you should add that with the highlight method, because most paints, even opaques, have a slightly transparent nature, by starting with a dark base coat, you will end up with an overall darker appearance of the main color. unless you lay it on super thick, the color of the base coat is going to alter the shade of the main
Pre/post shading produces the smoothest, most seamless (visually) weathering effects of all. Also the most visually appealing, even on stuff that gets beat up IRL like armor.
Henry I'd honestly recommend you live stream a build, maybe not so much in its entirety but it'd be a great opportunity to interact with your views base and nobody else is doing any thing like that. Maybe one day a week for and hour or so live stream some of your work in progress. Cheers man!
I finally got the paint mixing down thanks to you. I started spraying part yesterday. This vids perfectly timed for my next kit. Thanks Henry you videos are some of the best.
While this is a series about airbrushing, it's still about painting and I've wanted to ask you this for some time. Have you considered or tried dry brushing your kits? I don't mean for weathering, but to help bring out the detail. Just a little bit of dry brush on the edges and show off those angles. I think that as good as your kits look after painting, they'd look all the better with a tiny bit of dry brush. This has been a most informative painting series that has answered many of my airbrushing questions. Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing more videos like this and your up coming projects.
Thanks for taking the time to make this video! It's very clear and concise. Trial and error is the nature of gunpla but it's easier with a good starting point like this.
i usually pre shade my parts because i can control how much the shade comes through when i put my top color on but Ive always wanted to try highlighting. it intimidates me because if you do to much you cant go back but you make it look so easy. pratice makes perfect right :)
All three of those needle sizes will work fine. Having said that, I do prefer my 0.2mm airbrush for sharing on 1/144 kits and even some 1/100. Feel like it's a bit easier to get fine lines if I'm using pre-shading technique. Now if I'm doing highlighting... don't really notice all that much of a difference. Overall, I wouldn't worry about it too much, and just practice, practice, practice.
Hey Henry! I'm a huge fan of your work. I am starting to get into airbrushing and this video helped a ton. I wanted to ask, between coats in all the methods above, how long do you wait between coats until you spray another one? Also how many coats do you normally aim for with this technique? Thanks!
Brother thank you for all the info in the series. I'm back to airbrushing and this made me fell like I just took a master class. I do have a few questions and I hope either you or anyone else with the knowledge can assist. I'd like to know the time you have to wait in between the coats before moving on. Primer ? 24-48 hrs Presade 24 hrs? Base coat 24 hr? Panel line and weather 10 hrs Too coat 24 hr? Hope you get what I mean. I will be using lacquer for one project and acrylic for the other.
A great video! Never tried the "highlighting" technique but it makes sense and cuts the paint time by a lot. I was going to say that it saves the paint but it doesn't really. What it saves up on the main paint it eats on the shading paint. In a way, the shading paint becomes the main paint and the main paint just a highlighting paint. :D Anyway, I'll give it a shot on an Exia, a kit with not that many big parts and see how it fares. Cheers!
Well im not a kit person i 3d print fdm and resin my models but all ive done is post shading with my brush. A brush i just recently got and knew nothing about so i definitely have some new techniques to try. Post shading hasent gone tremendously well for me but dry brushing highlights has helped off set it hopfully one of these will fix that to take me to the next level.
Question, if you buy a model kit, and like the original colors, can you add shading to the original plastic without a primer and repainting it? Sorry if I sound dumb, I'm a noob xD
Thank you so much for this tutorial , I actually don't do this on my model kits but on props and armor for cosplay...I've watched this tutorial around 2018 btw and i forgot to say thank you that time sorry :'(
If you were painting a part black, then what color of preshading should you use? Or can you not preshade with a black part? I want to preshade a kit, but Im using black on some parts and blue on others. Blue can just use black as preshade, but I'm clueless with the black parts.
