I took a bit of a break from my model bench. The computer I was using to stream went splat and my mental health took a turn for the worse so I had to take some time off. I got back and finished the horse. I had wanted, from the very start of the project, to make it look as if Arthur and his horse were looking off into the sunset. This meant that I had to paint some red sun light on the model. So once I had finished painting all the details it was time to attempt lighting effects.
I would like to note that not only have I never used the airbrush to paint anything other than flat, continuous colour; such as a car body and such, I have never painted lighting effects. So this was all a learning experience for me. To be able to use the airbrush to paint details, adjust the flow rate and flow width was quite the challenge for my first time but I felt i had done well with it. Now I had to do the same with the sun light.
Firstly I painted a light sun-yellow glow over certain areas of the horse that would be facing towards the sun, then I had to narrow the flow and highlight with a bright red. I highlighted the mane as well, where I felt the sun would hit it. Next, I took a fine brush and highlighted points where the redish light would of been it's most intense such as on the edges of the bridle and the metal work as well as strand of the mane.
I am, overall, pleased with the result, although the mane could of been a little more understated but lets see what you think.
Overall, I think the effect I was after has been achieved.
Unlike the horse, Arthur is made up of many different coloured components, so I decided not to put him together and paint after construction, like I did the horse. Rather I would keep his parts separated and paint them individually. This meant that, before I primed the parts I had to make sure they would all fit together properly. So I spent some time with the Dremel, grinding away the connecting parts so everything would fit perfectly.
Once I was happy with how everything would fit together, I primed the parts. After a day of drying they were ready to receive paint. The first coat is a base colour and this was straight forward. Apart from having to make non airbrush specific paint was properly thinned and a little bit of basic masking, the majority of the work was straight forward, flay paint and I was able to base coat nearly all the parts in a couple of hours, that included the time needed to unclog the airbrush from time to time.
Base colours painted, it was time for detail work. I replaced the airbrush nozzle from a 0.5 to a 0.3 to give a finer spray and reduced the flow as much as I could so I could get a nice fine line when spraying and used a thinned black paint to slowly build up low lighting from clothing creases and shadows. Once that was done, I turned to adding highlights to the creases, same process just with a lighter colour.
It was then time to use a dark wash on the model. Wash can be used for many things; picking out details, weathering and low / highlights, I will be using it for all of these. Wash is a very think 'ink' of sorts that goes on very watery and flows into places of low relief, thus highlighting low relief details such as seams and joints. It then dries back. The areas that have more wash collected in them, the darker the wash dries. So it can easily be used as weathering. I can paint it over areas I wish to weather and, once dry, it looks like dirt rather than colour. Very handy. I painted the wash into seams etc while also using it to weather areas of dirt was well as bring down the vividness of the brass belt buckle to make it look weathered and used.
Next step in my weathering is to use pigments. These are a dry 'dust' like powder if differing colours. I work it onto a brush and brush the powder into areas that I wish to weather and blow off any excess. This applies another level of 'dirt' to the model, making to look more realistic.
Weathering is so much fun, as you apply it, either washes or pigments, you start to see the model get more and more ages or dirty, bringing it further and further into reality. I can easily get carried away with weathering as it really makes the model pop and grounds it. Funnily enough, this is the first model I have ever really done proper weathering. I often used a wash on my planes and cars to pick out details and show some oil stains but with this model, I really worked on the weathering because it is what makes it so much more realistic.
With the pants done, it was time for the jacket. I first hand painted the black neck scarf and the buttons and then applied the same wash and pigment process as the pants. The finished parts look just amazing!
I love how weathering can really bring the model together. The slight changes in colour, the look of dirt and age make it look worn.
Next time, I will be working on the smaller parts such as the gloves, holster, hat and stirrups. Stay tunes for future updates but I am so pleased with how the model is coming together!
No comments:
Post a Comment