might be 3cm deep, its quite deep so there is more shade. In the miniature version it will be barely a mm deep or not there at all, so the shadow light around it creates for it is barely there or not there. So when you look at it, it doesn't look real, it looks like a toy. When you go in and you replicate the light for it, you bring it closer to what the light would be doing to it, if it was at the scale it is meant to be representing. Taller things closer to the light sources getting stronger highlights, deeper recesses very dark.
Thanks for this. I saw someone on youtube using a technique like the one you described using progressively lighter (and smaller) layers of colour on the highlights and couldn't figure out the name for it.
Do you think that grey primer, black undercoat and rattle can white layer would do the trick? Primers in different colors are not available at the moment but I still wanted to try this
Yeah Lou2394, will work with those colours. I airbrushed some Astra Militarum tanks and some Space Marine Scouts in grey primer and a white highlight. Though it is more suited to brighter colours like reds and yellows in the final look. Also the aesthetic of white on black tends to give a stronger contast result, that is more eye catching. But it will still definitely work as a guideline for light falling.
@@lunahula thanks :)
Also Lou2394 check out Vince Venturella's video on drybrushing. He shows you a very good technique using makeup brushes to get a good zenithal effect or after zenithal effect to add edge highlighting to a miniature before the colour goes on.
I know I’m late to the party, but I’m new to your channel. This is a great video about the effects of light on objects. After listening to this and experimenting with highlights in minis, I had a funny moment while brushing my teeth. I was looking around at objects on my counter, and realizing “oh there’s a zenithal highlight on that shampoo bottle; and an edge highlight on that shaving cream can rim... oh my gosh! Uncle Atom, I have been enlightened!”
I don't really understand why, but your videos are my ASMR. So soothing.
It's his voice Haha
That "but the light does actually hit my model, I don't need to fake it" tangent was hilarious, and also exactly what I was thinking.
The stage make-up comparison was also perfect for me, since I am an actor, but until this video I really didn't get why the real shadows weren't good enough
as a theatre lightining tech, this was really spot on
i only learned about shading and highlighting a year after i started the hobby, and even now id like to be a lot better haha
Just need to express my love for how helpful your videos are and how endearing your attitude is!
Hi! Love your videos! I'm a game developer, and one trick I figured out for lighting a 3D environment was to create a primary directional light, as if from the sun or overhead lighting, then to create a much less intense (like, 20% or so) "bounce light" coming up from below (or an angle opposite your primary light), in the general colour of your terrain. In the project I worked on, for example, we had our western-inspired scene lit from a high angle in an intense yellow-white, then a bounce light from the opposite angle in a rusty red to match the sand. We found this gave a lot of additional definition to our character models, while at the same time making them fit the environment all the better.
I was wondering if you've ever tried, or have seen someone try such a thing using dry-brushing? That is, drybrushing downward with a light colour, then upward with another, almost like a poor man's OSL. Or would this end up making things look too murky where the two overlap?
I've yet to try my hand at model painting, though I hope to get into it soon, so I could be way off with this, but I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks; cheers from Canada; and keep up the good work!
I've seen people do what your talking about with models on bases that have glowing pieces. I don't have any examples to show you but they dry brush in the same way from the bottom with whatever color the glowing object is.
Your sound and lighting on these videos....Really good stuff.
Great video! I would add: Painting lighting effects on the model is also about adding (fake) lights to your already lit table. This is done to add drama and excitement to the figures and other structures so the players don't have to do the same thing with tiny "in scale" colored lightbulbs. :)
This does help a lot. Then you mix it with your own unique style of painting and you get a lot of interesting looks depending on the miniature.
Wait; you mean you guys aren't playing in the dark with NVGs?
No, they slide down my face too much - I always have to push them up. Thanks for watching!
Tabletop Minions Thank You for all of your amazingly great videos! I'm relatively new to your channel, and your videos have changed the way I paint! Big fan of your channel from Columbus, OH.
I think it is in the Necrons Codex. Helps with immersion.
@@robertmoffitt1336 they are, you just can't see them.
Uncle Atom, I love your content Sir! I am interested in playing Warhammer but haven't yet. That said, I have watched a lot of your videos and just enjoy your attitude and delivery of information. Keep it up!!
