Every time I feel myself burning out, all I need to do is to look at a hobby cheating videos and just like that I’m inspired to get back to the painting desk and play with paint!
I cannot express how perfect the timing of this video is. I feel like I’m finally getting comfortable with base coating and really wanted to start doing some highlighting. Great video!
I'm at the exact same point. Highlighting is always so nerve wracking. For whatever reason, I get confused. If I want my cloak to be royal purple, my mind says "that's weird" when I start putting lavender on it
Same, I've just basecoated a demon prince and really wanted to complete it without relying on washes to challenge myself. Tried doing a blend from highlight to shadow on one segment of the wing. 2 1/2 hours of blending and glazing and I went to bed fuming. Woke up to this video, really hoping Vince's tips make this a better day of painting...
@@BMazeing Hope you have a nice, easy and uneventful move. Halfway through the 2nd night and I tried moving onto the next segment, but keep returning to the 1st and reglazing and shifting the highlight. Really is a test I can't quite figure out yet. Best of luck on your work.
This was awesome! "Sticky-Outtie Bits" is now integral to my understanding and more importantly application of highlighting. Thank you so much for this, Paintfather!!
"Your brain will fight you on this. You need to fight it back." Got it, Vince. Lemme grab my bottle of tequila. Alternate joke: "Value shifting." Can you dumb it down for me Vince? "The placement of light and shadow." ...Maybe a little more? "Sticky Outie bits." Too much pull up pull up!!! As someone who has been basecoating his armies and mostly calling it done, definitely got to work on this. Appreciate the thoroughness and weekly videos, so thanks!
Thanks for that Vince very timely for me as this is something I'm really trying to work on. As aways Vince your efforts and time taken to produce these videos are greatly appreciated!
I am not new at all in painting, I'm pretty comfortable with highlighting, but adding the same highlight color to all of your base colors blew my mind, this is genius. Best thing I've learned in months!
Do you have a video where you talk about your general approach to choosing what colors to highlight with? Or how you choose what colors to mix with your base color in order to make a shadow or highlight? That's what I struggle with the most.
I have many videos on it, in this one, I am dealing with a universal highlight color, which I cover in the video as warm (not cold) - ua-cam.com/video/KHg1yfX-dXI/v-deo.html
Stickee - Outees great way to remember where you want to see light source bouncing from your miniature. Thank you for your time knowledge and sharing it.
I've been painting minis off and on since the late 80s. For some reason this video was what I needed to take my minis from beginner to intermediate, all the while subscribing to tons of youtubers. Seriously one of the best. I don't know why but all of a sudden I had an aha moment. You are a gem, Vince! Now I can take one of your color videos and make something that looks halfway decent with almost any color out there and give it contrast.
I'm sorry, but I could not help but giggle while Vince is talking about where highlights go and how it goes where the light is while watching the lights reflecting off his chrome dome. Sorry, I just can't stop laughing, it hit my funny bone just right I guess.
As a long time fan of your channel, I can only congratulate you for the progress you have made as a content creator. The value and sheer depth of information has always been there, right from the start of Hobby Cheating. But I really think you have found ways to appeal to a bigger audience. This series should never end. It's the Vallejo Metal Color of hobby resources. Thanks, Vince.
I think I broke the like button......I entered the hobby through GW and tried to follow their guides a while ago and the fact that they have embedded into people that highlight scheme, where every single raised part of a miniature must glow like TRON had me appalled to the point where I painted my minies without any highlighting at all. I mean: How is it possible that light can flow through every single direction right? As I am returning to the hobby after a ten year hiatus, the first thing I have been trying to learn is highlighting. I think you are doing it the best in any instruction video I found so far. In fact I have learned these last three days that I discovered your videos more than I learned for a loooong time. So consider this post a big thank you sir! Keep it up.
God I love watching this.. I was like, daaamn! When the NMM on the shoulder just suddenly looked like metal. Man I wish I could paint like this. Well, back to working on it! Thanks Vince, amazing video as always.
So after painting miniatures for 5 years I might just finally have gotten it. At least at a theoretical level. And truthfully, hearing Sticky-Outy-Bits was the moment when it finally clicked. So far I have really ever only shaded, since I just couldn't wrap my head around highlights. Thank you Vince, you have quite enlightend me today!
Thank you for the video! Can you also cover the paint prep/progression in similar videos? Or maybe also do a video on prepping paints for blends? Your colors are great, definitely want to learn more about getting colors right for blends. Thanks again!
@@VinceVenturella sure. How do you choose your paints for blends and overall color schemes. I think what I'm asking for is a class on color theory and planning minis. May be too broad of a topic for a short UA-cam video, so I may actually have to read a book. Haha.
Great video. I’ve been painting a while it’s got to that point where you’re a little embarrassed to admit you’re not really 100% sure what your highlighting rule or method is because … you just wing it. I therefore love the language you use here : top and sticky out bits, sums it up perfectly!
Another excellent tutorial….great for new people but I always finds something of interest and benefit - no matter how many figures I’ve done. Thanks very much!
I love these basic videos. I do not care how much I understand or improve through time. Basics are where it’s always at for me. Video quality is continually improving! I like the color chart lists in the beginning and the length of time you are leaving it up. The audio is so much improved and I think you have solved those issues(hope I don’t jinks it for you!). Thanks!
Very nice video! I'm going to have some friends over to paint a bit sometime soon, and I think this'll help me explain highlighting way better than I have previously. Gotta focus on the sticky-outtie-bits!
Amazing, I really find myself spending too much time trying to acheive this and never looking as good. Will re-watch this a few time and be practicing of a few models.
