Zen and the Art of Highlights/Shading

Well I know it has been a long time since I posted anything to this discussion. I have been busy with Warmachine...painting like a bandit, squeeking in the odd game here and there and I even built some terrain.

I bought an asswhack load of new models...so much so that I cannot, in good conscience, buy anymore until I have completed what I have now. The reason I bought so many was because my local gaming shop had a fantastic birthday sale that I just could not say No to...even though my wife was screaming it in the background! Another story for another day...

However...getting to the point of this post: I finally opened the Bile Thrall Box Set that I purchased oh so long ago...I was staying away from it because it is a multi-character unit that meant a major commitment to painting that I wasn't sure I was up to....but I bit the bullet and charged on. Much to my surprise (I guess it shouldn't have been much of a surprise in hindsight) because the Bile Thralls do not where clothes (I was going to insert a "per se" at this point but looking at the models it is much more of an "at all"). Literally they are nude zombies with guns...I digress...because  they don't wear clothes, when I opened the box I discovered little bare asses hanging out all over the place!!! This threw me for a loop...I had studied the box and it showed some excellently painted models from the front only...so I thought "How the hell do I paint these asses!?!".

Coming to the point of this post shortly...so I did what every good geek nerd battle doll player does...I did a Google image search on "Bile Thralls" to see how everyone else painted their asses..wow the segways that are possible here!  I will try to stay on point....in my search I found a particularly well painted set of Bile Thralls...and even better...a guy who has been painting miniatures for over a decade that had built a website dedicate to sharing his tips, tricks and techniques for great painting!!! What a fantastic find!!!

Without delaying any further...here is the link to his site: http://www.paintingclinic.com/MainClinic.dwt.htm

This site contains a wealth of information with step by step instructions on how to take your painting to "a whole nother level"...it is well work checking out, bookmarking and going back to over and over again. I was particularly impressed by his article on Highlighting and Shading. I certainly would not do it justice so I won't try to explain it here but recommend you read it for yourself.

I do need to summarize a little bit however because the next series of posts will be about my first attempt to implement the techniques he describes in that article on my hapless little Bile Thralls. The good thing is that I have 2 identical units...1 I will highlight and shade, the other will be used for comparison.

So here we go.....

The first step is  to base coat your model and get it painted well....this I did. The next step is too apply the shading (when you read the article you will see that this is rough shading and will be refined in the highlighting phase of the model.) The goal is to take your base coat color and darken it by several degrees (I will leave it at that because more detail is in the article) and then thin it out so that you don't really have a paint but a glaze. A glaze is much like paint but it is semi-transparent meaning you don't completely replace the base coat and you won't get that hard edge between colors that you would if  you were to simply apply a darker color paint.

So without further delay...read the article and check out my models below...I think the one is turning out well and hopefully with subsequent posts we will see it transform into an above average final product...I know...way to set the bar high...but hey mediocrity is still a goal isn't it??? Oh and BTW...I hate uploading  these pictures at 10 MegaPixels because every little mistake looks like a nuclear disaster but what the hell I am still learning.