Sounds great, after I finish my Chosen I'll try it out on cultists. If I remember correctly, you've talked about it in your video about underpainting. I'll spray the cultist with black, and then I'll spray them from above using grey. I don't know about the contrast, though, I'm kinda afraid it may be too strong.
Underpainting in black and white is good if you’re then going to follow up with colors that are pretty transparent. What I’m talking about here is related to that, but is more about the base colors and making sure that your highlights are lighter higher up on the model and that you have added in darker shadows. Rattle can tricks are a fast way to do this, but I’ll also be doing it totally with dry brushing on my upcoming Death Watch which are just primed straight black. Thanks for watching!
Verisimilitude is very important for miniatures. That's why when I use real sticks or stones on bases, I still paint them. Otherwise they clearly look out-of-scale.
Yes, I always paint everything, even if the materials on my bases are already the right color. It's jarring to me, otherwise. Thanks for watching!
Yes, we paint rocks to look like rocks.
Sounds crazy but it's true.
I wondered why people did this. Now I know, thanks!
Thank you for your content man, really enjoy your personality and how you engage the miniature gang your videos are interesting and informative thank you!!
Woah!!! these are all techniques I taught while art Director at Blue Table Painting. Spot on good sir! We even used a Green/Tan spray combo for plague monks. It's like we're sharing some kinda mind-link. Dang.
A final highlight dry bush of Vallejo Pale Sand in place of the white, also works really well if you want to try that.
From photography theory - light hardness/softness is related to relative size of light source. For miniatures almost every light is big, thus there are only very soft shades. This is even amplified by light reflected from the table. We would need to light it from very small source (like single LED) or with bigger source from far away. In addition light fall off is given by inverted square law.... so you need to have light pretty close to have nice quick transition.... But if you get it close, its relative size will be big.... bla bla bla. Just paint it like Atom is suggesting and you are all good :-D
I've done a fair bit of (summer stock) theater production work, but never thought about the parallel between miniature painting and stage makeup. Terrain and set building are pretty obvious comparisons to me, not sure why I didn't think of makeup = painting but it's a good comparison.
I've seen alot of videos lately where this technique has been used. Gonna have to try it soon. Thanks for another great vid!!
It’s a good technique. Thanks for watching!
Oh my god. I have been looking for a tshirt “Phantom” purple like that, forever. Also, great vid 👍
It’s either Gap or Old Navy, I think. I was on a v-neck kick for a bit. Thanks for watching!
Tabletop Minions Thanks for the info Uncle Atom or should I say Kit Walker. lol. Picking up my Kill Team book tomorrow can’t wait, , if you see my latest tweet my GW manager did the roll a story thing and I have a story team now.
"Because I don't play in the dark with those night-vision googles" ROFL
Love your video uncle Atom. Thanks for the logical explanations!
One thing you mentioned was people over do it. I'm a Necrons fan (40k) and a lot of the models have parts that are intended to be glowing but I find many painters, including some of the official Games Workshop representations, over do it in showing the glow on other parts of the model. I look forward to seeing if your suggestions find a balance between the over doing it I see on other models and the under doing it I'm sure I'm doing on mine.
Great information! I'm hoping to get a Kill Team squad and some terrain knocked out this weekend and I'll try some of those techniques ... thanks Atom.
Atom has four letters. Phil has four letters. Uncle Atom is Phil Swift confirmed.
*_I S A W E D T H I S U L T R A M A R I N E I N H A L F_*
The way light behaves (and by that I mean mostly the way it bleeds around corners) does not scale - it is a constant. If you make something ten times smaller, the light doesn't bleed ten times less. In fact it bleeds so much it washes out the mini details. You have to paint in the missing shades/highlights to fix this phenomena, and typically with gaming minis you have to exaggerate because they are viewed from several feet across a table.
He says at 8:20 to "dust" the units from above onto primer. Does this mean before painting any of the surfaces? Would I still "dust" it again after it's been painted?
Vince Venturella talks about this a lot in his videos. They’re all really helpful
First thing I thought when. Woke up this morning... "I need to dry brush my necrons tonight" then I saw this in my notifications lmao!!!
I catched you for a second time, you said "pop"! Once in one of your video (about contrast I think), you said that you don't like this trend!
I don’t like too much contrast, but I do like to paint some lighting to the models I do these days. It draws the eye a bit more, and doesn’t take to long to do. Thanks for watching!
