Hallo!

Some days ago I postet the fotos of my first diorama...

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/255218&page=1

well the figures was not looking to good, so i decided to make a training painting with 3 old scrap Italeri 1/35 figures (the 105mm howitzer team)

Here i will post the fotos and than i will comment theme



I glued the figures, and then spry a first coat of primer (hardweare store acrilic primer), then i filled the gaps with some putty and sanded doun...



A second coat of rimer was aplied from a spry can, in thin coats of 1-2 min intervals



Then i appliet the first coat of skin (Vallejo 845 Sunny skin tone). I was not so happy withe the primer... the colour was running a bit, was not covering so easy... for the first coat the color was thinned 1:1 (colour : thinner). I have a self mixed thinner (ISOPROPANOL + DESTILLED WATHER + small amount of GLICEROL + small amaunt of FLOU AID

It is raining for few days now, and drying times are slow... so i begine to put on samoe basic leggings colour (Vallejo 837 Pale sand)


Then I began with sahdowing the flesh... I decidet to work with oil colours so i am using a 1:1 mixture of Burnt sienna and Row umber + mineral odorles spirit... For this 1st guy i used a premixed wash of those two colours but i think that is not good to have a premixed oil colors staying for a few time... there was some pieces inside it was not working good.

I think that is better to make a fresh wash evry time... I am corect?



For the other two guys i decidet to use a "havy oil" shadowing, so i puted some pieces of masking tape on to protect a little bit the rest of the body...




I mixed 1:1 ratio of Row umber and Burnt sienna WITHOUT any thinner... than i aplied the thick paint all over the face and the hands with a scrap flath brush...





After about 20min i slowly began to take away the oil paint with a better flath brush, gently, slowly with a dry brush constantly cleaning it on the papper, aplying just small amounts of thinner...

With a samll brush and some thinner if needed, you can blend and corect some areas that you dont like it...



When the oil was drying i aplied a base colour for hte uniform (Vallejo 893 Us dark green)




With a small brush i started applying the highlight face colour, witch was again 845 Sunny skin tone. The wash toned it down, so I think that now it can work as a highligt colour

Basicly i painted the chicks, the nose, the eyebraws, the jaw line, the ears, leaving the recessed areas intouched... it was a slow proces, something between painting and drybrushing...

I painted the withenes of the eyes with 837 Pale sand colour and a Revell 00 painta luxus brush, under the lence with light




And this is the resoult of the first day... I am verry happy because i see a lot of inproovment from the figures of my first diorama...


THIS IS NOT MENT TO BE A TUTORIAL! I want to show you my tecnic so that you can see wat i am cappable of and you can advice me better and i can inproove...

dont use white for the eyes or they look creepy,use the same base color of the skin and ad a drop of white

I apply the base color on the face and then paint the eyes ivory. I then add the pupils with dark gray. Then I outline the eyes and at that point you can get rid of the "pop eyed" look if you made the eyes too big.
I never use a wash for painting faces or hands.
J

Thanks for the tips...

Those figures are my 9th and 10th figures i ever done, and trust me, you dont want to see the first 3...

I realy like building dioramas, so I am looking for a simple way to do decent figures for theme... I don have any drawing/artistic talent...

Next time i will try to use 3 shades of skin tone for the face in stand of using oils...

I will see, how this pale sand eye color will look like when the figure will be finished...

I hope that i will continue the work tomorrow and post some more pictures!

Bostjan

One of the key areas I've learned about figure painting is that the more paint colors one has and uses, the better the figures will appear. I'm not suggesting that you buy lots of paint colors right now, but it does help to collect different paint colors over time.

For example, adding shades and tones improves the figure. Using different green color variations to your uniform, or different flesh tones helps such as dark and light shades.

Also, paint every detail you can with the matching color. That means buttons, shoelaces, belts, boot soles, helmets, watches, T-shirts, etc. Each clothing item actually has its own unique colors. Doing this, you will discover that uniforms aren't always totally green and boots aren't always totally brown...they have different colors that make up these items.

Hope this helps.

Right, I don't use whites for eyes at all. I've noticed that a lot of modelers are doing that recently, and they don't look realistic and rather cartoonish, goofy at best. At 1/35 scale distance, the eyes will appear as the same color of the skin anyway unless you're painting a figure with dark skin colors.

Hi Bostjan,

Figure Painting is very different from tank, plane or car painting.
The best source of information about all kind of figure painting, hints and tips and tutorials you can find (from my point of view) on:

http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.de

It's complete in english (and some other languages also) .

Please have a look into the tutorial section - it is worth the time.

all the best
Thomas

sound wrong but for learning buy if you a good figure,better carved is easy is to paint it, and Italeri are famous for being the worst of the worst, if you want to use it as a "gym" take a figure in white metal in 54mm (1/32), with the metal you can strip the paint and paint often as you want without losing detail.

Ok... had some time and done some work...



First i painted some details.... Mahagony brown for the boots, black for the soles and some leather for the belt...



Then some home made "shade" was aplied... I experimented with some matte medium, distilled water and some black brown colour... I am not happy with the resoult, and i ordered a Citadel eartshade "wash"...



Then i aplied some base colour, then some base colour wit a little bit of pale sand to thighlight and in the verry end a very light drybrush of pale sand...

The helmet was painted with violet brown...



I know that is not mutch, but all in all i am happy with the inproovment from the last two figures from my diorama




I will paint the other figure fit citadell earth shade, and i will see and post the difference...

With the next figures i will try to inplement all your advices...

Thank you for now

Bostjan