I just don't get it with this technique. Is this just another passing fad? Light reflection off a continuous sloping surface is the same all over. It will only change if there is a change in the angle of slope. Natural lighting (whether sunlight or artificial) will supply any neccessary color and light reflection graduations, and any artificial color modulations will conflict with, or contradict, the shadows, etc. caused by available or natural light, making some weird and unnatural effects. I know this technique works well, and is neccessary in figure painting, but is it really helpful with vehicles?

You're correct if the continuous surface is blemish free, which is not the case with vehicles, unless it just came out of the paint booth, and if the light source is constant. Grime, wear and fading will quickly change the reflective properties of any surface so the light is no longer hitting evenly. I would agree that some examples are a touch too artistic for my own tastes (particularly some aircraft models), but that's part of the fun. The modeller decides what their canvas ends up looking like. It shouldn't be built by committee to an exacting standard. Done well, modulation gives surfaces some life and variation, and graduation will give depth.

Kimmo

Its artistic licence, a modeller INVENTS a new technique and if it LOOKS good it takes off. Has nothing to do with scale accuracy! Tho i do laugh at shops selling 8 different shades of russian green all to be used to represent one colour .

I can't get myself to do this either .. It does create a stunning look but I don't feel it is very realistic .. I do used faded colors but I do it over the whole vehicle just to make it interesting .. I have tried over the last few kits to have a significantly lighter high point. (commanders hatch .) Like I say it looks great, but I just can't do it..

Rick

I'm with Spoons. It's a fad to the extend that anyone uses 8 shades of 4BO or OD on any model.

I will frequently overshade a model with a lightened coat of the base colour to achieve a semblance of this technique, but the assignment of various shades of these colours to entire panels, as seems to be promolgated with these paint sets, is not at all effective, to me, when viewed in real life on the model. When you take a photo of a model painted like this, it looks very real because the technique assumes an angle for the incoming sunlight and works with that, creating an optimally shaded 2D subject assuming the light comes in where you imagined it. However, viewing the model outside the photographic lightbox, the technique consistently falls flat the instant the light does not originate where imagined when the model is painted. Light falls on facets that are painted dark. Shadows exist where you have painted highlights and the effect can be an overall neutralling of the light, making the model look flatter, kinda like the intent of the British practice of countershading.

Alternatively, if the light hits the model exactly where you have imagined it, then the effects are multiplied and look garish.

No, like chipping and drybrushing, these are techniques. To be used sparingly and with great forethought regarding the subject and how it will be viewed. They are artistic techniques that some may love and some may not, but that are not necessarily directly related to the scele representation of actual vehicles.

Thus endeth the soapbox...

:-)

Either you believe in the effects of scale lighting or you don't.

It is, IMO, illogical to admit the effect exists and that painted shading is necessary for figure models but then to deny the same effect does not exist for other scale models.

I happen to believe in the effects of scale lighting, and I also believe that it's not hard to understand that, call it "normal," lighting does not reflect with the same perceived intensity from a scale surface (because it's physically smaller) than that same amount of light reflects from the prototype surface. Also, the effects of viewing a prototype subject over a distance that replicates the same subject as viewed in scale has an effect on how the colors of the prototype subject are perceived.

In the end, to get the scale model to "look" like the prototype, it's necessary to compensate for the scale lighting effect either by lightening the tone of the colors used, or painting in shadows and highlights, or some combination of both.

Under intense workbench lighting, the model my cast shadows that look "prototypical," but when observed in "normal" light, the shadows and highlights on the model simply will not look the same as the shadows and highlights seen on the prototype at a distance equal to the scale of the model.

However, like all finishing techniques, skilled application is key and the effects can certainly be over (or under) done. This does not mean that the reason for using the technique is invalid.

Just like washes and dry-brushing are crude applications of shading techniques when poorly applied to figure painting, other shading techniques can be crudely or poorly applied to other models.

I cannot stress it enough how much I dislike color modulation.
IMHO, its not a matter of representing shadow/light effects on a scaled down model, but an artistic license of the modeller...
As Paul said, chipping or drybrushing are techniques that intend to represent actual effects of light, color modulation isn't.
It might look impressive when well done, but for my point of view its results are just artificial.
Of course, everyone is free to do whatever he wants or likes with his models, I'm just giving my view about this widely spreaded "tool/technique/styling/fashion"
Just my .02

I have bit mixed feelings about this... When done with moderation it can look stunning, too much and result is anything but. But then there is that artistic point of view vs realism, in my work scale tends to tip on the artsy side more often than pure realistic rivet counting. And in single color vehicle this technique can make paint work look really interesting and lively. So I'll guess that what I'm trying to say here is that I can live with it