I always appreciate your videos and I find them most interesting in whole RUclips Wargaming community (not that I don't love other content creators, there are a tons of great people out there). The thing that I'm laughing at right now is that you once joked about usage of the word "pop" used in context of making your mini stand out (Pachow! ruclips.net/video/whFS9I1CMhM/видео.htmlm47s), but now you are using it by yourself.
That just me, you made me notice this word and despise it. You made a monster and now you are turning your back on me!
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Just kidding. It was a lot of fun though :D
This is so important.
For normal light to actually work on miniatures like it does on real people we would need way smaller light sources in our gaming rooms. These overhead lamps are so close our miniatures have almost no ambient occlusion. There is ambient light everywhere... . So yeah, we need painted light & shadows.
Really like your content! This is bugging me though..are you standing in front of a green screen?
Nope, that’s just my studio. Thanks for watching!
I personally like to start with a lighter base colour then build up a gradient as I go down the model using super thinned washes. I've found it's easier than using the spray method and looks better than drybrushing
That was a nice clearly explained video, as ever.
De-saturating colours on minis can help make them look more "realistic", as real world items that are seen at a distance are affected by aerial perspective. This is where the air scatters the light, making objects further away look greyer/bluer than objects seen close up.
Scientifically correct, but it would look weird and unnatural if you painted your minis like that. What a strange thing to even suggest! Although it would be pretty hilarious if some know it all turned up with an army of blue tinted miniatures that he thought would look more 'realistic' 🤣
In this video I am going to show you the importance of using Grecian 2000 !! haha sorry but I just watched the old 2013 video of the Honoured Imperium Statue painting tutorial and boy your hair was ...more colourful! Again sorry I hope I am not offending you just having a giggle (yea at your expense - but not really as I have gone very grey especially my beard!)
Awesomness video as ever Unkie Atom :D
Yeah, five years of RUclips can really age a person. Thanks for watching!
Tabletop Minions well that and trying to keep up with all the lovely new miniatures releases without going bankrupt!! Haha!
How would this be done with orks? I prime black, but by the time everything's done, there's not a single bit of that black showing because of the myriad of different colours used on the model.
You tube keeps turning off my notifications on my subbed chanels. I swear im re hitting the bell everytime
i feel like this may have been my missing step in going from usually using Dark Primers (Black, Green, Blue) and painting up to a highlight, to using white and tans more frequently as a primer and painting down from that
Great advice. I'll definitely try that trick when I pick up kill team
It's 3 am . . . Ima watch this once I wake up in a few hours lol.
Hey @Tabletop, great video. Random question: Have you taken a look back in time at say Golden Winners and asked if miniature painting has evolved a lot from where it was say thirty years ago? I wonder if there have been any innovations or shifts in "miniature painting technology and theory" that have improved even the elite of the elite.
This is really helpful! But if I am painting a lighter color scheme (Tau Vior'la Sept) how could I achieve this since I don't want to start with a dark basecoat?
So then, what about spraying them from the bottom with a darker color so you get accentuated shadows?
(would be before basing, but the paint could just be simply filed/sanded off the bottoms of feet)
Great! Much thanks for the info Sir!
if you ever tell me my models don't look good because they don't have "lighting effects", is the day you get a goddamn pie to the face.
To paraphrase Monty Python “Miniatures are what we doctors like to call, very very small.”
In my experience, the only time zenithal highlighting works as advertised is when painting with glazes. For me, the zenithal never seems to change the value of covering opaque layers to be noticeable.
I get this. I'm painting GW Ultramarines using the plain old GW paint plain i.e. McGragge Blue base, Nuln Oil Wash and Calgar Blue edge highlighting and it STILL looks a little flat. Anyone got any advice on how to go about painting 'light' onto these ? besides Unce Atom's advice and other video ? I have an airbrush so I have options to lighten colours and then spray from above down onto the model but the lack of control worries me.
Great! Look forward to your demo vid
Painted lights help fake the proportions of the real world just like lighting tricks do in rendered 3D images. Game room lighting is artificial for many reasons but the main problem is that the light sources are usually spot lights too close to the models. There is just not enough space to fake sunlight that has a light source so far from the object that its rays seem to be parallel making the Sun a virtually directional light source. Just observe how the sunlight casts shadows in a single direction while game room light shadows are usually all over the place depending on angles and distances. I hope my English was good enough to explain what I think about the importance of painted natural lights and shadows.
