I'm so glad that you tackled the question of animal bellies! I've been scratching my head over what angle to light some lizardmen from, and this really helps! Love this series!
"...to capture the ambient light of the ... world." - This might sound incredibly vague and nonchalant, but it's one of the wisdoms a miniature painter must learn. Well done, again, sir.
I appreciate your work so much. Whenever I have a thought at the back of my mind, rest assured in a hobby cheating video, it will get answered. Amazingly too as I never have to ask! Thanks so much, you are a credit to the community
"A natural creature [like this Steed of Slaanesh]." I wonder if Slaanesh is pleased with your definition of "natural." I'll err on the side of probably. I'd like to see your take on painting Daemonette flesh for a Hobby Cheating video. Ideally before the Slaanesh tome hits, which I suspect is in like two maybe three weeks based on the recent Daemon Engine posts (which yes, its certainly 40K focused since we know Abaddon is also about to arrive and there's a 40K Chaos overhaul but I've got a good feeling about this Slaanesh thing happening in AoS at the same time).
Really appreciate the spoon feeding mate. I once stood on the wrong side of the road for the school bus and watched people from my school get onto the bus on the opposite side, adamant the whole time because I had been told to wait on the aforementioned wrong side. Long story short I didn't end up going to school that day..... Lesson learnt, things can often be taken way too literally and detailed explanations really help to avoid confusion hahaha. Cheers again mate.
Sometimes, it's easy to focus on the method to the point of madness. :) - It's always good to walk through unusual situations so hopefully it gets people thinking. :)
Thanks for this. I really have been really enjoying your hobby cheating series. I like that you take the time to explain the theory behind techniques so that it is easier to interpret and apply them to your own projects.
Great tips! And good timing for me lol. Just got in the last of my paints needed to start zenithal highlighting with my brand new airbrush. Watching your videos convinced me to give it a try! Here's hoping it makes my life painting Nighthaunt much easier. Would you consider making other videos for techniques you feel all airbrush beginners should look into? Sorry if it's something you've already covered. You're the man, Vince!
Awesome, happy to help as always. There are several videos on zenithal highlighting in the Hobby cheating playlist. Way back I had a zenithal highlighting on ghosts, now that was all green ghosty colors, but you can certainly implement that on the ghosty parts of nighthaunt.
Regarding "unusual" figures for zenithal highlighting, how do you approach "hunched" minis? I'm starting a Tyranids army, and all the troops are running "hunched"; termagant, hormagaunt, genestealer, ... The risk with "standard" zenithal highlighting is that their bellies (that are not brighter then the top like the creature in this video) will remain black. Of course their bellies are in full shadow, but I think that it will look quite ...unpleasant to have it black (or almost black if a little base color sprayed at 0 degrees will actually hit their bellies)
Yeah, that definitely falls into the non-standard category, the answer is, you kind of cheat a little. You can extend the grey and white to lightly on the belly (think of the way I did the bellies of the seeker in this video). In general, you kind of over highlight it, and then make it a lighter color to contrast a darker carapace.
When using Inks in airbrush, do you just put it straight through as it is from the bottle? On video it looks better, smoother and more vibrant than paint, I'd just give it a crack but fw and liquitex inks are about $25+ a bottle locally so I'm not keen to waste a lot experimenting. I try not to buy them online now after some stuff turned up very very blue due to cracked glass bottle
So I do thin them, usually about 1-1 with thinner, depending on the richness of the color. It tends to be a little more vibrant than paint because it's both slightly transparent (other than white) and very highly pigmented. It's worth it for at least a few bottles of like sepia, Payne's Grey and white.
I am working on test models for my daemon army and really want to go for poppy colors. I have chosen a red a blue scheme over a zenithal highlight. I like how the blue and red is reacting to the pure white. What I am not sure of is the middle tone for the zenithal. I have copied your recommendation of using cold grey and stuck with it (unless I do a warm zenithal). Would you stick with cold grey (which is I guess on the slightly warm sight) or try a different middle tone?