A very helpful video, I just started airbrushing and I used some of these methods for my shading, its my second time using the airbrush the first time the kit turned out pretty smooth but couldn't tell I shaded it hardly at all and on the second kit, a mg nemo the shading turned out good,but the paint has a grainy look, I'm using createx paint and I thought I thinned it pretty good but I'm not sure what happen, it didn't do that the first time I used it. I was spraying at about 20 psi and I did spray farther away from the model than I did last time to try and blend it in more, I did the pre-shading were you spray the edges and corners and then spray the final color on top of that. Do you have any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong or what I should do differently? Any help would be great, and thanks for these airbrushing videos they're helping me out
Very helpful shading tips for beginners like me. May I know how much psi you're using for your airbrush? And in the pre-shading technique when you cut the video and skipped to the green color, how long did you wait for the black paint to dry before applying green? Thanks!
Thanks for the guide! Time to try highlighting technique. Henry, why do you use Leveling Thinner instead of normal Thinner? any reason other than Leveling Thinner dries much slower?
Vegeta, I've watched all of the videos you posted on airbrushing, and don't remember if you stated a specific brand primer that you use. I tried using Alclad II's primer with microfiller today and found it clogging my airbrush after about 10 minutes of use even though I followed manufacturer's instructions.
Hi Henry! Love your videos going back and revisiting these tutorials have really helped me. Any chance you could share your recording setup? really curious to see how you have your camera and lights setup to film while painting and putting models together.
Hi Henry! I know that this comment might be late but I am searching for shading tutorial like this, I am gonna start painting my 2nd kit via hand brush cuz can't afford airbrush. What can you suggest/recommend if I am just using a hand-brushing technique to do shading? Hoping for your response. Tyia :D
Nathan Wilens Seconding this request. On another note, is it possible to combine preshading and highlighting to create more gradient shading? You'd have a darker area from the preshading, then the medium from the darker color coat, then the lightest with the main color coat highlighting. Would that work?
I just painted my first model and don't want to mess up the decals or smudge the panel lines. What's the proper order for applying panel liner, topcoat, and water slides after you paint?
Amazing tutorial. I do have a question though. is there anyway to apply this technique to a sphere? I got the build fighters HG Hi-Mock, and his shoulders are spheres and I can't figure out how to make his shoulders blend with the rest of his paint job.
cuestion .i have a model and it is going to be black .but i would the details (engraved)to com out like the preshading you do with black.black is at this model not the way so i thaught to do the shading in gray .will this work or is there a other methode to do this .regards raf
hi henry i really enjoyed this video and hightlighting is now what i used in shading my kits. i just want to know how do you do highlighting with dark colors. do you still mix black for example in dark blue to base the part then use dark blue to highlight or do you use dark blue to base coat the part then add white to dark blue for the highlight? hope this is not a too late comment for this video since i think this is 2 or 3 years ago? thanks
Angel Torres Gundam Real Touch Marker is the easiest way to do post shading... just paint on the area you want to shade, then wipe it off as much as you could. those tamiya powder things (i assume you are referring to tamiya weathering kit series) is only for dry brushing.
The initial cost of the airbrush seems like alot but believe me using spray cans wastes so much paint it's actually crazy. A Tamiya ts can is 100ml and doesn't go very far however when I decant it and put through airbrush 100ml lasts forever.
I don't know it's possible with spay cans unless you mask off the areas that you don't want to shade first and spray from further away. Shading with an airbrush is a lot easier because you can control the PSI and paint volume with a double action. Dry brushing is good for highlighting edges and raised areas but it may not be good for shading. I can imagine you might be able to do it if you thinned down your paint a lot and applied some very light coats, but again you may not get the control or results of an airbrush. If you don't have one an airbrush is not that expensive anymore. You can buy one for about $30 on Amazon that will do all but the smallest details a high end one can, especially if you're starting. The more expensive part would be a compressor, especially one with a tank since it would keep your PSI constant. You don't have to invest hundreds for a Badger, Iwata or Paasche to get started.
Great video!!! Preshading is the most ugly method... Ppl just does black lines and all their models look like a chest table.. The best way to go IMHO is black on 100% of the surface.. The lighter colors. Then post shading again, then pencils watercolors, oils etc etc.