I really needed this. Highlighting is my "point of pain" right now. I'll save this link and come back to it again! One of the tricky things is to know how much to dilute paint to achieve a proper glaze without getting it too watery. Also how do I choose highlighting colors that match my base color, or should I just mix more and more white to the base color to create a highlight color?
Here he uses verdigris (a turquoise, essentially) into the base color of everything on the model because he wanted cold highlights. Also always the same paint for a universal highlight for a consistent lighting effect. Generally speaking highlighting a base color by mixing straight white isn’t usually ideal. It’s too powerfully desaturating and the jumps it creates are large, leading to starker transitions that are harder to blend. It’s also less visually interesting because it’s just white. It tints the color and raises its ‘value’ but as it’s just white it saps more color out of the mix than if you used something like a bright turquoise or something like a warm flesh tone for warm light.
I completely agree with Andrew here. If you need more in depth help, Vince has a glazing episode and an EXCELLENT color series where he goes into most main colors and talks about what highlight colors compliment them!! I would absolutely recommend them, they're a lot of fun. Just look up "Vincent Venturella guide to glaze" and "Vincent Venturella color", or if you know how to navigate youtube, he has a playlist of the color series.
@@brkfstfd I use Army Painter paints, and I've wondered if using a slightly off-white (like Brainmatter Beige) would avoid the problems of using pure white. What do you think?
So I have many videos in the playlist about this. I have a video on glazing - ua-cam.com/video/TbCtUYFwFWQ/v-deo.html and here - ua-cam.com/video/N88NtHNmz1Q/v-deo.html As to highlight color, avoid white and pick a bright tone with some hue with it and run like I did here.
Couple questions. 1. Is there a better place to field questions to you? ( As in, better for you.) 2-3. I have noticed you gravitate to Ice Yellow and Verdigris quite a few times now. I am planning on picking them up from my FLGS so I can practice what I am learning with the same tools. Do these simply represent a cold and warm highlight or moreso color-specific highlights? Are there any other Highlight colors you would suggest I grab (In the Vallejo range ideally)? EDIT: Just saw the Sunny Skintone highlight video, so there is that as well.
Vince, thank you for this video. This is my Achilles heel and the thing holding me back from taking my painting to the next step. This video did help quite a bit however I have a question about highlighting gigantic flat areas like a big flowing cape spread out not covered at all. The area can completely be encased in sunlight according to a zenithal with no real break in the cape or folds as it would be. Would you highlight it much like the maroon on the back of this model that you painted or would you try to make your own divide of shadows, mid-tone, and highlight to push the contrast? Thank you in advance and thank you for all you do. :)
It's a little complicated to explain, but here is the best shot. It's what I said here, but there are lots of variances. Assuming a standard "waving" cloak and not something flat, the top part would be highlighted as here, the middle would be in shadow and then the lower areas, if they are flaring out perpendiclar or more horizontally would have the mid tone in the shadows and the raised areas in the same highlight as the top of the cape with appropos transitions in between.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I feel a lot better about the model that I was painting and highlighting after watching this tonight. I still feel like I need more hue/value in tones that I’m using but I know this is the step in the right direction even though my brain just feels like it’s telling me it’s wrong.
This is an excellent video Vince. It feels very approachable and the advice to 'go bright, and darken it with a glaze at the end' I think is your third trick because it essentially gives a novice painter a way to 'fix' a mistake when they went too bright or jumped the dark to light too quickly. You've said before that 'an experienced painter still makes mistakes, they just know how to fix them' and that tip is one great way to fix a mistake. You also mentioned using matt varnish to make the glaze. Do you recommend that over, say, vallejo glaze medium? Or is a normal glaze medium also matt?
Great video! I'm trying to take that step away from base, wash, edge highlight to more controlled highlighting like this. The mix with verdigris kept being mentioned, whenever I look it up it looks like that's a light green. It seemed like what you were mixing your paints with was a white though. Is it just gradually adding white to your mix?
Glad it was helpful! It's a white/green, so in this scheme, it looks white, but you want to avoid pure white and stick to something influenced by the hue.
Vince do you have a paint color in mind that is similar in function to the verdigris here for more of a general sun-highlighted build up? Hope you're doing well ty for the vid
Finally! A video that explains the basics of highlighting in a way I actually understand. I've always struggled with where to place highlights, and how to make the value shifts to create the highlight. How far do I push the value, and how fast do I get there? In other words, how much brighter is each layer than the one preceding it? Are these very subtle shifts over lots of layers, or very drastic shifts over a few layers and then blended, or is it both? I've watched countless hours of videos but this bit of wisdom still eludes me.
I see that you are using Verdigris for general highlighting now. Any reason why you switched from sunny skintone and such? Is it to make it colder or is this your new favorite?
I have to try this method, indeed is true that my brain fights every step of putting the highlights up where the parts join, BTW you have a suggestion on how to highligths like these on straps/ropes that essentially are just a line on the model?
This might be a silly question but Verdigries. Would this be for example having a dark purple and slowly adding more and more white to the mix for transitions to the top or are they completely different paint?
@@VinceVenturella I'm confused on what verdigris is. At the beginning you use vallejo hexed lichen + increasing verdigris so I was asking is verdigris just adding more and more white to the base colour or is it something different entirely. Sorry for my first comment being confusing.
@@SeaOfGrey Oh! no issue, verdigris is a just cold green/white, named after the oxidation process of copper. More generally used for weathering but in this case it's our environmental highlight I am using with all of my colors. Its valuable because its got more hue and interest than just generic white.
