paint technique question

[Madame M]

So I found this mini (won a competition this year), and was blown away by the shading on the skirt. CAn't work out how it's been done. Anyone got any ideas? My first thought was built up paint layers gradually with slightly darker tint each time using a paint brush, but the clean 'spotty' shading looks more airbrushed to me. Any ideas?

[MortiS-the-Lost]

It's called wet blending, it is quite difficult to achieve - it's done by putting a thin layer of paint on wet and then taking a 2nd brush and dampening it slightly and using it to 'blend' thin the paint out ward into the colour below, it's a useful technique for large smooth areas

[messyart]

Feathering, blending..

You *could* do it by very patient layering, though. If you water down the base colour and add the next tone in gradual bits, and are careful in applying it..

[Apocalypsedreamer]

it looks airbrushed to me, but I don't know (that's not particularly helpful sorry).


A.D

[BobbieTheDamned]

I'd agree with Mortis that its wet-blended, which is a pain in the ass to do. I did find a good tutorial a while back, I can try and find the link again if you're interested.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Apocalypsedreamer wrote

it looks airbrushed to me, but I don't know (that's not particularly helpful sorry).

Air brushing is used for large areas, like vehicles and some very large monsters - single figures on foot are far too small to benefit from airbrushing