![How to pre-shade using 3 different methods: [MG] Alex 2.0](/img/n.gif)
you should add that with the highlight method, because most paints, even opaques, have a slightly transparent nature, by starting with a dark base coat, you will end up with an overall darker appearance of the main color. unless you lay it on super thick, the color of the base coat is going to alter the shade of the main
Pre/post shading produces the smoothest, most seamless (visually) weathering effects of all. Also the most visually appealing, even on stuff that gets beat up IRL like armor.
Henry I'd honestly recommend you live stream a build, maybe not so much in its entirety but it'd be a great opportunity to interact with your views base and nobody else is doing any thing like that. Maybe one day a week for and hour or so live stream some of your work in progress. Cheers man!
I finally got the paint mixing down thanks to you. I started spraying part yesterday. This vids perfectly timed for my next kit. Thanks Henry you videos are some of the best.
Nick Mercado Good to hear. Keep it up!
Kasha Custom thank you.
Thanks you for this tutorial. Currently starting my airbrush adventure, and i watch you video all the time for reference. YOU ROCK !
The highlighting technique is one of my favorite methods of painting my gunpla
Thank you for this video! You have no idea how much you leveled me I appreciate you Henry
While this is a series about airbrushing, it's still about painting and I've wanted to ask you this for some time. Have you considered or tried dry brushing your kits? I don't mean for weathering, but to help bring out the detail. Just a little bit of dry brush on the edges and show off those angles. I think that as good as your kits look after painting, they'd look all the better with a tiny bit of dry brush.
This has been a most informative painting series that has answered many of my airbrushing questions. Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing more videos like this and your up coming projects.
Thanks for taking the time to make this video! It's very clear and concise. Trial and error is the nature of gunpla but it's easier with a good starting point like this.
Man this one video opened up everything to me. I truly appreciate you
i usually pre shade my parts because i can control how much the shade comes through when i put my top color on but Ive always wanted to try highlighting. it intimidates me because if you do to much you cant go back but you make it look so easy. pratice makes perfect right :)
I think your painted kits look amazing, so it's really cool that you've shown how you get them to look so good! : D
What size needle do you recommend for shading? .2? Or will a .3/.35 work?
All three of those needle sizes will work fine. Having said that, I do prefer my 0.2mm airbrush for sharing on 1/144 kits and even some 1/100. Feel like it's a bit easier to get fine lines if I'm using pre-shading technique. Now if I'm doing highlighting... don't really notice all that much of a difference. Overall, I wouldn't worry about it too much, and just practice, practice, practice.
Ive gotta say, sir, im in love with the shading on your kits. Hope I can recreate correctly
Hey Henry! I'm a huge fan of your work. I am starting to get into airbrushing and this video helped a ton. I wanted to ask, between coats in all the methods above, how long do you wait between coats until you spray another one? Also how many coats do you normally aim for with this technique? Thanks!
Subscribed. Just getting into airbrushing and this was exactly what I was looking for.
I start to learn how to use air brush and technic in 2021 and I will apply it to Mg sword impulse gundam, Thank you for making/sharing this video.
Brother thank you for all the info in the series. I'm back to airbrushing and this made me fell like I just took a master class. I do have a few questions and I hope either you or anyone else with the knowledge can assist. I'd like to know the time you have to wait in between the coats before moving on.
Primer ? 24-48 hrs
Presade 24 hrs?
Base coat 24 hr?
Panel line and weather 10 hrs
Too coat 24 hr?
Hope you get what I mean. I will be using lacquer for one project and acrylic for the other.
A great video! Never tried the "highlighting" technique but it makes sense and cuts the paint time by a lot. I was going to say that it saves the paint but it doesn't really. What it saves up on the main paint it eats on the shading paint. In a way, the shading paint becomes the main paint and the main paint just a highlighting paint. :D
Anyway, I'll give it a shot on an Exia, a kit with not that many big parts and see how it fares.
Cheers!
Easy tutorial to understand and follow how to do it. Thx sir.
Well im not a kit person i 3d print fdm and resin my models but all ive done is post shading with my brush. A brush i just recently got and knew nothing about so i definitely have some new techniques to try. Post shading hasent gone tremendously well for me but dry brushing highlights has helped off set it hopfully one of these will fix that to take me to the next level.