Honestly, the great middle color for this would be something like purple. It will be a wonderful natural soft shadow to the red and the blue and unify the colors lightly.
Hm. Did you use Daler-Rowney or Liquitex white ink? Which one would you choose if you'd have to? I am on the fence of hitting the order button... Are the Liquitex pods' (and DR pods) diameter like the one from Citadel pods (just asking so they fit on my paint shelf?
what about tinted undershading, like when you shot red under the goblin, is the idea to use a complimentary colour to desaturate? What if your colour sceme is already two complimentary colours like red and green would you pick out the dominant colour or does it even matter? even though you neglected to mention this, I shtill really like your shtuff keep it up!
Sure, so in general, you can add a tint over the Black/Grey and/or Grey step, then put your appropriate cold or warm white over top. If you are going for complimentary, it's best to pick one side that will have the most value for the items on the mini. So for example, when painting green skins, I often use Dark Red, even though like on my Ironjawz, I have blue armor. The dark, deep red of Hull Red then becomes a good shadow when it hits dark blue and I get some nice deep purple shadows. The real point is we are performing a chemistry experiment, it's not an exact type measurement. It's about setting yourself up for success as best as possible with simple techniques early. :)
Any advice on using zenithal highlighting under conditions of diffuse lighting? Specifically, I have some miniatures I'm planning to base in basically like rainforest/jungle canopy terrain and I'm not sure if I should try to make the highlighting fit this or go the standard route and say screw it or what. I'm gonna go back and look and see if maybe this was covered in an old video but I thought I'd leave this comment just in case it wasn't. Apologies if it was. Having a lot of issues trying to find a color pattern that works for this army too. It's an Ad. Mech. army for 40k, and usually you see a lot of red, orange, ochre maybe, with em but I have some custom lore I'm working on and alternating greens are really a better fit for them. I tried experimenting with some that work in just a hint of red but... ehhh... they're kind of "meh." Kind of like with Stygies Skiitari forces, they're going to be utilizing a lot of stealth archaeotech and so originally I wanted to figure out some clever way to portray half of them as being cloaked in some kind of optical camoflauge or with some sort of hex patterning on their robes to make it look like they do something like that. I have airbrush stencils for the latter but portraying the optical camo was perhaps rather overambitious on my part when I can't even make up mind on a standard color scheme, oi. I just wanted to do something original and only once deep into the project did I realize that meant a distinct lack of "how to" videos on whatever I was doing, lolz. Whoops. Any help is appreciated! Save me-uhh-I mean, thank you! :)
So my advice would be just do the standard lighting. Jungles still implies bright and high sun. Sure, it's diffuse by the canopy, but that's a little too much detail to try to capture at the army level. Use a pretty standard pattern or maybe switch the angle of your zenithal slightly (highlight a little more from 1pm instead of noon). As to color pattern, would a camo green work here? I have seen admech in green and it can look really cool. You could just do the cloaks, robes, cloth in camo and have some spot red through eye lenses or minor touches. The key would be to use a desaturated red so it's not overwhelming. I would avoid the optical camo (like the predator effect) and go to classic camo. The optical camo (like you see people do on Tau sometimes) just doesn't really sell in my opinion because in the end, the model is still there.
Hi Vince, could you make a video on how to paint horses (say Empire Pistoliers)? Back in "cheat" #122 on Glazes you mentioned it would work great with layer painting. Do you think that would work well for horses with their large flat surfaces? I think how you painted Bob the Ogre there could work on horses.
@@VinceVenturella Sweet! Thanks for being so generous with your time. I see you're in Olympia WA this summer for airbrush. If you find yourself in need look me up. I'm about an hour from there.
Depends on your goal, how much of the undershade are you trying to let show through? You can work directly from the wet palette or thinner if you want more undershade.
