its the first time i've ever painted figures with enamels (i usually use acrylics), and don't really know the first thing about painting highlights and shadows with enamels, so could someone please help me out?
much appreciated stan

Ola Stan

First of all I want to start off with that I am by no means an expert painter. I'm far out of the range of the big guns here on the site.

But I only paint figures with enamel and have been doing so for years. So I kinda managed to get a technique that worked for me.
Basically I follow a few rules which i don't doubt will be very different with acrylics.
1. Thin your paint well.
2. thin layers at a time. and built up shadows and highlights out of several strokes and layers

Normally I set up the basecoat of what I want to paint in a little darker shade then it should be. Holding the figure under a desktop lamp will immediately show you where shadows and highlights should come. The shadows I built up taking the darker basecoat and adding black to it. First a little. Do the first shadowlayer, Then a bit more. Painting the area where the shadow is darkest etc.etc. till I'm satisfied. Same goes with the Highlights. But then I take the color that the basecoat should actually be. That will be the first highlight layer and then I usually add a sand color to the mix. Every lighter layer from that point goes on a ever increasing stroke towards the outer point of the crease (I hope that makes sense) till I'm satisfied. In some colors you can dilute with white but that quickly becomes too strong and looks out of place. Keep in mind that the whole proces minus the basecoat of the figure is done with paint that mostly resembles a filter and some of my highlights can consist of some 7 layers

Here are some examples of my working with enamels on figures Bit of a mix up there are some older figures among them and looking back at them I can see how much I have learned through the years







Hope this helps you a bit

Greetz

Robert

thanks for the help rob, i'll try that tommorrow!

My method would be very similar to that of Roberts. Very thinned colours ... and as far as I know, this is how the highlights and shadows are made using acrylics as well. One very important thing to remember is to let the different layers cure between each new sitting ... 24 hours! Painting all the shadows and highlights will maix the paint and it will look like one pass-over instead of several sittings.
This is why many choose to use acrylics, but it suits me as I have a very limited time each evening.
Why change to enamels if you normally paint with acrylics? Not that its wrong to do so .. just wondering.

hi Frank, thanks for the help, I just thought I'd give enamels a go really and just see how things would turn out

ive begun testing a new way of doing my highlights and shadows to get away from oils.

what i normally do is take the base color in enamel. whatever color you would use for the whole thing regardless of highlights and shadows. once that has cured, i would then do shadows and highlights within in the same sitting. doing shadows first by mixing the base color with a tiny bit of black and also the base color with white.
i would do the darkened base color first in any creases or other areas that would require shadow and the lightened color for the places that would require a highlight. i wouldnt let those sit too long before using a thinner dampened brush to blend the hard edges of the highlights/shadows.

with this, i get a turnout like this-==


pictures arent the best, but gives you an idea

hi jesse, thanks for the help i will give it a go!

Hi Robert

Can I ask what you use for painting the flesh on your models, is it an out of the tin colour or a custom mix or do you just do what others do and use oil paints for the flesh.

Could you share what you use.

Thanks

Paul