“How to highlight…” I’m out! “…with two easy tricks” Dammit, I’m back in! I am not quite at the point of highlights like this for sure yet, but I’ll save it for when I feel brave, thanks for the video!
Im exceptionally new to this (only painted 3 miniatures for D&D!) and have only done base coats. I dont have a wide variety of pai ts yet.... is this necessary? Im trying to follow how you get the highlight colours. Do you just choose a brighter colour, mix it with the base colour then each highlight stage up you add a little bit more so it gets brighter?
@@VinceVenturella thank you! When I get the courage to give it a go, I'll see how it turns out! I've got a few free minis that came with some paints to practice on!
Yep!! All edges get highlights in nmm. It helps sell the effect, because metal is so reflective that it reflects atmospheric light as well as direct light.
i'm getting better at highlighting after like 3 years of painting, lol. It helps to use a glossy surface and just copy the highlights that already exist.
I want to try NMM highlights on 40k Drukhari, going from dark sea green to vallejo blue-green, but I'm having trouble doing a bit of trouble visualizing those highlights on their very segmented spikey armor. I have a decent style going on currently, but I'm not sure they're reading as NMM and not just a stylized highlight. Any tips about this particular roadblock I am having?
Well, I just don't think we have enough travel there in the NMM, we need to move to a higher value end color. That kind of armor that has lots of spikes and such is particularly tricky, because you have to place the highlights on each spike. You could also look for versions painted in TMM and use it as a reference for value alone.
@@VinceVenturella I do very peak highlights in Glacial Blue, but it's minimal. I want the army to read as turquoise, so I am worried that too much Dark Sea Green and glacial blue/white will make it read less in that turquoise range. Thanks for the feedback and critique, your input is invaluable to me 🙏
I am trying to expand my very limited paint collection. I currently have a handful of GW paints and I'm not the biggest fan of the pots. I'm looking to get a set of paints so I can expand my available colors. I am struggling to find the scale 75 paint sets but I can find the vallejo game air and game color sets. Do you have a recommendation for a good starter paint set? Also in one of your older videos you mentioned a community in Google plus is that still around in some fashion?
if you want a whole lot of colours for a good starter set you could do the army painter set with like 100+ paints. they are good, not overly amazing. vallejo model colour is also really good, but more expensive. (imo the game colours are kinda bad) if you want something like scale 75 (single pigment paints) golden soflat are usually easy to find. my personal favorite paints are AK interactive, very similar to vallejo but a little thinner. if you want the vellejo air, you can just thin a regular paint. I see no point in geting an 'air' series unless you want like 200 paints.
I hit a huge speedbump very frustrated at being seemingly incapable of blending my layers to my liking, shifted off to another of my few hobbies and now Im tossing around the idea of giving my Salamanders another go. I only have the Intro set with Cptn. and three Aggressors but they are all at varying stages of completion. Kind of a nightmare.
So I have several videos in the playlist on blending, and there are many options - wet blending, glazing and more, but smooth blends are the great challenge of acryllic paints. I also have videos on oil paints, which blend without effort, but have MUCH longer drying times.
This is going to sound very noobish, but I deffo have trouble with color gradations, where the jump is too big between highlights and base. Part of it feels like color selection with the paints I have - I would either love a tool to help tell me for the paints I've got which work well together, or get better at trying to either darken one or lighten another to better gap the 'distance' between chksen base and highlight (eg the highlight I've picked may be too high even with really thin glazes of reducing sizes)
It's really just practice and mixing, I often work with a very, very dark color and a pastel tone as my only paints, but it's really just mixing those steps and laying down those layers to build it up.
Hey Vince I'm looking to setup kinda like yours I already got the paint setup I need a computer and monitor setup and I should be good what do u recommend if money isn't a option?
Cheating in a hobby cheating? Well I never! I'm not a never painter but this was definitely helpful, both interesting to use same highlight colour for everything and intentionally goin brighter and glazing it to tie it together, excellent tutorial Vince, I greatly appreciate it. p.s. extra point for having the cool new skaven model and not one more space marine.
Hey Vince. Great vid. I was looking into picking up some fluorescent colors but I. Was reading that the colors brightness fades quickly. Have you noticed this?
My issue with highlighting is getting smooth highlights without having to do multiple layers. I see painters do massive steps up without leaving super stark transitions and have never been able to grasp how they do it.
9 times out of 10, they probably are doing multiple thinner layers to take advantage of the transparent nature of acrylic paints. It was something that I struggled to grasp for a very long time because a lot of painters say they are layering to refer to building up multiple coats inherently, without calling it out explicitly. If you watch Vince's layering video(s) he talks about the importance of multiple passes to get smoother transitions.
@@benweinberg3819 nah that's what I'm saying. I've got layering and glayering down pretty much to a science, but sometimes I wanna do tighter highlights with a higher contrast without relying on glazing the transitions. If you watch squidmar he just throws the pigment down and that's it. I know he's often wet blending but not always.
@@itcheebeard I get what you mean. It’s a thing I haven’t mastered yet, particular with lighter colors with white in them. I see guys like Marco Frisoni and Flameon and Vince and everyone at a certain level, particularly with nmm, lay down pretty opaque layers with little visible bad transition even with whiter colors. Marco has at least one relatively recent video on gold nmm that’s just this throughout. The whole principle he came up with for the video was nmm without blending - just drop layers. I do it and it’s quite stark and just looks like I’m making shapes. I have to glaze or drop something down and feather. I will say this though - the internet painting gods here are using quite thin layers and building them up over time *some of the time* and we just can’t tell. Depends on the video. A lot of thin layers are going to look opaque on camera until dry and we aren’t getting to see the entire process the way we would see our own minis at our painting stations, in our hand, up close and personal. I don’t think this accounts for everything we’re seeing and trying to replicate but some, for sure.