Question, if you buy a model kit, and like the original colors, can you add shading to the original plastic without a primer and repainting it? Sorry if I sound dumb, I'm a noob xD
Good tutorial, I use a mixture of all three, but thank you for separating each technique out.
This video was so useful for me. Thank you!
Thank you so much for this tutorial , I actually don't do this on my model kits but on props and armor for cosplay...I've watched this tutorial around 2018 btw and i forgot to say thank you that time sorry :'(
If you were painting a part black, then what color of preshading should you use? Or can you not preshade with a black part?
I want to preshade a kit, but Im using black on some parts and blue on others. Blue can just use black as preshade, but I'm clueless with the black parts.
Any chance you could tell us what psi you are using during the pre shading? And about how far away from the piece the airbrush is? Thanks Henry!
A very helpful video, I just started airbrushing and I used some of these methods for my shading, its my second time using the airbrush the first time the kit turned out pretty smooth but couldn't tell I shaded it hardly at all and on the second kit, a mg nemo the shading turned out good,but the paint has a grainy look, I'm using createx paint and I thought I thinned it pretty good but I'm not sure what happen, it didn't do that the first time I used it. I was spraying at about 20 psi and I did spray farther away from the model than I did last time to try and blend it in more, I did the pre-shading were you spray the edges and corners and then spray the final color on top of that. Do you have any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong or what I should do differently? Any help would be great, and thanks for these airbrushing videos they're helping me out
Very helpful shading tips for beginners like me. May I know how much psi you're using for your airbrush? And in the pre-shading technique when you cut the video and skipped to the green color, how long did you wait for the black paint to dry before applying green?
Thanks!
Thank you so much for this video! Cant wait to see more techniques! 👍🏻👏🏻
Thanks for the guide! Time to try highlighting technique.
Henry, why do you use Leveling Thinner instead of normal Thinner? any reason other than Leveling Thinner dries much slower?
For highlighting would a dark primer work?
Thanks . Liked and subscribed. Your videos have taught me the most in the best detail
Good information, been enjoying the series -- thanks for sharing!
thanks for the video it was really helpfull !! do you have any tips voor white paint shading?
Is there such a thing as reverse highlighting where the lighter blend is laid down first then you "highlight" with the darker blend?
Vegeta, I've watched all of the videos you posted on airbrushing, and don't remember if you stated a specific brand primer that you use. I tried using Alclad II's primer with microfiller today and found it clogging my airbrush after about 10 minutes of use even though I followed manufacturer's instructions.
Hi Henry! Love your videos going back and revisiting these tutorials have really helped me. Any chance you could share your recording setup? really curious to see how you have your camera and lights setup to film while painting and putting models together.
i think im going to do some presading on my PG MK II. should i use black to preshade purple or should i just do highlighting?
In your experience, is it a good idea to do shading/ highlights in conjunction worth metallic paint jobs?
Thankyou for this tutorial, really hepful 🙂
Hi Henry! I know that this comment might be late but I am searching for shading tutorial like this, I am gonna start painting my 2nd kit via hand brush cuz can't afford airbrush. What can you suggest/recommend if I am just using a hand-brushing technique to do shading? Hoping for your response. Tyia :D
Will you be doing a video on masking/painting small details different colors? Sinanju's sleeves/chest come to mind.
Nathan Wilens Seconding this request.
On another note, is it possible to combine preshading and highlighting to create more gradient shading? You'd have a darker area from the preshading, then the medium from the darker color coat, then the lightest with the main color coat highlighting. Would that work?
So awesome. Don’t know where to begin.
Might be a stupid question but you probably don't have to panel line any more or as much, right?
For any of these, is primer absolutely needed? And for post shading, can you do it with bare, unpainted plastic?
I just painted my first model and don't want to mess up the decals or smudge the panel lines. What's the proper order for applying panel liner, topcoat, and water slides after you paint?
***** Will do, thanks!
Amazing tutorial. I do have a question though. is there anyway to apply this technique to a sphere? I got the build fighters HG Hi-Mock, and his shoulders are spheres and I can't figure out how to make his shoulders blend with the rest of his paint job.