@@VinceVenturella Vince Venturella I tried doing the zentithal and glaze with my Eldar Guardians, but the two contrasting colors and the small details on the armor (definitely not like Space Marines) makes it rather dull, and the grey doesn't seem to like the white undercoat and the sepia with orange doesn't seem to take to the grey undercoat. I'd love to airbrush it all but it's not worth the time. Guess the question is maybe I should zenithal as normal and build up white, tint the white to get me a step ahead? How do I get the sepia to go on smoothly on a flat small surface with a brush? Also the faces in the mask are white. So how do I build up small parts of white without it being streaky on such small figures? Maybe you should try my orange and grey scheme on a spare Guardian since this is proving challenging for me (and probably some other Craftworld players, Eldar usually have two contrasting colors in all their schemes). I could be overthinking it all but I've been trying to paint my army for a year can keep going in circles.
I'm curious as to what to do in a situation where you have a clear part, and you want to paint it, but not to make it opaque. Just maybe tint it a little to where it's still translucent, but has some color on it. I know you can use inks, but what would you use to prime with first that's not opaque?
You use gloss varnish to prime it. It's transparent and will make ink stick. Then you just use a very thin ink or wash or something similar like ghost tints. :) Hope that helps.
shouldn't the belly (natural creatures) be a tad bit darker than the top, as light usually does not shine from below? even with light reflected from terrain, the highlighting of the belly seems a bit too much, imho.
naphaneal I think this is less about the light but the fact that a lot creatures have brighter bellies. The white he is applying is just for preparation of painting these parts later on - less about lighting.
Good video, Vince! Once again thanks. Do you ever do like a brown base coat and then light beige zenithal for warmer colors? Or do you stay black and white (which is probably the actual definition of zenithal... lol)?
Kelly Audia he did in a couple of videos. If you want to apply a warm color scheme (reds, yellows...) you might want to use similar temperature colors for zenithal. Otherwise it won’t work very well. Black/grey/white is mostly for cool colors.
Yep, exactly as in the linked video. In this case, all of my colors work well on the colder base, but yes, if I am doing flesh hounds or something similar I do darker brown to ivory.
No worries. With nearly 200 Hobby Cheating videos available it's easy to miss something (or remember that you've already watched one (sometimes multiple times)). :)@@kellyaudia
@@VinceVenturella For example battle sister from 40k. There some unit hold a big machine gun in front that block and make it hard to in and paint some part under or semi behind it
I'm so glad that you tackled the question of animal bellies! I've been scratching my head over what angle to light some lizardmen from, and this really helps! Love this series!
Excellent, happy to help as always. :)
"...to capture the ambient light of the ... world." - This might sound incredibly vague and nonchalant, but it's one of the wisdoms a miniature painter must learn. Well done, again, sir.
Thank you, very much appreciated. :)
I appreciate your work so much. Whenever I have a thought at the back of my mind, rest assured in a hobby cheating video, it will get answered. Amazingly too as I never have to ask! Thanks so much, you are a credit to the community
Thank you, always happy to help. :)
"A natural creature [like this Steed of Slaanesh]." I wonder if Slaanesh is pleased with your definition of "natural." I'll err on the side of probably.
I'd like to see your take on painting Daemonette flesh for a Hobby Cheating video. Ideally before the Slaanesh tome hits, which I suspect is in like two maybe three weeks based on the recent Daemon Engine posts (which yes, its certainly 40K focused since we know Abaddon is also about to arrive and there's a 40K Chaos overhaul but I've got a good feeling about this Slaanesh thing happening in AoS at the same time).
I think we might be waiting a little longer than that.;) - But sure, I'll do a full cheating video around how I do the flesh when the time comes. :)
I'm so glad that my question became a separate video. Thank you, Vince, once again!
Happy to help as always, it's a good topic. :)
This tutorial answers several questions I had about Zenithal painting. Thanks for showing this technique in unusual figures.
Thank you, happy to help as always. :)
Really appreciate the spoon feeding mate.
