This week I'm looking at the art of painting orange - with a step by step tutorial for the Yu Jing faction for infinity. These are also the exact same colours I use for my Orange Necrons, so keep that in mind if you're interested. I'm using the airbrush heavily for this scheme, so if you want to know a bit about airbrushing you might find it interesting.
Lets get started!
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As the weather was rather nice (a rarity in England) I've set up my airbrush outside for once!Step 1 - Undercoat, Chaos BlackThe first thing I did was undercoat the models with Chaos Black Spray by Games Workshop. This makes sure we get a really resistant finish and prevents any chipping (especially important on Infinity models as they're all metal). I haven't taken a picture of this stage as it seemed a bit superfluous. Just remember to keep the can a good distance from the mini, shake well and don't ever use the stuff under 10 degrees! |
Step 2 - Undercoat, Grey Primer
I then primed the models with a good coat of Vallejo "Surface Primer - Grey". This stuff is almost white actually and gives a good base to work from for our bright colours.
Step 3 - Basecoat, Hot Orange
A goodly Basecoat of Vallejo's Hot Orange comes next. As this is a basecoat I'm just giving the model a goodly covering and really just getting it all on there!
Step 4 - Highlight, Orange Fire
I then run a highlight with Vallejo's Orange Fire. This time I'm adding fairly wide highlights across the panels to add a bit of definition to the shapes and to start to create the final colour that we're going for. I'm also painting up an Aleph bike in orange to use as an Aragoto for the Yu Jing force as I like the model.
Step 5 - Pre-Shade, White
Who just said that it looks terrible? Well, you'd be right.
In this stage what we're actually doing is adding a pre-shade of white. We'll be following it up with a final highlight of Yellow, but to get the yellow to show strongly over the orange we have to add a few points of light with our white first. This stage is the most difficult as you have to be really carefull not to get too trigger happy, or the whole thing will be a mess!
Step 6 - Final Highlight, Sun Yellow
I then go in and spray a coat of Vallejo's "Game Air, Sun Yellow" straight over the white points that we added. This adds a stark highlight, but is easily smoothed into the base colour. The best part is that the "Air" paint range are already thinned and this layer acts a lot like a glaze that unifies the whole model and gives us the final piece of the smooth orange look that we were going for.
Other Details
With the Orange complete I then turn my attention to any swords that I want to do in a crystalline blue. For this I mask the models off using a good quantity of Cellophane. It's worth noting that you should let the orange dry thoroughly first as you don't want to paint to stick to the wrap!
As the first layer, I use an ordinary brush to add a coat of Vallejo "Dark Prussian Blue" to the blades.
I then Highlight with a layer of Vallejo Green Blue applied with the airbrush, then a layer of 50/50 Green Blue and White and finally a pure White Highlight. This gives the result pictured below. For my Necrons, these are the steps I use to paint their power coils and other glowing details.
Time to Grab a Paintbrush!
With all of the airbrush work complete it's time to grab your ordinary paints and go to work. It was also a relief to get inside again as the sweet smell of Vallejo products on a sunny afternoon was creating a veritable insect orgy on my patio!
The first step after using an airbrush is always inevitably to create some definition in the panels. For this I used an applied wash of Khorne Red directly into the recesses on the armour. It is really important that the paint is applied carefully and not washed over the whole surface or it'll destroy the highlight we've built up. If you're into Oil Washes this would be the time to break one out.
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| A Khorne Red wash is applied directly to the recesses |
After that I continue to add definition by highlighting the edges of the panels with GW's Yriel Yellow. With this step the Orange armour is complete and all I have to do is paint in to other details.
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A Yriel Yellow edge highlight finishes the armour off nicely.
Finishing
After all of that excitement I finish off the models with a few simple coats of paint. As I'm feeling generous I thought I'd share the other colours I used.
White Areas - GW's Ulthuan Grey Base, Vallejo White Highlight
Blues - The same as I used in the airbrush. I then add a final highlight to the sword blade edges etc. with pure white
Blacks - Vallejo Black with GW's Codex Grey Highlight
Purples - GW's Xerus Purple with a Genestealer Purple Highlight and a Druchii Violet wash
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Great tutorial on the orange! I've only used an airbrush for larger highlights so it's always amazing to me to see it used on such a small scale. The orange is brilliantly done and I'll have to take the idea of using white before the yellow for highlights
ReplyDeleteThanks. You don't see many orange miniatures, so they tend to have a bit of "wow factor" just for the virtue of being so rare.
DeleteAbout a year ago, I thought the only things you could do with an airbrush was paint grav-tanks and power swords. It wasn't until I started looking at Infinity and Angel Giraldez's work (their staff painter) that I discovered you could do so much more!