Tried to do some highlights, no washes used. Need help, how do I get a smooth transition?

[prime ruin]

As title says, I've tried to do some highlights, I used layering and glazing but you can see the lined for the highlights. How do you smooth them? With glazing it seems to have a "dirty" effect instead of a transition

[orchid turret]

More glazing, really. I can see where you’ve done some, but just got to keep going. Thin glazes of each color level at the very edges of the transitions.

[sand cove]

What Chromium said. Mix both the light & the darker blue together in various proportions to get intermediate tones, and glaze those. Always glaze an intermediate tone a bit over both areas it is close to (the darker and the lighter tone).

If you have mixed white into your blue to get lighter, you will see that it is harder to glaze light over dark, than the reverse.

for the flesh, you can go significantly lighter & significantly darker. Making your min/max tones further apart will also help the other tones feel "closer together"

[prime ruin]

Thanks, I actually used glazes of the various intermediate tones, so I just keep adding them until they're consistent? (edit: actually I did this for the lower part of the legs, the higher part was setting the highlight and then glazing with the highlight color)
I glazed horizontally from dark to light, should I do it vertically?

For the flesh, I actually started with a brown, choose the highlights with pink and glazed them together. I actually don't know if you can see it in the head, because I don't notice it and think I glazed too much basically painting everything pink. Does it actually look like there's some "shadow" or it was a guess? XD

[sand cove]

you should represent the light as it behaves, is the guideline to answer your question about vertical vs horizontal. 🙂 On a cylinder (like the leg), a light coming from above like here tends to light a length-wise line and then it fades in the other direction. Like you have painted. On a sphere it would be different.

I think you can go much lighter on the skin. Like mixing into your pink+small brown a good bit of ivory or something like that (again progressively = creating intermediate tones)

check Sorastro's painting of faces for one of the Zombicide heroes and see how light he goes 😉

[prime ruin]

Thanks I'll check it out

My worry is that applying too much glazes it augments the "dirty water" effect of the transition/color

[long raptor]

That only happens when you dont wick off the water from the paintbrush when you glaze

[ruby zinc]

also, make sure you let the previous glaze layer dry completely before applying another or that can also lead to an uneven coat

[prime ruin]

ok thanks

[static wyvern]

I like to set up a square of rows on my wet palette. I set up the X-Axis from darkest to lightest.

But then I add medium above and make the Y axis transparency

But I would also offer that sometimes for this kind of effect you do not want a perfectly smooth blend. Look at this image and how the painter uses some texture for the effect

https://notoriginalminis.com/en/dafne-version-2-0-bust-alternity-miniatures/

There's a video at the link

[prime ruin]

Thanks, do you have any suggestion on mixing the paint? I use a wet palette but usually when "trasferring" the paint in another part and mixing it, it spreads and it tends to dry faster than a blob of paint

[prime ruin]

How much should I remove? What I've tried is gently wiping the brush on the paper, without pressing and rotating it, removing the "excess". Should I wipe it more, pressing it on the paper?

[ruby zinc]

the only good way of saying what's enough is when it doesn't pool on your mini, but in general I'd say if when you push the brush gently against the paper and it starts making the water wet in all directions it's too wet but ymmv

also... using a big brush when glazing generally makes it a lot easier as it will hold more liquid without overflowing

[ruby zinc]

this sounds backwards to me (at least how I have my palette set up and in my painting conditions) my palette's paper lets through so much water that a big open thin layered spot of paint will pull up water faster than it evaporates while a big blob will do the opposite, it will (very) slowly dry on the upper side

but... regardless of how it's set up, you should be able to move your brush in a gentle circular motion with very little pressure against the paper to make it release water, thus making your paint spot more wet. hold on... I'll get a video reference:

https://youtu.be/Jwzych8IKq8?t=328

[prime ruin]

thanks !

[static wyvern]

I've been working on brush size too. It actually does make a difference.

Some of the loaded stuff works better if you use a brush with a very small well. It results in a much more "shiny" look that way and using a larger brush gives you a smoother, wider, transition.

[prime ruin]

I'll try with my next mini!
One question:
If I use the method of "sealing" the highlight and then blending with the base tone, does the highlight have the same consistency as the base, or less?
If I use layering, do I need to water down the layers or I can use the base consistency?

[ruby zinc]

there are multiple schools about layering and paint consistency and not really a right answer.

the two main schools of thought I'd say are:

• use base consistency so each layer is opaque and can take the next layer without loss of vibrancy. blending doesn't come from transparency of layers but amount of layers and whatever you do after layers are in place (glazing, void blending, airbrush, etc)
• you use a thinner paint and then apply each layer multiple times until it's opaque, by doing it this way you can use the transparency to make sure the area you're painting over is opaque but that the transition are from the last layer is not. this means you may not need to blur the transition later