So the layer lines are there on someting like Squidies work, you're just not seeing it in the video (videos smooth layers). If you look at the photos of the work, you'll see very clear layer lines. The answer is, when it comes to smooth blending, you are ending on either glazes, stippling or some other technique to bring it all together.
I paint 1/35 military figures. Highlighting on uniforms and clothing turns out fairly well. However, when I move to the flesh and face, my highlights go to hell, and the faces end up looking like burn victims. Suggetions?
I feel like I am highlighting the way you describe in this video, but then it looks all wrong after I glaze, which leaves me thinking my glaze is off, either too thick or too thin. Could you describe the consistency you want for the glaze? Also, I don’t want to be a butthead, but the link often isn’t linked above in your videos. It’s not hard to look it up, but I thought you would want to know. Thanks for being such an amazing teacher. My kids and I refer to you as Professor V. 🙂
if your glaze is too thin you can apply it more than once. I find GW shades work really well as glazes. usually when I'm glazing I thin it down more and use multipul passes.
Pretty thin. You should be able to see your palette through the glaze. Make sure you dab the excess moisture onto a paper towel so it doesn't flow everywhere and pool up. Test it on your finger or fingernail. Again, you should see the surface through the paint as it applies a slight color filter. If it's too thin, you can kind of tell as the pigments start to break down and you don't have an even consistency in the paint. Using real glaze medium instead of water has been a game changer for me. You can get your paints nice and thin while keeping the consistency and behavior of paint.
Not really, layering can go any direction, its simply a technique of applying paint. I am often layering to create the highlights, but highlights are just creating credible light in the way it would behave on teh surface.
Every time I feel myself burning out, all I need to do is to look at a hobby cheating videos and just like that I’m inspired to get back to the painting desk and play with paint!
I cannot express how perfect the timing of this video is. I feel like I’m finally getting comfortable with base coating and really wanted to start doing some highlighting. Great video!
I'm at the exact same point. Highlighting is always so nerve wracking. For whatever reason, I get confused. If I want my cloak to be royal purple, my mind says "that's weird" when I start putting lavender on it
Same, I've just basecoated a demon prince and really wanted to complete it without relying on washes to challenge myself. Tried doing a blend from highlight to shadow on one segment of the wing. 2 1/2 hours of blending and glazing and I went to bed fuming. Woke up to this video, really hoping Vince's tips make this a better day of painting...
Ditto!!!!!
@@nickpeachey4199 I can't wait until I finish moving and actually have time to sit down and process this lol
@@BMazeing Hope you have a nice, easy and uneventful move. Halfway through the 2nd night and I tried moving onto the next segment, but keep returning to the 1st and reglazing and shifting the highlight. Really is a test I can't quite figure out yet. Best of luck on your work.
This was awesome! "Sticky-Outtie Bits" is now integral to my understanding and more importantly application of highlighting. Thank you so much for this, Paintfather!!
Glad it was helpful!
I second this. Really helpful breakdown and easy to understand
Vincie Vee= Increasing my painting skill! I kneel to the squarer of V's! I'm able to conquer the sticky outey bits!🎨
5:40 "Thinned with Ultra Matte Varnish" - This is why you're the GOAT Vince. You always have these gold nuggets in your video.
Concise and to the point. Nice work Vince, your style of teaching is really effective.
"Your brain will fight you on this. You need to fight it back."
Got it, Vince. Lemme grab my bottle of tequila.
Alternate joke: "Value shifting." Can you dumb it down for me Vince? "The placement of light and shadow." ...Maybe a little more? "Sticky Outie bits." Too much pull up pull up!!!
As someone who has been basecoating his armies and mostly calling it done, definitely got to work on this. Appreciate the thoroughness and weekly videos, so thanks!
I believe it was Peter De Vries who gave the sage advice of "Write drunk, edit sober."
Maybe the same can apply to painting?
"Sticky-Outty bits" Is my new favorite technical term. Thanks again for this wonderful vid Vince :3
Thanks for that Vince very timely for me as this is something I'm really trying to work on.
As aways Vince your efforts and time taken to produce these videos are greatly appreciated!
Nice. I love this model so much too, they knocked it out of the park designing the new Deathmaster
I am not new at all in painting, I'm pretty comfortable with highlighting, but adding the same highlight color to all of your base colors blew my mind, this is genius. Best thing I've learned in months!
Wonderful!
Do you have a video where you talk about your general approach to choosing what colors to highlight with? Or how you choose what colors to mix with your base color in order to make a shadow or highlight? That's what I struggle with the most.
I have many videos on it, in this one, I am dealing with a universal highlight color, which I cover in the video as warm (not cold) - ua-cam.com/video/KHg1yfX-dXI/v-deo.html
Stickee - Outees great way to remember where you want to see light source bouncing from your miniature. Thank you for your time knowledge and sharing it.
I've been painting minis off and on since the late 80s. For some reason this video was what I needed to take my minis from beginner to intermediate, all the while subscribing to tons of youtubers. Seriously one of the best. I don't know why but all of a sudden I had an aha moment. You are a gem, Vince! Now I can take one of your color videos and make something that looks halfway decent with almost any color out there and give it contrast.
Vince, you're THE man. Thank you so much for the knowledge you share and the obvious effort and care you put into these videos.