Looking at the rattle-can video...I was always under the impression that one needed special primers formulated for miniatures. That the pigment on other primers are too coarse and cover up detail...is this a myth? My life would be so much easier if I could just buy Krylon cans instead of $15-$20 GW cans.
If I’m using rattlecan (and not airbrush primers) then I’m either using the Krylon camo line or sandable auto primer from the auto parts store. Thanks for watching!
...and you have not noticed any reduction in the detail if the figures? My son has become interested in 40K and I haven't played in nearly 15 years, but here I am painting Space Marines and Poxwalkers. Seriously looking at Kill Team now as well.
Thanks for the video. I have been throwing around the idea to do hard lining or not. Is that kind of what your talking a about? Right now I use your under painting
I heard you talking about SE Wisconsin and Milwaukee in your previous video. I moved to Racine a few years ago and still haven't found a hobby shop or anyone else intrested in war gamming at all. Would you suggest any hobby stores in Milwaukee for playing Kill Team? Thank you
I have Harlequins and Drukhari. Any tips for doing this AFTER their painted? :D
Great Video. Than you I'm going to try this tomorrow.
I don't see your Patchaws. I have enabled the annotations but I haven't seen any of them in any of your videos. I'm new to the hubby and I've seen many of your videos.
Does this technique really affect the end result of the miniature all that much? (I mean it must, otherwise this video wouldn't be here) But even after the miniatures are all painted anyway with painted highlights/ low lights? This isn't an "alternative" for painting high/low lights is it?
It can be, for newer painters. It can be a shortcut or even an additional measure to help the highlighting and shading. Thanks for watching!
How would you do this for say a Grey Knight? Is there a method for adding lighting effects to metallics?
Great video. How should I do black armour? I'm thinking a dry brush with a dark grey, then a selective lighter grey
I didn’t really like the tan color on the Plague Marines so I did a black knight look with a color scheme that makes it look almost like a pimple
I just happen to be wearing my pachowshirt at 3 a.m. watching this....
Your *signed* Pa-Chow shirt, you mean. I appreciate you two coming to TMX this year, and thanks for watching!
Tabletop Minions *Signed* indeed. :) I was at the store yesterday playing AOS. Red goes with my slaves to Khorne!
True story: I'm 15 and playing and older lady in a school musical... we finish a matinee for school kids on a Tuesday. I have "behind the wheel" practice (school driving school - 4 kids and a teacher) during last period that I can't miss- no time to wash off the old lady make-up, so I had to go driving with the group looking like an old lady. Thanks for bringing back that memory. 🙄
Nice Video. I like how you explain.
I should try the rattle can trick. Problem is my main colour already is a pretty light tan.
Maybe go for the reverse trick and paint it with a darker tone first and then with your main one?
Either start with a darker tan and then do the lighter one on top, or start with the lighter tan and dust with a little white spray on top. Thanks for watching!
In essence you are replicating ambient occlusion on your miniatures, is there a way to replicate subsurface scattering.
Will this technique work or matter with Necrons going with standard colors?
Pretty new to painting (and 40k in general), but I was wondering what brush anyone uses for ultra fine detail? I've seen a couple on Amazon (Namely "The Psycho" brush) that are for ultra-fine detailing, but I wanted to get some opinions first, and if at all some suggestions. I'm namely painting Death Guard right now (waiting on a few paints to arrive to finish my Foetid Bloat Drone that I've recently started) and wanna do some scratches and wear-and-tear on the armor platings/metallic bits.
I don’t generally get concerned with specific brushes, but then again I’m no pro painter. That said, I don’t ever use ultra-fine brushes, i just use the good tip of a regular small brush. Thanks for watching!
I am getting back into the hobby again...apparently the My Sharona Cyrus has convinced me that I have too much free time and money, or something. Anyway my question: I have had a White Scars army since 3rd Edition. How would I do this highlighting you mentioned with a white armored force?
Stupid Question: Is this done before or after painting the miniature?
No stupid questions: it can be done at the beginning of the paint job (via priming and basecoating) and it can be done during the paint job with drybrushing and highlighting. Thanks for watching!