I once stood on the wrong side of the road for the school bus and watched people from my school get onto the bus on the opposite side, adamant the whole time because I had been told to wait on the aforementioned wrong side. Long story short I didn't end up going to school that day..... Lesson learnt, things can often be taken way too literally and detailed explanations really help to avoid confusion hahaha.
Cheers again mate.
Sometimes, it's easy to focus on the method to the point of madness. :) - It's always good to walk through unusual situations so hopefully it gets people thinking. :)
Perfect timing to release this video. I'm priming Mollog today, whose canopy of mushrooms would have inhibited a lot of the 90° zenithal highlight
Yep, he's a great example of where this technique would be useful.
Thanks for this. I really have been really enjoying your hobby cheating series. I like that you take the time to explain the theory behind techniques so that it is easier to interpret and apply them to your own projects.
Excellent, happy to help as always. :)
Total newbie Vice. Thanks for sharing ...... I have a 54mm 1800s Naval Officer I wish to paint any... so much try and achieve.
No problem, glad to assist.
Great tips! And good timing for me lol. Just got in the last of my paints needed to start zenithal highlighting with my brand new airbrush. Watching your videos convinced me to give it a try! Here's hoping it makes my life painting Nighthaunt much easier. Would you consider making other videos for techniques you feel all airbrush beginners should look into? Sorry if it's something you've already covered. You're the man, Vince!
Awesome, happy to help as always. There are several videos on zenithal highlighting in the Hobby cheating playlist. Way back I had a zenithal highlighting on ghosts, now that was all green ghosty colors, but you can certainly implement that on the ghosty parts of nighthaunt.
Regarding "unusual" figures for zenithal highlighting, how do you approach "hunched" minis? I'm starting a Tyranids army, and all the troops are running "hunched"; termagant, hormagaunt, genestealer, ... The risk with "standard" zenithal highlighting is that their bellies (that are not brighter then the top like the creature in this video) will remain black. Of course their bellies are in full shadow, but I think that it will look quite ...unpleasant to have it black (or almost black if a little base color sprayed at 0 degrees will actually hit their bellies)
Yeah, that definitely falls into the non-standard category, the answer is, you kind of cheat a little. You can extend the grey and white to lightly on the belly (think of the way I did the bellies of the seeker in this video). In general, you kind of over highlight it, and then make it a lighter color to contrast a darker carapace.
When using Inks in airbrush, do you just put it straight through as it is from the bottle? On video it looks better, smoother and more vibrant than paint,
I'd just give it a crack but fw and liquitex inks are about $25+ a bottle locally so I'm not keen to waste a lot experimenting.
I try not to buy them online now after some stuff turned up very very blue due to cracked glass bottle
So I do thin them, usually about 1-1 with thinner, depending on the richness of the color. It tends to be a little more vibrant than paint because it's both slightly transparent (other than white) and very highly pigmented. It's worth it for at least a few bottles of like sepia, Payne's Grey and white.
@@VinceVenturella awesome, thanks again mate 👍
"Little soft bellies" awwhh :)
Little ant-eater demon monters with their little soft bellies. ;)
Haha makes me think of my little pups soft little belly!❤️
This is exactly what I needed! Thanks!
Glad it helped!
I am working on test models for my daemon army and really want to go for poppy colors. I have chosen a red a blue scheme over a zenithal highlight. I like how the blue and red is reacting to the pure white. What I am not sure of is the middle tone for the zenithal. I have copied your recommendation of using cold grey and stuck with it (unless I do a warm zenithal). Would you stick with cold grey (which is I guess on the slightly warm sight) or try a different middle tone?
Honestly, the great middle color for this would be something like purple. It will be a wonderful natural soft shadow to the red and the blue and unify the colors lightly.
Hm. Did you use Daler-Rowney or Liquitex white ink? Which one would you choose if you'd have to? I am on the fence of hitting the order button...
Are the Liquitex pods' (and DR pods) diameter like the one from Citadel pods (just asking so they fit on my paint shelf?
So honestly either is fine, and they are bigger bottles, generally they take a much larger paint rack to sit in.