I'm sorry, but I could not help but giggle while Vince is talking about where highlights go and how it goes where the light is while watching the lights reflecting off his chrome dome. Sorry, I just can't stop laughing, it hit my funny bone just right I guess.
Oh, you're not wrong. That is definitely a light on the top.
@@VinceVenturella LMAO, I love you man, no homo. Seriously, I think we'd get along great, except I can't paint for shit. ROFL.
Another great video. Thank you so much! I’m learning every single video, and I have been painting for decades!
As a long time fan of your channel, I can only congratulate you for the progress you have made as a content creator.
The value and sheer depth of information has always been there, right from the start of Hobby Cheating. But I really think you have found ways to appeal to a bigger audience.
This series should never end. It's the Vallejo Metal Color of hobby resources. Thanks, Vince.
Just found this channel but it’s immediately amazing inspiration for my venture into Skaven with the Skaventide release
I think I broke the like button......I entered the hobby through GW and tried to follow their guides a while ago and the fact that they have embedded into people that highlight scheme, where every single raised part of a miniature must glow like TRON had me appalled to the point where I painted my minies without any highlighting at all. I mean: How is it possible that light can flow through every single direction right? As I am returning to the hobby after a ten year hiatus, the first thing I have been trying to learn is highlighting. I think you are doing it the best in any instruction video I found so far. In fact I have learned these last three days that I discovered your videos more than I learned for a loooong time. So consider this post a big thank you sir! Keep it up.
Awesome, glad to help and happy to have you along on the hobby journey.
Thank you! And sneakily, this was one of the very best set of concise tips on NMM
Always happy to help!
Great tutorial, thanks Vince, the quality of these tutorials is amazing
So useful! This has helped resolve many of the problems I have fought with highlights for a long long time. Thanks Vince!
God I love watching this.. I was like, daaamn! When the NMM on the shoulder just suddenly looked like metal.
Man I wish I could paint like this. Well, back to working on it! Thanks Vince, amazing video as always.
So after painting miniatures for 5 years I might just finally have gotten it. At least at a theoretical level. And truthfully, hearing Sticky-Outy-Bits was the moment when it finally clicked. So far I have really ever only shaded, since I just couldn't wrap my head around highlights. Thank you Vince, you have quite enlightend me today!
Happy to help!
Thats the most accessible explanation of how to do NMM I've ever watched.
Thank you for the video! Can you also cover the paint prep/progression in similar videos? Or maybe also do a video on prepping paints for blends? Your colors are great, definitely want to learn more about getting colors right for blends. Thanks again!
I'm sure exactly what you're asking, can you give me more info on what you need, sounds interesting.
@@VinceVenturella sure. How do you choose your paints for blends and overall color schemes. I think what I'm asking for is a class on color theory and planning minis. May be too broad of a topic for a short UA-cam video, so I may actually have to read a book. Haha.
@@VinceVenturella ah, you did one a long time ago. I'll watch that. Thank you!
Man your NMM is so sick! Love this mini
Glad you liked it!
Great video. I’ve been painting a while it’s got to that point where you’re a little embarrassed to admit you’re not really 100% sure what your highlighting rule or method is because … you just wing it. I therefore love the language you use here : top and sticky out bits, sums it up perfectly!
Another excellent tutorial….great for new people but I always finds something of interest and benefit - no matter how many figures I’ve done. Thanks very much!
I hope you do more videos like this where you paint a mini to completion with this method!
You'll see some occasional full paint throughs for sure. :)
Thanks Vince - I'm definitely going to concentrate on those sticky-outie bits!
Perfect!
I love these basic videos. I do not care how much I understand or improve through time. Basics are where it’s always at for me. Video quality is continually improving! I like the color chart lists in the beginning and the length of time you are leaving it up. The audio is so much improved and I think you have solved those issues(hope I don’t jinks it for you!). Thanks!
Great video. Would love to see more hobby cheatings devoted to identifying volumes and analysing the ways light interacts with them.
Great suggestion!
Top & Sticky Outy Bits... Love it Vince 🤟
Best highlight video I have seen!
Excellent video Vince!
The jade plus a fluorescent green glaze looks fantastic. Gonna have to try that one out.
I've had good success using your Sunny Skintone highlighting method, it works quite well.
You are so good, once again it's insane how effortless you make nmm look
Great simple explanation of a complex concept
You make it look so easy! Really great overview.
….again, the Bob Ross of miniature painting! Thanks Vince.
Would Pro Acryl pale yellow be considered a warm or a cold highlight color?
It could be either based on what's around it.
Great vid as always Vince!
And no, can't get tired of sticky outy bits. :D
The link didn’t show up at the 2.20 min mark
Vince: I think he looks pretty good.
Me: he looks freaking awesome. Great video with fantastic explanations. Thank you
Glad you liked it
Thank you Vince! Question - for highlighting with regular metallic paint, should we follow the same steps for non-metallic metals you covered here?
Yes, exactly :)
Thanks for giving me the confidence to try and push my highlights
Very nice video! I'm going to have some friends over to paint a bit sometime soon, and I think this'll help me explain highlighting way better than I have previously. Gotta focus on the sticky-outtie-bits!
Amazing, I really find myself spending too much time trying to acheive this and never looking as good. Will re-watch this a few time and be practicing of a few models.
Glad it was helpful!
@@VinceVenturella Absolutely, now if you can do this exact video on a bunch of different models to really ram this home
that would be tops :)
Very helpful! Thanks so much!!!
Glad it was helpful!
