Highlighting Overview

There's a number of different ways to highlight. There's drybrushing, layering, and the ever elusive "blending". Since I'm keeping things simple here, I'll focus primarily on layering my highlight colors. My first stage highlight color is almost always the same color that I used as the base. This brings the color back to a range that I picked in the first place and makes it easy to build from. Jumping straight to a lighter color is a mistake in my opinion, as it is tougher to predict the results and can make things look too stark or garish.

Layering

Back to the flesh tones. I start by painting a thin layer of Khardic Flesh everywhere except in the recesses where I want my darker wash to show. This is a bit touchy up on the forehead where the wrinkles are pretty subtle. I'll likely have to paint those back in at the end.

The next layer is roughly a 1:1 mix of Khardic Flesh and Midlund Flesh. This is applied to all of the raised surfaces, leaving a bit of the previous layer showing in between it and the wash shadow areas.

For the next (and last) layer I use straight Midlund Flesh. If this were a mini destined for studio shots or a competition, I would take the highlights up at least another 2~3 layers. My general rule of thumb for studio work is at least 5 shades of color. This is applied only to upper surfaces where the light would naturally fall.

While I'm here, I might as well paint in the eyes. I start by painting in the eyeball with black. Then I put a dot of white on each side of the eyeball and clean up any mistakes with my base flesh color. It takes some practice, but it's a quick and easy way to paint eyes. There's an excellent article on painting faces in WARMACHINE: Escalation by Mike & Ali McVey. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend that you do so.

Moving on to the armor. I'just going to do a quick highlight layer of Pig Iron and then a second layer with some VMC 191 Metal Medium added in to brighten it up a tad.

The greys and blacks get an initial layer of the original Greatcoat Grey, leaving the dark ink wash in the crevices. (I forgot to hit the boots, but I caught them a bit later on.)

For the next grey layer, I'll use Ironhull Grey. Cloth is usually less reflective than hard surfaces, so I don't typically highlight it up as far unless I'm trying to do something special. This is plenty good for a solid tabletop paint job.

The same theory can apply to leather. It can be shiny or dull, it's up to you. I'm going to use three layers here to give it a worn feel. The first layer is the base Battlefield Brown.

The second layer is a 1:1 mix of Battlefield Brown and Gun Corps Brown.

The final layer is straight Gun Corps Brown, applied to just the edges to simulate some wear.

Almost there, just the reds and a few details to go. My first layer with the red is the Khador Red Base. I'm leaving a bit of the washed area showing on the underside of the curved areas on the arm for shading.

The next layer will be, you guessed it, a 1:1 mix of Khador Red Base and Khador Red Highlight. This is applied on the edges and upper areas towards the light.

Now the final layer of Khador Red Highlight along just the edges of the plates.

Layering complete!

Glazing

As anyone who has read my Glaze Medium article can tell you, I'm a fan of glazing. It opens up a wealth of color possibilities that are tough to achieve via straight layers of paint. A true Khador red is one of those colors. Once the layering is complete, the studio painters glaze it with several coats of thin red ink to give it a great depth that you just don't see elsewhere. I'll be doing the same here, although I prefer a deeper red than the studio, so I'll be using the same ink mix that I washed with for my glaze. This is applied in two thin layers, making sure each one is completely dry before the next application. If you rush it, you will tear the previous layer and make a mess.

I'm a little disappointed that my camera didn't really pick up the difference the glaze makes. I likely need to tweak my exposure settings a tad.

Grunge it Up!

I think this Mechanik looks just a bit too clean, don't you? Time to add some grease and oil to make it look like he's actually doing his job on the battlefield. My paint list mentioned "YW7 Grunge", and here's my current favorite recipe (slightly modified from the Grime in my Battle Damage article):

YW7 Grunge

In an empty dropper bottle or other container, mix equal parts of the following:

• VMC Black Glaze
• VMC Brown Glaze
• VMC Smoke
• VMC Glaze Medium
• VMC Matte Medium
• Water

Make sure to add an agitator. I use a chunk of pewter from a casting sprue or a foot tab. Shake well before use.

So now you have my Grunge. I just apply this to whatever I want to dirty up. You can streak it, smudge it, apply it and wipe off to just hit the recesses, whatever. I went a bit nutty on the poor Mechanik here and started getting it everywhere. I had to tell myself to stop before he was covered in it. :D I found myself wishing he had goggles resting on his forehead so I could have the raccoon mask of clean skin around the eyes. Maybe on my next Mechanik...

In fact, I got so carried away that I forgot to stop and take pics of each step. I drybrushed the fur trim with Menoth White Highlight for an off white look and touched up the mustache. I also glazed all of the black bits (belts, boots) with the YW7 Grunge. Handy stuff it is.

Blacklining

Blacklining. Do you have to do it? well, not really, although it sure does help the appearance of a mini when you do. The basic idea is to have a thin line of black (or other dark color) between each area of color that is difference. For example, the neck and the fur trim and the wrench and the fur trim. Your brain expects to see a shadow line between those areas because that's how it is in the real world. My placing a black line there, you help the brain suspend its disbelief a bit. Make sense?

So a bit of blacklining and a touch more Grunge later, I'm calling this Mechanik finished. Now I just need to paint the base and he'll be ready to take the field to support poor Karchev.

I had a ball putting this together to share. I hope you all found something useful with this article. Until next time!

--YW7--