Hm. I am using cheapo plastic nailpolish shelves...
Ah. Found a sale for liquitex. Easy decision.
I was wondering what sort of pressure I should use when airbrushing white ink? Had trouble with it
I generally run 18 PSI, but I run it very, very thin. Like 6 drops of thinner to a drop of ink. Hope that helps.
So cool, man I do need more practise with my air brush, luckely I have enough goblins :)
All those goblins will giveyou plenty of chance to practice for sure. :)
what about tinted undershading, like when you shot red under the goblin, is the idea to use a complimentary colour to desaturate? What if your colour sceme is already two complimentary colours like red and green would you pick out the dominant colour or does it even matter?
even though you neglected to mention this, I shtill really like your shtuff
keep it up!
Sure, so in general, you can add a tint over the Black/Grey and/or Grey step, then put your appropriate cold or warm white over top. If you are going for complimentary, it's best to pick one side that will have the most value for the items on the mini. So for example, when painting green skins, I often use Dark Red, even though like on my Ironjawz, I have blue armor. The dark, deep red of Hull Red then becomes a good shadow when it hits dark blue and I get some nice deep purple shadows.
The real point is we are performing a chemistry experiment, it's not an exact type measurement. It's about setting yourself up for success as best as possible with simple techniques early. :)
Any advice on using zenithal highlighting under conditions of diffuse lighting? Specifically, I have some miniatures I'm planning to base in basically like rainforest/jungle canopy terrain and I'm not sure if I should try to make the highlighting fit this or go the standard route and say screw it or what. I'm gonna go back and look and see if maybe this was covered in an old video but I thought I'd leave this comment just in case it wasn't. Apologies if it was.
Having a lot of issues trying to find a color pattern that works for this army too. It's an Ad. Mech. army for 40k, and usually you see a lot of red, orange, ochre maybe, with em but I have some custom lore I'm working on and alternating greens are really a better fit for them. I tried experimenting with some that work in just a hint of red but... ehhh... they're kind of "meh."
Kind of like with Stygies Skiitari forces, they're going to be utilizing a lot of stealth archaeotech and so originally I wanted to figure out some clever way to portray half of them as being cloaked in some kind of optical camoflauge or with some sort of hex patterning on their robes to make it look like they do something like that. I have airbrush stencils for the latter but portraying the optical camo was perhaps rather overambitious on my part when I can't even make up mind on a standard color scheme, oi. I just wanted to do something original and only once deep into the project did I realize that meant a distinct lack of "how to" videos on whatever I was doing, lolz. Whoops.
Any help is appreciated! Save me-uhh-I mean, thank you! :)
So my advice would be just do the standard lighting. Jungles still implies bright and high sun. Sure, it's diffuse by the canopy, but that's a little too much detail to try to capture at the army level. Use a pretty standard pattern or maybe switch the angle of your zenithal slightly (highlight a little more from 1pm instead of noon).
As to color pattern, would a camo green work here? I have seen admech in green and it can look really cool. You could just do the cloaks, robes, cloth in camo and have some spot red through eye lenses or minor touches. The key would be to use a desaturated red so it's not overwhelming. I would avoid the optical camo (like the predator effect) and go to classic camo. The optical camo (like you see people do on Tau sometimes) just doesn't really sell in my opinion because in the end, the model is still there.
Hi Vince, could you make a video on how to paint horses (say Empire Pistoliers)? Back in "cheat" #122 on Glazes you mentioned it would work great with layer painting. Do you think that would work well for horses with their large flat surfaces? I think how you painted Bob the Ogre there could work on horses.
Sure, I have had the horses video on the list for a while, sounds like it's time to bring that one up, I will see what I can do.
@@VinceVenturella Sweet! Thanks for being so generous with your time. I see you're in Olympia WA this summer for airbrush. If you find yourself in need look me up. I'm about an hour from there.
When you start painting, do you use just the paint from your wet palette or do you thin it more so the zenithal shows through more? 🤔
Depends on your goal, how much of the undershade are you trying to let show through? You can work directly from the wet palette or thinner if you want more undershade.