Man this video is helpful af. This will make my own highlighting so much easier. Thank you very much
Glad it helped
I really needed this. Highlighting is my "point of pain" right now. I'll save this link and come back to it again! One of the tricky things is to know how much to dilute paint to achieve a proper glaze without getting it too watery. Also how do I choose highlighting colors that match my base color, or should I just mix more and more white to the base color to create a highlight color?
Here he uses verdigris (a turquoise, essentially) into the base color of everything on the model because he wanted cold highlights. Also always the same paint for a universal highlight for a consistent lighting effect.
Generally speaking highlighting a base color by mixing straight white isn’t usually ideal. It’s too powerfully desaturating and the jumps it creates are large, leading to starker transitions that are harder to blend. It’s also less visually interesting because it’s just white. It tints the color and raises its ‘value’ but as it’s just white it saps more color out of the mix than if you used something like a bright turquoise or something like a warm flesh tone for warm light.
I completely agree with Andrew here. If you need more in depth help, Vince has a glazing episode and an EXCELLENT color series where he goes into most main colors and talks about what highlight colors compliment them!!
I would absolutely recommend them, they're a lot of fun.
Just look up "Vincent Venturella guide to glaze" and "Vincent Venturella color", or if you know how to navigate youtube, he has a playlist of the color series.
@@brkfstfd I use Army Painter paints, and I've wondered if using a slightly off-white (like Brainmatter Beige) would avoid the problems of using pure white. What do you think?
@@jamesgalbreath343 Definitely an option. Any kind of warm (ivory) or cold or otherwise motivated white is definitely of use here.
So I have many videos in the playlist about this. I have a video on glazing - ua-cam.com/video/TbCtUYFwFWQ/v-deo.html
and here - ua-cam.com/video/N88NtHNmz1Q/v-deo.html
As to highlight color, avoid white and pick a bright tone with some hue with it and run like I did here.
This is such a valuable video! Thank you :) just one note, though: the display highlighting video you mentioned did not pop up... ;)
Couple questions. 1. Is there a better place to field questions to you? ( As in, better for you.)
2-3. I have noticed you gravitate to Ice Yellow and Verdigris quite a few times now. I am planning on picking them up from my FLGS so I can practice what I am learning with the same tools. Do these simply represent a cold and warm highlight or moreso color-specific highlights? Are there any other Highlight colors you would suggest I grab (In the Vallejo range ideally)?
EDIT: Just saw the Sunny Skintone highlight video, so there is that as well.
Correct, so they are all universal highlights in cold, neutral sunlight and warm light. They work interestingly with most any other colors.
Thanx Vince
Great stuff friend 👏 👍
1:20 in and OK, done!
🖌Patron Plus Material$ The Energizer Skave 💥 keeps going....
Great video Vince! Do you have any tips for highlighting smooth carapaces? I have a tough time conceptualizing what a smooth shell should be.
Same as here, but you do it with texture to create straitions, like this video - ua-cam.com/video/744JQgjQs9U/v-deo.html
@@VinceVenturella Thank you so much for the reply! Timestamping the video for me is classy as hell good sir, I truly appreciate it.
Thanks Vincey Vee.
Wow what an awesome video, this is the most helpful one yet! Thank you thank you thank you.
Vince, thank you for this video. This is my Achilles heel and the thing holding me back from taking my painting to the next step. This video did help quite a bit however I have a question about highlighting gigantic flat areas like a big flowing cape spread out not covered at all. The area can completely be encased in sunlight according to a zenithal with no real break in the cape or folds as it would be. Would you highlight it much like the maroon on the back of this model that you painted or would you try to make your own divide of shadows, mid-tone, and highlight to push the contrast? Thank you in advance and thank you for all you do. :)
It's a little complicated to explain, but here is the best shot. It's what I said here, but there are lots of variances. Assuming a standard "waving" cloak and not something flat, the top part would be highlighted as here, the middle would be in shadow and then the lower areas, if they are flaring out perpendiclar or more horizontally would have the mid tone in the shadows and the raised areas in the same highlight as the top of the cape with appropos transitions in between.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I feel a lot better about the model that I was painting and highlighting after watching this tonight. I still feel like I need more hue/value in tones that I’m using but I know this is the step in the right direction even though my brain just feels like it’s telling me it’s wrong.
This is an excellent video Vince. It feels very approachable and the advice to 'go bright, and darken it with a glaze at the end' I think is your third trick because it essentially gives a novice painter a way to 'fix' a mistake when they went too bright or jumped the dark to light too quickly.
You've said before that 'an experienced painter still makes mistakes, they just know how to fix them' and that tip is one great way to fix a mistake.
You also mentioned using matt varnish to make the glaze. Do you recommend that over, say, vallejo glaze medium? Or is a normal glaze medium also matt?
Great video! I'm trying to take that step away from base, wash, edge highlight to more controlled highlighting like this. The mix with verdigris kept being mentioned, whenever I look it up it looks like that's a light green. It seemed like what you were mixing your paints with was a white though. Is it just gradually adding white to your mix?
Glad it was helpful! It's a white/green, so in this scheme, it looks white, but you want to avoid pure white and stick to something influenced by the hue.
Hey, thanks so much for the reply, having fun giving this method a try!
great video. thanks
Perfect! I'm just about to highlight my purple robed skellies from Cursed City
Great one and personally much needed. I have a question about the painting in the background is it abstract or a blood vessel?
Now I'm going to say 'sticky outy' when teaching my students, great :p
Great video Vince- what kind of blend of water or medium are using to be able to do so many strokes with just one brushfull of paint?
