Quite sometime ago in a Model Railroader magazine an article explained a particular method for painting figures. It started out by painting the figure orange, painting clothing in various colors etc., and finishing off by dry brushing the figure with Black to high light the features. Does anybody remember the month and year of the magazine this story was in.
Well, maybe. The 12/05 issue had an article on physically modifying figures and painting them in a 6 step process. But he used tan as the first color and used dry brushing of various colors. It was titled “Modifying and Painting Figures” by Sam Swanson.
Ken
ceejay- check out the archives page. You can link to it from the home page.
I don’t remember that particular article, but I’ll bet it’s in the archives someplace.
Good luck with your search.
I don’t remember that article, but here’s a good site that discusses dry brushing and shadow theory.
http://www.brifayle.ca/
Ceejay–
I remember the orange paint; IIRC it was in Lionel Strang’s Workin’ on the Railroad column. A few years ago, Jeff Wilson had a similar column on painting people using craft paints.
Edit:
I just looked up dates on the Magazine Index. Lionel Strang’s column in the April, 2000 MR is on making people unique; Jeff Wilson wrote Figure Painting for the March, 2003 MR Back to Basics column*.*
Very interesting take on this. Thanks for posting this link.
Guy
That brifale site was pretty interesting, people should be using a non glare paint, shirts do not reflect light nor do horses rear ends, as in the photos, The number one rule in figures is : "Figures should not resemble Gumby ! ! "
I’ve noticed many times in pics in MR and other mags, nicely done buildings, equipment and scenery, and figures as shiny and glossy as a new Caddy!, it just detracts from the whole scene, I personally have never seen a ‘‘shiny’’ person, although I did see some tourists at the beach that didn’t use sunscreen that had a nice glossy red color…I believe they call it ‘‘second degree burns’’ LOL
When I paint figures, no matter the scale, I use flat colors if I can, when I’m finished and everything is dry…they get a good spray of Testors DullCote laquer, seals the color and no shiny shirts. This seems like an obvious thing to do and I wonder why more people don’t do it, it would certainly make those layout pics look more realistic.
I second the spray of dullcoat on painted figure - in fact, sometimes I do spray dullcoat twice on my model figures [:P] - the reason being sometimes I use gloss paints , specifically for say leather shoes or coats, or plastic briefcases, purses, etc, as you get a slightly different texture (smoother) than flat paint even with the dullcoat (I have convinced myself of this, whether or not it’s grounded in reality, and also have convinced myself it looks more realistic). Anyway, definite ‘YES’ on the final dullcoat for figures, and then for the few figures which have glasses (very few - apparently free Lasik for all residents of the Philadephia Delaware Terminal Service area) or camera lenses, etc, a touch of gloss metallic blue paint.
I remember that brifayle site, some very nice examples of painting (Fast-Painting?) except…he painted on eyes & lips - NO!!! I remember an MR article which stated if you are modeling O gauge or smaller, do not paint eyes and lips, as the figures will have too much of a clownish look (which these figures have ) - just a nice dark wash over the face to emphasize the eyes & mouth features, and you’re good (Lifelike figures have these painted facial features, and they looked horrible - had to strip the paint, repaint, detailed wash, dullcoated, and they looked cool).
Thats a very good point about the facial painting…the pre-painted figures usually look terrible with their gloss clothing and huge eyes and mouth. I don’t paint any facial features at all on anything less than 1\48 scale…mainly because you can’t see them at normal viewing distances…I just paint the flesh parts tan and let it go. A wash of thin black will bring out the surface textur
I don’t know…Some people wore some pretty shiny cloths back in the 70’s.[:P]
Eh, even the shiniest gold and silver lame club-ware of the '80 (fashion had surpassed the 1970s in shininess and tightness by the early 1980s) should only have a sem-gloss finish if you’re modeling the Bridge & Tunnel Crowd at the Pallidium or Limelight in HO scale. Besides, I don’t know how you’d realistic model the big hair of that period anyway.
And upon further review of the biarfyl site, I realized that his painted eyes are perfect for modeling '80s punkers and '90s goths, who purposely overused black eye shadow (I wonder if Presier still sells that Mohawked figure) - the painted mouth, OTOH, still doesn’t work as even the most collagen-lipped starlet’s ruby-painted mouth would be a fraction of that modeled size.
For HO figures a little gray wash will “pop” the faces enough to give the right impression even for photos.Facial features don’t really show up until you’re less than 10 ft. away.