Stef Paints
Locally we have a group that play Carnevale and recently we started running a campaign. This was the perfect excuse to get my gang painted up, and a good opportunity to try out some speed painting techniques.
My plan was to test out something similar to "Slap Chop". Although rather than underpainting in black and white, my plan was to use colours for the shadows and highlights to hopefully give more vibrancy and a bit more interest in the models.
So rather than the usual black and white, for this step I airbrushed the models with VMA Rust 71.080 from below and a VMA Blue 71.008 (which is quite a light blue) from above. Immediately the effect inspired me to change tac and abandon the Slap Chop idea to continue down the red and blue road, imagining them under moonlight and just sticking with the red and blue for the whole palette.
Next step was an oil wash. Oils have quickly become vital to any speed painting I do. They are a cheat code, you can be as messy as you like, and then just clean them up from anywhere you don't want them with a sponge or cotton bud.
I mixed up a dark red and a dark blue using Cadmium Red and Phthalo Blue, mixing each with a black. Thinning each of the mixes with white spirit, but not so much they become a thin wash. I like to keep my oil washes quite thick, you can remove what you don't need anyway, but I quite like how they stain and add depth and texture when they're thicker.
The red mix was painted over the red areas in the shadows, and the blue mix over the raised blue areas. I used the same brush and applied one after the other and mixed the two where they overlapped.
Then, after around 30 minutes, it was a simple case of using makeup sponges and cotton buds to remove the excess. In some places I tried to remove in such a way it left a nice gradient.
Next up was the highlights. For this I mixed up a lighter blue by mixing VMA Blue 71.008 with Pro Acryl Pale Yellow. I then used this to add some highlights to the most raised parts of the models. As a lot of work has been done with the underpainting and oils at this point, just some of the highest points are needed just to make things pop. Don't be afraid to pick out highlights on the red areas with this mix too!
Using the same mix for the highlights, I mixed in some pure white and picked out any weapons with a small flash of light. If needed I touched up the dark areas with pure black paint to maximise the contrast. The goal was to just get the flashes of light to pop out with much more contrast to the rest of the model.
This is where I introduced the only other colour in the gang. For the Black Lamp I chose a glowing green OSL effect. This was done by painting the inner segments of the lamp pure white, and then painting with GW Moot Green. After a couple of coats of this to get a solid basecoat, I thinned it down into a glaze and started expanding the glow outwards.
They key to selling an OSL effect like this is to think about where the light is going to hit when it travels out from it's source. Light travels in a straight line, and will also reduce in intensity the further away from the source it is.
Finally, I added some highlights in the centre of the lamp where the light is originating.
The final step was the bases. From the underpainting step these were still a deep red. I mixed up a highlight using VMA Rust 71.080 and Pro Acryl Pale Yellow, and then painted 2 edges of each brick, ensuring I catch the same 2 edges on every brick. This took longer than I probably should have spent on the bases, but I really like how they came out.
So there we have it. All together I'm really happy with how they've turned out. Overall I spent about 30 minutes per model, which is perfect for a gang like this in my book!
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