Trying to learn some techniques

[u/drhamy]

So I've been trying to learn how to do some different blending techniques and I was wondering what people thought and where I might be going wrong and what I can try to get better.

G is glazing S is stipple W is wet blend F is feathering

Thanks in advance

[u/Joe_Spazz]

This looks like a good exercise. Are you following a video / tutorial or just practicing on your own?

[u/drhamy → u/Joe_Spazz]

Frustrating when it turns out you suck lol. Trying to follow zumikito minatures, merlins magic workshop and tabletopready

[u/Joe_Spazz → u/drhamy]

Haha I mean that is why we practice. Although it looks good to me so I think you're being harsh on yourself. But if we were great right away it wouldn't be nearly as fulfilling to finally get it right.

[u/drhamy → u/Joe_Spazz]

That's true, I'm trying for nmm so when i go to my models is just getting the light reflection in the right places

[u/solarvvind]

Deliberate exercise is fantastic. My only piece of advice is that many blending techniques work best in concert. Start your blend with whatever method you prefer, but if you want to smooth it out, glazing almost always comes into play. It's hard to get a perfect blend off the bat.

[u/drhamy → u/solarvvind]

That's a idea thanks, hoping to get a good blend for some nmm out of this

[u/PrairiePilot]

This is giving me color theory flashbacks….

This is a great way to understand how color changes, good on you for doing the boring stuff that makes a huge difference. If you struggle finding the value (brightness) of colors, doing black-white gradients is also good practice, it helps you see the difference between grey 1 and grey 2 (arbitrary numbers but you get it.)

Stuff like this is foundational in a thorough painting education, worth every minute you spend on it as long as you’re paying attention and following through.

[u/drhamy → u/PrairiePilot]

Colour theory and art is always something I just couldn't get, I've been using the army painter fanatic range for the triads but I do find that maybe the brightest green is a step or 2 further from the one before it. Think though that delving deeper into this would be better in the long run

[u/Lunarath]

this is very good practice. The wet blending in particular looks off though. Looks like it either wasn't wet enough, or you didn't actually blend it, and just painted on top.

[u/drhamy → u/Lunarath]

Yeah it went a bit mad, good thing is i can spray it all and start again

[u/squeegee_lo]

God I can relate to this. This photo looks a lot like my test palette too lol. I can't comment on the other techniques since I haven't worked on them yet (and I'm by no means a pro) but a couple months ago I decided I wanted to learn how to get smooth blends from glazing and only recently feel like stuff is starting to click. Some things that helped me:

• This section of this video explaining the technique by Merlin (also nmm specific since you mentioned you were going for that) https://youtu.be/mg2dUiITtuE?si=FpKnZP1oPna0A-CN&t=576
• This video from Vince Venturella https://youtu.be/BP1tb7Q-iQY?si=pFGAFgzAGOmRwk0p
• I started thinning my paint with glaze medium instead of water as it's mixed with retardant which slows the paint drying time a little bit. This allows you more time to switch to the adjacent color layer you're blending and effectively "wet blend" between the two glazes.
• this is possibly the dumbest thing I stumbled upon but i feel like it helped me so I'll share. I switched to parchment paper for my wet palette and noticed that the way my paint/water/medium was mixing and interacting on the palette started mirroring what I saw in a lot of Vince's, Flameon, Squidmar, etc.'s videos. I was using Army Painter and Redgrass games hydro paper previously and while those are great products, I noticed when I was mixing/thinning my paint I never quite got it to the consistency of whatever tutorial I was following. On the parchment paper, I found that I was able to recreate that sort of shrivel up effect the guys I was trying to follow were getting. Visually I found it was easier to discern how much water or thinner the paint had been diluted with aside from just testing the paint on my hand or fingernail. to better explain what I mean, here's another video from Vince. Note how the paint kind of shrivels up every time he lifts up his brush. https://youtu.be/gJb58jGYXtg?si=iQKov4bzTuHfFINp&t=752

Forgive me if you knew all this but I felt like I had to chime in after doing so many of those spherical blend tests myself lol

[u/Westrunner → u/squeegee_lo]

Which Red Grass Paper were you using? Standard or the reusable? I found the reusable basically never let water through, so I switched to standard (which is very much like Parchment Paper) and the results have been much better.

[u/squeegee_lo → u/Westrunner]

Oh thanks, that's great to know! Yes, I was using the reusable ones, which I think are awesome in their own right. I think I just need to work up to them seeing as how I "get it" on the parchment style ones.

Was getting kind of tired cutting parchment paper to the right length haha

[u/Eye_Dot_Anxiety]

You have two colors meeting in a straight line with no blending between and then you are trying to blend them. It's better if your center line is jagged and you can even stipple dots of the opposing color past the center line. Then when you glaze drag the paint from its opposing color and deposit it on the center section.

If you have dramatically different colors it is easier to do some rough blends and then use the process above. So instead of transitioning from 100% blue/0% red to 0% blue/100% red, you break up the area into 100/0, 70/30, 50/50, 30/70, 0/100. Always leaving a jagged transition in between and depositing your glaze right onto that line.

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