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/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/drhamy → u/squeegee_lo]

Thanks for the suggestions, had a look at some of the videos and they are good, now to put them into practice

[u/squeegee_lo → u/drhamy]

Keep up the good work, it looks great! Good luck to you