So I guess the basic watered down point is if a part has to be a really light color regardless put white on it?
You got it, I suppose I should have started with that. :)
@@VinceVenturella Vince Venturella I tried doing the zentithal and glaze with my Eldar Guardians, but the two contrasting colors and the small details on the armor (definitely not like Space Marines) makes it rather dull, and the grey doesn't seem to like the white undercoat and the sepia with orange doesn't seem to take to the grey undercoat. I'd love to airbrush it all but it's not worth the time.
Guess the question is maybe I should zenithal as normal and build up white, tint the white to get me a step ahead? How do I get the sepia to go on smoothly on a flat small surface with a brush? Also the faces in the mask are white. So how do I build up small parts of white without it being streaky on such small figures? Maybe you should try my orange and grey scheme on a spare Guardian since this is proving challenging for me (and probably some other Craftworld players, Eldar usually have two contrasting colors in all their schemes).
I could be overthinking it all but I've been trying to paint my army for a year can keep going in circles.
I'm curious as to what to do in a situation where you have a clear part, and you want to paint it, but not to make it opaque. Just maybe tint it a little to where it's still translucent, but has some color on it. I know you can use inks, but what would you use to prime with first that's not opaque?
You use gloss varnish to prime it. It's transparent and will make ink stick. Then you just use a very thin ink or wash or something similar like ghost tints. :) Hope that helps.
@@VinceVenturella
It does. Thanks Vince!
Useful as usual. Thanks!
Thank you, happy to help as always. :)
You said you're using a white ink in the airbrush. Which one do you recommend, and is there a specific reason you use ink instead of a paint?
FW Daler Rowney White or Liquitex white. The ink is more highly pigmented so it gives you a brighter white.
shouldn't the belly (natural creatures) be a tad bit darker than the top, as light usually does not shine from below? even with light reflected from terrain, the highlighting of the belly seems a bit too much, imho.
naphaneal I think this is less about the light but the fact that a lot creatures have brighter bellies. The white he is applying is just for preparation of painting these parts later on - less about lighting.
Yep, exactly as Michael says, it's just setting us up for having a lighter color on the underbelly.
i already got the highlight, yet everytime i do base coat,i still keep overdo, and complete lose the zennithal hightlight
Thinner, much, much,much, much, much thinner. You can always put more paint on, but it's hard to take paint off.
Good video, Vince! Once again thanks. Do you ever do like a brown base coat and then light beige zenithal for warmer colors? Or do you stay black and white (which is probably the actual definition of zenithal... lol)?
Kelly Audia he did in a couple of videos. If you want to apply a warm color scheme (reds, yellows...) you might want to use similar temperature colors for zenithal. Otherwise it won’t work very well. Black/grey/white is mostly for cool colors.
Check out Hobby Cheating 123: ua-cam.com/video/rFDHpVJiNC0/v-deo.html
Yep, exactly as in the linked video. In this case, all of my colors work well on the colder base, but yes, if I am doing flesh hounds or something similar I do darker brown to ivory.
Sorry guys. I overlooked it. I don’t know how I missed it. Sincerely, That Guy. Lol
No worries. With nearly 200 Hobby Cheating videos available it's easy to miss something (or remember that you've already watched one (sometimes multiple times)). :)@@kellyaudia
glad that im not the only one that uses other heads than the awful default medusa head
Yeah, the default head is terrible.
Can I use priming spray instead air brush?
Yes, it's less accurate, but its certainly doable.
@@VinceVenturella should i zenithal separate part or full assemble miniature? since some part may block path make it difficult to paint?
@@VinceVenturella in addition can dose dry brush make the same affect?
@@phamhoangthong4815 Generally you want it all assembled and yep, drybrush is actually a great way to go.
@@VinceVenturella For example battle sister from 40k. There some unit hold a big machine gun in front that block and make it hard to in and paint some part under or semi behind it