Blending

[rdennison11]

Hi, I thought I would have a go at blending from a darker to slighter colour: at the moment it looks like two colours in a stripe.
I was wondering if anyone could give me any tips?

 

[n810]

drag your brush in the other direction.


sounds like you are painting like.

black -->
grey --->
White -->

try instead...

black
^^^
grey
^^^
white

this should cause the colors to mix a little when you apply them.

 

[DanBot]

Thin your paint with water a bunch and start layering up.

 

[AllSeeingSkink]

If I want a nice transition I usually just water down the paints a bit and do lots of layers, mixing in more of the highlight colour as you go to build up the highlights. But it takes a lot of coats and a lot of time, so I only bother on important models like characters, and only small models (my Trygon is important, but too big to bother doing 10 layers to get a smooth transition ).

You can try wet blending, there's a few tutorials online for it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JNNccBAis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__U0wNcEwHU

Personally I've never been able to get good transitions with wet blending on large flat areas (eg. I'd never try it on the skin of a stegadon), though I haven't tried drying retarder either. Wet blending on small things is a bit more practical because you don't notice the smudginess in the transitions, or on fur/scales wet blending is easier as the texture hides the flaws in the blending where you can work darker tones into crevices in the texture and the lighter tone to the higher areas (eg. I might wet blend the scales on a stegadon). When I'm painting wolves I usually do a rush-job wet blend, where I don't use drying retarder or anything, but I just lay the paints down quickly before the previous colour dries fully so I can work them together slightly.

Another option for large areas is an airbrush. Again, I've never tried it, would love to give it a shot one day. Watching the "buypainted" videos makes me want to try my hand at one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7me7OB3XP0

If ever I'm feeling good about my painting I watch buypainted's videos to remind myself I suck