Just water and a good brushload and working quickly. :)
Vince do you have a paint color in mind that is similar in function to the verdigris here for more of a general sun-highlighted build up? Hope you're doing well ty for the vid
Yep, I even have a whole video on it. :) - ua-cam.com/video/KHg1yfX-dXI/v-deo.html
Finally! A video that explains the basics of highlighting in a way I actually understand. I've always struggled with where to place highlights, and how to make the value shifts to create the highlight. How far do I push the value, and how fast do I get there? In other words, how much brighter is each layer than the one preceding it? Are these very subtle shifts over lots of layers, or very drastic shifts over a few layers and then blended, or is it both? I've watched countless hours of videos but this bit of wisdom still eludes me.
I see that you are using Verdigris for general highlighting now. Any reason why you switched from sunny skintone and such? Is it to make it colder or is this your new favorite?
No, just wanted to have a cold light to this. THe universal highlight is about the tone you are trying to set. Warm lights, cold lights and so on.
That always been my confusion.. when doing highlight do you use water / medium to smoothe the transitions or a wash and glaze of the base color?
Either. I have several videos on blending and the answer is usually some degree of both. :)
I have to try this method, indeed is true that my brain fights every step of putting the highlights up where the parts join, BTW you have a suggestion on how to highligths like these on straps/ropes that essentially are just a line on the model?
Whatever the tops of the thing are and any bits that stick out. ;) - but you can treat them more simply.
This might be a silly question but Verdigries. Would this be for example having a dark purple and slowly adding more and more white to the mix for transitions to the top or are they completely different paint?
I'm not sure I understand, what are we adding the purple too? Do you mean into the verdigris or adding the verdigris as a highlight to the purple?
@@VinceVenturella I'm confused on what verdigris is. At the beginning you use vallejo hexed lichen + increasing verdigris so I was asking is verdigris just adding more and more white to the base colour or is it something different entirely. Sorry for my first comment being confusing.
@@SeaOfGrey Oh! no issue, verdigris is a just cold green/white, named after the oxidation process of copper. More generally used for weathering but in this case it's our environmental highlight I am using with all of my colors. Its valuable because its got more hue and interest than just generic white.
“How to highlight…” I’m out! “…with two easy tricks” Dammit, I’m back in!
I am not quite at the point of highlights like this for sure yet, but I’ll save it for when I feel brave, thanks for the video!
Im exceptionally new to this (only painted 3 miniatures for D&D!) and have only done base coats. I dont have a wide variety of pai ts yet.... is this necessary?
Im trying to follow how you get the highlight colours. Do you just choose a brighter colour, mix it with the base colour then each highlight stage up you add a little bit more so it gets brighter?
1) nope, you can start very simple. 2) you have it exactly,
@@VinceVenturella thank you! When I get the courage to give it a go, I'll see how it turns out! I've got a few free minis that came with some paints to practice on!
Another Vince V hit !
On the tail knife the highlights are at the bottom of the surface. Is that just an nmm exception?
Yep!! All edges get highlights in nmm. It helps sell the effect, because metal is so reflective that it reflects atmospheric light as well as direct light.
@@RochelleHasTooManyHobbies not the edges the bottom of the shape.
Yep, just NMM exception.
i'm getting better at highlighting after like 3 years of painting, lol. It helps to use a glossy surface and just copy the highlights that already exist.
I want to try NMM highlights on 40k Drukhari, going from dark sea green to vallejo blue-green, but I'm having trouble doing a bit of trouble visualizing those highlights on their very segmented spikey armor. I have a decent style going on currently, but I'm not sure they're reading as NMM and not just a stylized highlight. Any tips about this particular roadblock I am having?
Well, I just don't think we have enough travel there in the NMM, we need to move to a higher value end color. That kind of armor that has lots of spikes and such is particularly tricky, because you have to place the highlights on each spike. You could also look for versions painted in TMM and use it as a reference for value alone.
@@VinceVenturella I do very peak highlights in Glacial Blue, but it's minimal. I want the army to read as turquoise, so I am worried that too much Dark Sea Green and glacial blue/white will make it read less in that turquoise range. Thanks for the feedback and critique, your input is invaluable to me 🙏
do you add mattvarnish on all the glazes on this mini, or was it just the purple one ? im trying to get the hang of glazing
Just purple.
I am trying to expand my very limited paint collection. I currently have a handful of GW paints and I'm not the biggest fan of the pots. I'm looking to get a set of paints so I can expand my available colors. I am struggling to find the scale 75 paint sets but I can find the vallejo game air and game color sets. Do you have a recommendation for a good starter paint set? Also in one of your older videos you mentioned a community in Google plus is that still around in some fashion?
if you want a whole lot of colours for a good starter set you could do the army painter set with like 100+ paints. they are good, not overly amazing.
vallejo model colour is also really good, but more expensive. (imo the game colours are kinda bad)
if you want something like scale 75 (single pigment paints) golden soflat are usually easy to find.
my personal favorite paints are AK interactive, very similar to vallejo but a little thinner.
if you want the vellejo air, you can just thin a regular paint. I see no point in geting an 'air' series unless you want like 200 paints.
Something like Pro Acryl or AK Interactive 3rd gen are great. Sadly the G+ is long dead but I have a patreon focused on review and feedback. :)
Painting genius
Thank you, that is very kind.
I hit a huge speedbump very frustrated at being seemingly incapable of blending my layers to my liking, shifted off to another of my few hobbies and now Im tossing around the idea of giving my Salamanders another go. I only have the Intro set with Cptn. and three Aggressors but they are all at varying stages of completion. Kind of a nightmare.
