Detail Painting Works

It is most important that the layers are dry before adding another layer of dry brushing to it. You cannot rush doing multiple layers. If you paint over a still wet/damp layer you risk rubbing or pulling off paint from your miniature. Make sure brushes are cleaned and dried before doing a new layer of paint.

Do as many or as few layers on your miniature as you feel comfortable doing. It took me time to learn that it is ok to paint over layers or cover most of a layer that you just did.  Your layers will all be different consistencies depending on the techniques you use. Base coats are thicker and you don’t want to do too many of these as the more thick layers you put on the more it takes away from details. 

Dry brushing layers most of the paint is taken off by the paper towel/your hand/silicone mat. Dry brushing layers are relatively light and you can do multiple of these layers on top of each other. I personally usually have 3 or 4 dry brushing layers with no problems. This is a great technique to get light amount of paints without taking away details. 

Glaze layers are a the in between consistency of base coat and dry brushing. These take a little longer to dry as it is a more water based layer. You can do glazes on top of dry brushing and can do a few glaze layers. Just know glazes put on top of a glaze will not show through as well as dry brush layers as there is more pigment. 

Washes take the longest time to dry as they are mostly water. There is usually only one wash per area  

This is a layer that is great to use glazes on. Paint with a purpose to add light into the miniature. This could mean adding a lighter color to create a gleam on the edge of a sword or adding sun reflection on the shoulder pauldrons and helmet of your soldier's helmet. This is where you can make spells look Ombre with different color shades, or give a light source light (example- adding a gleam of white/yellow/orange/red) to armor if they are holding a torch to reflect the torch light). Highlights are how I add different colors to strands of hair or to add different detail patterns into fur. 

When trying to get the precise edges of things for highlighting try using the side of the bristles of your brush to hit the min’s edges. An example of this is for doing teeth, its easier to slide the edge of the brush with the white color to get the highlight of white onto the teeth without taking away the shading in between as the brush will do the work for me to follow the teeth curves. 

When doing tops of pieces use the tip but make sure your brush doesn’t have much paint on it. You aren’t looking to put a thick layer of paint on with highlighting. You can use glazes for tinting things or small work areas. Glaze can change the hue of paint already on the layers. I tend to make glazes using colors that I have dry brushed on to give that color a little more brightness in specific spots, or make a glaze combining dry brush colors to blend everything together. 

Only the things that are facing your “light source” need highlighting- so this can be the areas you see looking straight down on your mini, or when looking straight on. You wouldn’t do the full 360 degrees around your mini. 

• When you are doing small detail work it is important to use as close to the appropriate size brush as you can. If you don’t have something’s small enough- improvise. There have been times I have painted with tooth picks as they were the smallest option

• Less paint is more! It’s easier to go back and add more paint than it is to take paint off areas that shouldn’t have it.

When going into finer details it is important to try and have a plan.

Consider the type of “material” that you are painting As leather, skin , cloth, hair and feathers will have a different look to that of glass, gem or metal of armor /man made things. Wood and earth will have a more muted/softer tone than materials that reflect naturally in the light.

I know there is another article on the blog about dry brushing but a quick review for here as well: 

• Get your paper towels ready or use your hand. This technique takes some practice and it’s ok if you use too much or too little paint as you are first practicing this technique. When you dry brush you are going to put just a little bit of the color on the end of your brush. This is because you are going to be wiping most of it off on your paper towel or hand. You are going to keep wiping the paint until it no longer goes into the textured part of your paper towel or is starting to be light streaking. Dry brushing is where you have little pigment on your brush and it adds a layer of color onto your miniature without taking away the layers underneath.

• Usually dry brushing goes on the higher points- meaning that it doesn’t go into creases, and is used to highlight details. You will most likely need to go back over areas multiple times and through many angles to get the details/textures to show. Try for a 45 degree angle across the surface. This brings out the hidden details the best. When you hold the paint brush straight up and down you risk putting color in the creases and the areas that you don’t want to paint. Float your brush across areas, but don’t be afraid to put a little bit of pressure on your brush. It’s ok if your dry brushing covers most of your base color.

You can dry brush in both large and small Areas. When I do my first dry brush layer I personally tend to cover most of my base coat and it took many painting projects before I got comfortable with dry brushing You can dry brush to your own personal comfort level. I personally like dry brushing as it allows you to add many colors on your miniature without adding a ton of paint onto your mini that take away details. It is such a thing layer of paint being brushed on, more like a mist than a thick layer.