Shading

[FlaringPain]

Hey people. I'm looking for tips on painting Imperial Guard using shading and also how to shade. I've seen some sites that show you how to shade but they just aren't working for me so I thought of coming here and posting asking for tips on how to shade for IG.
Thanks for any help people.
:muffy: isnt this thing so cool :D

[Brother Walk]

Shading in General :

I do it in a slightly different fashion than most of the people I painted with . Long story short, there were a bunch of us trying to find the 'fastest' way to paint a fig.

The way i shade .. lets say .. the robe on a sister of battle :

I made my robes green. I wanted the mid tone emerald green.

I prime my figures white and outline the major areas in black first.
Then I paint all the deep recessess on the robes (button holes, creases etc .. and the edges that lead up to black .. salamandar green .. urr .. nowadays its dark angels green i think.
I then shade DOWN by mixing 1/3 black with 2/3 D.A. green and blend the edges into the black borders.
Next I paint on my mid tone .. in this case emerald green .. up to the edge of the parts i painted pure d.a. green a second ago.
I then mix about 50/50 da green and emerald green, a little water .. and blend the edge where the two colours meet abruptly, together.
You want to water the paint down, so its semi translucent this way it will blend the 2 colours together without there being a hard line .. takes a little practice.

Next I would mix emerald green with say .. goblin green, and hit the highlights .. if you thin the paint down alot .. its not quite so abrupt, and you dont have to mix a middle colour.

from there .. hit the hard edges with pure white. keeping in mid the direction of the light in relation to the figure. [ie .. dont hilight EVERY edge with white .. only the ones the sun would hit if the figure were standing outdoors at say .. 2:00 pm.]

You can take this as far as you want .. anything over 7 shades is overkill on a 25mm figure .. but 54mm's can require up to 30 shading layers to make them look perfectly smooth.

[Imperial Tiger]

Having seen your "non A-Game" Sisters of Battle and your other stuff I have only one thing to say...

"Listen to this guy. He's knows what he's talking about!"

***Quielty mutters to self... "30 Layers of shading? :argh: "***

[purerockfury]

if you are not a veteran modeller/ painter than brother walk's suggestion can be very useless. the whole blending thing is an art of it's own and i have yet to be able to learn how to do it.

so here's what i suggest:

you are doing imperial guard. for arguement sake you want white and blue uniforms. black basecoat for me is preferable but, use what you like. blue for the carapace armour would be done using something like midnight blue or a touch of black to enchanted blue as a base colour. next you can carefully paint the armour sections using straight enchanted blue. and finally a thin line of ice blue or a bit of white mixed with enchanted blue on the edges.

now for the white for the material uniform bits. start with codex grey for the base. now depending on folds or pockets use fortress grey for the next highlights similar to the armour. leave more of the darker grey in the deeper folds and creases. and than finally white for the final highlights along the coat edges, edges of folds and any flat surfaces.

you do not need to blend to get a good effect. remember these are just troop models for an army than can field over 100 troop models. so all the fancy uber-painting techniques are not needed. something quick and simple like this is perfect. if you look at my profile on aol (purerockfury@aol.com)you can see some models i have done. although the pictures are not the best. more pictures can be found on http://groups.msn.com/Spacewolves/wolflordluchiousstormaxe.msnw?Page=1

this hopefully will take you to models i have posted online. sorry this is the only place left for pics of my work a computer crash erased all of them. sorry the pictures are not great but, the blood angel captain should give you an idea of what i'm talking about. the cloak was done the manner above. although the pics don't show how it looks in person. it looks much better than the pics show. i hope i have helped a little bit at least. also if you look at usarkar creed i did not use blending (since i have no clue on how to do it or how to even start it) all i did was use a few layers of lighter colours until i got a look i liked. the red was done mixing scab red with bestial brown. than adding a bit of blood red for two more highlights i finally used straight blood red. sorry no percentages i do it by eye.

[Zap]

Alot of learning how to paint is learning how to deal with your equipment; the paint, the brushes, how to hold the mini etc. First step to painting a good mini, is to paint the base colors neatly. Personally, I always start with a white undercoat, regardless of what color the model is supposed to be. Then paint the base colors on the model; for spacemarines its a pretty simple deal; paint the armor, then go back and repaint any of the trims white, before painting it the appropriate color.

Once you've mastered how to paint cleanly... you'll also have learnt how to deal with paint somewhat effectively; mix a shade of paint relatively close to the original base color (but lighter of course); then look around for pictures of painted minis and use those hilights as guide (over time you'll get a feel for it).
For some colors, especially black, only a tiny amount of white is required before it becomes too bright for hilight. You'll learn with practice how this works.
The trick then to hilighting for me, is not just a steady hand; but that I go back and mask up the edges of hilight with the original base color. That is to say, I get it looking thin and sharp by painting it back to that point, rather then painting it so finely in the first place.

When you get enough practice; you can even start doing second layer hilights. These hilights are subtle, difficult to see when looking straight at them, but have a huge impact on the model overall.

[Brother Walk]

Alot of learning how to paint is learning how to deal with your equipment; the paint, the brushes, how to hold the mini etc.

THAT is a damn good point.

I take this moment to mention the easiet way to hold your mini.

Take some bluetack . or masking tape (loop it like your hanging a paper on the wall) or some similar substance and stick the base of your mini onto something. I use Corks or old Poly-s paint pots myself.

This way
1) you don't have to touch the figure [oil from your fingers can make the paint flake up.
2) you have a better grip on the figure.

The BEST way .. i swear .. to paint and have more control over the model .. is to NOT rest your hands on a table .. but hold the figure in one hand .. and with the brush in your other hand .. cup your brush hand in your figure hand .. kinda like you see police fire guns in the movies ..
this way .. if your hands shake .. they shake together ..
so the movement of the brush is relative to the model.

[i say this because over the weekend while buying some paint .. i saw a kid leaning both his hands against a table edge .. and he was shaking all over the place.]