So I have several videos in the playlist on blending, and there are many options - wet blending, glazing and more, but smooth blends are the great challenge of acryllic paints. I also have videos on oil paints, which blend without effort, but have MUCH longer drying times.
This is going to sound very noobish, but I deffo have trouble with color gradations, where the jump is too big between highlights and base. Part of it feels like color selection with the paints I have - I would either love a tool to help tell me for the paints I've got which work well together, or get better at trying to either darken one or lighten another to better gap the 'distance' between chksen base and highlight (eg the highlight I've picked may be too high even with really thin glazes of reducing sizes)
It's really just practice and mixing, I often work with a very, very dark color and a pastel tone as my only paints, but it's really just mixing those steps and laying down those layers to build it up.
Hey Vince I'm looking to setup kinda like yours I already got the paint setup I need a computer and monitor setup and I should be good what do u recommend if money isn't a option?
Oh, I am the wrong person to ask about technology, I just got a cool gaming computer and a nice 27" monitor, pretty simple. :)
Cheating in a hobby cheating? Well I never!
I'm not a never painter but this was definitely helpful, both interesting to use same highlight colour for everything and intentionally goin brighter and glazing it to tie it together, excellent tutorial Vince, I greatly appreciate it.
p.s. extra point for having the cool new skaven model and not one more space marine.
Hey Vince. Great vid. I was looking into picking up some fluorescent colors but I. Was reading that the colors brightness fades quickly. Have you noticed this?
Nope, never seen an issue.
Do we risk losing contrast (of hue) if we do all our highlights by climbing up in value with the same paint (verdigris)?
So is this the same idea as a "mother color" when you highlight everything using the same color ?
Little different, that is your base color, this is a universal highlight.
Nice chill video to ride out the storm rushing through the Ohio valley.
100% Professional
My issue with highlighting is getting smooth highlights without having to do multiple layers.
I see painters do massive steps up without leaving super stark transitions and have never been able to grasp how they do it.
9 times out of 10, they probably are doing multiple thinner layers to take advantage of the transparent nature of acrylic paints. It was something that I struggled to grasp for a very long time because a lot of painters say they are layering to refer to building up multiple coats inherently, without calling it out explicitly. If you watch Vince's layering video(s) he talks about the importance of multiple passes to get smoother transitions.
@@benweinberg3819 nah that's what I'm saying. I've got layering and glayering down pretty much to a science, but sometimes I wanna do tighter highlights with a higher contrast without relying on glazing the transitions.
If you watch squidmar he just throws the pigment down and that's it. I know he's often wet blending but not always.
@@itcheebeard I get what you mean. It’s a thing I haven’t mastered yet, particular with lighter colors with white in them. I see guys like Marco Frisoni and Flameon and Vince and everyone at a certain level, particularly with nmm, lay down pretty opaque layers with little visible bad transition even with whiter colors. Marco has at least one relatively recent video on gold nmm that’s just this throughout. The whole principle he came up with for the video was nmm without blending - just drop layers.
I do it and it’s quite stark and just looks like I’m making shapes. I have to glaze or drop something down and feather. I will say this though - the internet painting gods here are using quite thin layers and building them up over time *some of the time* and we just can’t tell. Depends on the video. A lot of thin layers are going to look opaque on camera until dry and we aren’t getting to see the entire process the way we would see our own minis at our painting stations, in our hand, up close and personal. I don’t think this accounts for everything we’re seeing and trying to replicate but some, for sure.
So the layer lines are there on someting like Squidies work, you're just not seeing it in the video (videos smooth layers). If you look at the photos of the work, you'll see very clear layer lines. The answer is, when it comes to smooth blending, you are ending on either glazes, stippling or some other technique to bring it all together.
What do you mean pushing to the top ?
The highlights should be on the tops of each volume (the top of the head, back, arms, etc).
I paint 1/35 military figures. Highlighting on uniforms and clothing turns out fairly well. However, when I move to the flesh and face, my highlights go to hell, and the faces end up looking like burn victims. Suggetions?
Well, I have several videos in the playlist on skin tones, so I would say check those out.
@@VinceVenturella That occurred to me right after I posted this comment.😵💫 Thanks, more practice for me,
I feel like I am highlighting the way you describe in this video, but then it looks all wrong after I glaze, which leaves me thinking my glaze is off, either too thick or too thin. Could you describe the consistency you want for the glaze?
Also, I don’t want to be a butthead, but the link often isn’t linked above in your videos. It’s not hard to look it up, but I thought you would want to know.
Thanks for being such an amazing teacher. My kids and I refer to you as Professor V. 🙂
if your glaze is too thin you can apply it more than once. I find GW shades work really well as glazes. usually when I'm glazing I thin it down more and use multipul passes.
Pretty thin. You should be able to see your palette through the glaze. Make sure you dab the excess moisture onto a paper towel so it doesn't flow everywhere and pool up. Test it on your finger or fingernail. Again, you should see the surface through the paint as it applies a slight color filter. If it's too thin, you can kind of tell as the pigments start to break down and you don't have an even consistency in the paint.
Using real glaze medium instead of water has been a game changer for me. You can get your paints nice and thin while keeping the consistency and behavior of paint.
So here is the video on thinning paint you could use - ua-cam.com/video/TbCtUYFwFWQ/v-deo.html
I’m the context of this video, is highlighting acting as extended layering ?
Not really, layering can go any direction, its simply a technique of applying paint. I am often layering to create the highlights, but highlights are just creating credible light in the way it would behave on teh surface.