Cool
So, useing grey primer at the bottom and white ontop
Does anyone know what I can look up for special chapter rules and special rules in general like necrons and who they follow and special painted weapons.
this always seemed to me to be a waste of time with traditional painting because from what i can tell, the base coat obscures the undercoats completely. but with the new contrast paints - this seems like it would really pay off.
Longtime listener, first time commenting...being new to the hobby I decided on beginning with a death army first, in order to hide the rookie mistakes in my painting...would this lighting technique make sense in a death army..? I imagine my zombies walking through darkness and death...or is that just me..?
Think of them being highlighted by the moonlight. You could spray them a sickly green color (Army Painter has good rattle cans for that) and then dust them above with just a bit of white. Then give them a thinned-down green wash or a glaze. Thanks for watching!
After spraying the models with 2 primers do you then still paint a base color by hand? I have White Scars that I spray painted Grey Seer and then Corax white from above. Do I then still base coat the miniature with White Scar paint by hand?
No, I wouldn’t. You’ve already got your base color down now. You can paint Corax White in some places to highlight the model, but otherwise I’d start painting the other details on the model. Thanks for watching!
@@tabletopminions thanks for the help! Love your vids!
Both my armies are primarily black, so I prime black. What color would I use for this technique? Does this work for black or only lighter colors?
If your army is mostly black, then I’d prime black and then drybrush grey, or prime black and spray dark grey from above. Thanks for watching!
Ummm I might be stupid but I tried this looked good till I painted over the primer snd highlights.. I don’t see why this is important if you are painting over it ... am I missing something?
If you use opaque paints, then yes - it will cover up the highlights you added. But, if you thin your paints and/or use transparent paints and glazes and washes over the zenithal highlights, then the technique will work for you. Thanks for watching!
When you said theater makeup, made me think of this clip of Orson Welles putting on exaggerated lines to portray Falstaff in this clip.
ruclips.net/video/VJ6v7GHYDbM/видео.html
Atom how good to you have to be to commission paint?! I'm not going to win awards but I know some people would like a reasonable paint job at a lowish price.
Uncle Atom, will you be at Gen Con?
Yes, I’ll be there this year. Having a meet up on Friday night. More info soon posted on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for watching!
worked the Modiphius booth so got precious little time in the halls... and you know what? I think I might try my hand at SMALLER cons... 60,000 brains create a lot of static. Exhaustion the result. Your con tips were gold, tho. Add to them -- buy a YETI insulated water bottle and carry juice boxes.
I loves me some pachow
Cool trick
I sometimes just heavily wash the undersides of the model that are in shadow
I also have found this to be enough, to much highlighting is ruins the colours i think
@@konradcavebear5311 I agree
But how about if you live in EU? You may or may not know, that non-LED lamps are banned in EU, and LED lamps leaves very strong shadows. Meaning that your minis will have stronger shadows since LEDs are crappy - try to paint miniatures with them!*
(*=Since this is internet, and people have all the time hardness to know what is written seriously and what is not, I may hint that this text may not be so seriously written, and maybe more to complain about those *beeb* LED lamps, and how it is pain to painT with them)
PS. In here, in EU, we are starting soon "Frostpunk" LARP - whole population will take part of it. "The Last Autumn" LARP is already going on. If you want experience "Frostpunk" in real world, just come to visit in EU in this winter!
Make video about deathwatch pls
Also, can you stream when you’re painting
I can’t stream while I’m painting, but Sam Lenz does on Twitch. Search Twitch for Samsonarts and follow him. He usually streams on Wednesday and Thursday. Thanks for watching!
Uncle Atom, why are you posting this late at night?
The Friday videos always go up arhat e same time. Thanks for watching!
👌👌👌
sound good to me see more yes i will
Zenithal highlighting.
Yes, but using colors instead of just straight black and white. Thanks for watching!
I find lighting other then shading hard
Did you get your dates wrong Atom?
Which dates? Videos always go up on Friday, and today’s Friday. Or are you referencing something else? Thanks for watching!
The best explanation pf the importance of light-dark contrast (in french). minicreateurs.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.10
And Vince Venturella has a hobby cheating video on drybrushing in which, at one point, he does a zenithal highlight as you are suggesting ruclips.net/video/vHRMnJce4b8/видео.html
Good video bro. I failed art in grade school. How do you explain to your mom that I got an "E" in art class.
i let the light put light on my model just how they should be.
First! Great vid!
Early squaaad
Wtf does ASMR? Is it porno terms?
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