OK cool. I'll give it a shot. Thx dude.
Great vid, helps a lot, TY.
Have you found that results vary dramatically from one technique to another when working on similar parts?
what is the brush you are using? is that an iwata hp-cs?
ty
For highlighting, did you wait till the previous coat dry out first?
Do you have to prime the part before pre shading? Or can you do this straight to the plastic?
Can you do preshading on a part that it gonna paint black? Or does that just not work? If you can please let me know how. Please & Thank You!
***** Oh!! That makes perfect sense, thank you so very much.
cuestion .i have a model and it is going to be black .but i would the details (engraved)to com out like the preshading you do with black.black is at this model not the way so i thaught to do the shading in gray .will this work or is there a other methode to do this .regards raf
thanks i wil do that
hi henry i really enjoyed this video and hightlighting is now what i used in shading my kits. i just want to know how do you do highlighting with dark colors. do you still mix black for example in dark blue to base the part then use dark blue to highlight or do you use dark blue to base coat the part then add white to dark blue for the highlight? hope this is not a too late comment for this video since i think this is 2 or 3 years ago? thanks
vegeta8259 alright thanks a bunch!
Do you plan do to a weathering tutorial in this series of videos as well?
Great tutorial!
How many PSi you suggest for pre shading?
20psi
Is u use same type of paint for each layer?
If you don't want to do a full body paint job on your kit can you still do some shading and wear marks effectively?
***** what would u recommend in the case of post shading would those Tamiya powder things work well?
Angel Torres Gundam Real Touch Marker is the easiest way to do post shading... just paint on the area you want to shade, then wipe it off as much as you could. those tamiya powder things (i assume you are referring to tamiya weathering kit series) is only for dry brushing.
What is the psi and air brush settings you use for the highlighting.
Money restraints are keeping me from getting an air brush. could a similar effect be achieved with spray paints?
The initial cost of the airbrush seems like alot but believe me using spray cans wastes so much paint it's actually crazy. A Tamiya ts can is 100ml and doesn't go very far however when I decant it and put through airbrush 100ml lasts forever.
is there a way to cheat shading method using dry brushing and spray cans?
I don't know it's possible with spay cans unless you mask off the areas that you don't want to shade first and spray from further away. Shading with an airbrush is a lot easier because you can control the PSI and paint volume with a double action. Dry brushing is good for highlighting edges and raised areas but it may not be good for shading. I can imagine you might be able to do it if you thinned down your paint a lot and applied some very light coats, but again you may not get the control or results of an airbrush. If you don't have one an airbrush is not that expensive anymore. You can buy one for about $30 on Amazon that will do all but the smallest details a high end one can, especially if you're starting. The more expensive part would be a compressor, especially one with a tank since it would keep your PSI constant. You don't have to invest hundreds for a Badger, Iwata or Paasche to get started.
packingraw invest in airbrush. Best Hong I ever bought
Thanks man
What's the ideal PSI for preshading?
We're do you get those clips you hold the parts with. I've looked everywhere and no one seems to have them
Search up crocodile clips
When I use my airbrush it gives a grainy effect and paint doesn't always go where I want it to, sometimes a bit of paint or 2 would go on another bit
U have weak airflow, psi is very low as a result..try switching to other compressor
Thank you so much
This video helped a ton!!
Awesome thanks for the info
Thanks for the video!
would you drop your PSI when doing shading?
***** What PSI do you normally spray at, 12-18?
***** Thank you!
highlighting looks more like pre-shading but revers = revers-shading
Thank you for sharing :)
Post shading is like getting a divorce. Much more technique is required. A higher level of finesse.
Great video!!! Preshading is the most ugly method... Ppl just does black lines and all their models look like a chest table.. The best way to go IMHO is black on 100% of the surface.. The lighter colors. Then post shading again, then pencils watercolors, oils etc etc.
Could you have picked a smaller piece to showcase shading techniques? Terrible choice. Can barely see the detail in that microscopic piece.....
you soulg tell everyone that you need ten + kits to reach this level in airbrushing
Why 10+ kits? I thought you'd just try something and learn as you go.