Our very own Stahly here is the Ultramarine Master on the site but I love my colossal Ultramarine collection, and I get asked a lot what my recipe for the armour is. Well today I’m pleased to share that recipe with you guys at Tale of Painters.
I use Vallejo Game Colour paints. They’re quite smooth and thin but blend nicely. I start off by painting a base coat of Ultramarine Blue. I add a small amount of water and give it a couple of coats to make sure it’s a solid covering and not patchy. I then use Imperial Blue mixed with Glaze Medium to line the armour gaps. This colour provides the depth. The Glaze Medium is only a few drops added but it turns the paint into this wondrous medium which blends really nicely and paints on so smoothly. I swear by this stuff, it’s even better with Vallejo’s metals too.
The next stage is to add Wolf Grey to Ultramarines Blue in a small quantity and to blend this on the the raised areas. Imagine a light shining on plastic ball, there would be an area lit up by the light. I try to emulate this ‘real life’ highlighting because I think it makes the model more 3D and less flat looking. I continue to add wolf grey to the mix and continue blending.
Oh look, more Wolf Grey added! You can really see the armour starting to brighten up when compared to the earlier pics. Finally, I finish off with some pure Wolf Grey edge highlights. I try to keep these as thin as possible.
This has really put me in the mood to paint more Ultramarines now.
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I can teach poeple how to paint if you need any help anyone…
If anyone wants help, i am 15.9 years old, if you need help here is some tips…practise. "The techniques are simple, but it is utimatly the mind that makes the champion." This is my qoute that i do beilieve in strongly.. fer real
Mixing glaze medium into your paint changes the consistency of the paint making it thinner and smoother allowing you to kind of glaze it and build up the layers that way. Rather then banding the layers on top of each other I feather them, so if you imagine banding is horizontal stripes, then feathering is lots of small vertical stripes side by side (like feathers). Feathering, Imagine a colourful bird's wing with the feathers belnding together. For banding, imagine a lego brick wall with each layer (line of bricks being a different colour.
Ah ok, am I aiming for layers that are virtually translucent? The best I have achieved like this was watered down goblin green built up over dark angels which worked fairly well and gave an appearance of different colours, but this was a)part luck! and b) on the terminator librarian shoulder pad with the crux, so I didn't need to cover the whole bad, just the top corner. (It was also not a patch on yours above sadly). Would you think this would be overkill on 'normal' troops like a tactical squad? I'm a painter over a player and whilst no where near as good as you guys, my aim is always to have the best models I can within my skill range.
Lovely model Garfy, are there any tips for blending that you'd give to a starter? I've only ever tried it a handful of times with mixed results.
Fantastic tutorial. Love the way you paint the blue. Would you recommend this line of paints, including the metallics?
-Tarvick
Another subtle reminder for your feathering technique 😉
Just thought I'd leave a subtle reminder about the feathering tutorial…
*grin*
I'll see what I can do real soon Megapope. Watch this space.
I think it does make sense, but a post dedicated to feathering so I can see it (like most painters Im a visual person, heh) would be amazing if you're willing to do one 🙂
It's not a noob question at all mate. I use method which is like layering, feathering and glazing all in one.
Mixing the glaze medium changes the consistency of the paint making it thinner and smoother allowing you to kind of glaze it and build up the layers that way. Rather then banding the layers on top of each other I feather them, so if you imagine banding is horizontal stripes, then feathering is lots of small vertical stripes side by side (like feathers).
If that doesn't make too much sense, let me know and I'll make sure one of my posts is about feathering real soon.
Beautiful! With blending over dry paint when you start to add the grey, is there a particular technique you use to achieve this? Sorry, I know it's a total noob question but I know very, very little about blending techniques.
Very informative, cheers!
Hi paint2play, I use the glaze medium with any paint that I want to blend. It could be these blues shown above or the metals on my Grey Knights. It's really good on metals it stops them being lumpy and makes them so smooth.
Interesting tip for the old inks there, if I had some I'd have probably given that a try because I don't like the glossy effect. I do use GW washes from time to time but not as an all over wash, I don't paint like that. I prefer to use them to shade, a bit like glazing.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Hi!
I have a little question about the Glaze Medium:
Do you use it with metals? Why?
Or I missunderstood and you use with the other colors to shade metals?
By the way: I use the Glaze or the matt varnish mixed with old inks to give them a different consistency (similar to GW's new ones) or to avoid the glossy effect.
Thank's