Miniatures 102: On Your Own

Instructor JD Wiker offers tips for your own painting adventures!

In my previous article, I explained how to put down a base coat on your barbarian miniature. Now let’s make those plain coats of paint look more interesting.

Stage Three

"Washing" is a technique in which you add thinned-down paint or ink to a figure to emphasize the deep parts -- effectively creating shadows where there really aren’t any. You can use either paint or ink, mixed with water. Ink is better, but in a pinch, paint will do.

Begin by mixing brown ink or paint with water until it’s the consistency of very runny milk. Then paint it on all the flesh-toned areas of the barbarian. Suddenly, the muscle definition becomes much clearer!

While you’re waiting for the flesh tones to dry, thin some black ink with water. Then, paint over the barbarian’s armor, armbands, and boots. While that’s drying, mix a little of your black ink with about three times as much red, until you have a nice, dark red. Add a bit more water, then paint this mix all over the barbarian’s cloak. The "cloth" parts of a miniature, especially cloaks, really bring out the value of washing; the deep parts are so deep, a lot of the wash collects there and enhances the illusion of folds.

Stage Four

Next you’ll begin "drybrushing." The name comes from the fact that your paintbrush has very little paint on it -- essentially, you wipe most of the paint off the brush before you touch it to the miniature. The point of drybrushing is the opposite of (and complimentary to) washing: to emphasize the darkness of the deep parts by making the shallow parts lighter.

The first lesson of drybrushing is "lightening." To make something lighter, you add white, right? But if you mix red with white, you get pink, which is NOT what you want for your barbarian. The secret of lightening red is to add orange, then lighten the mixture with white. Now, lightly drag your brush across the folds. Voila! The high parts are lighter, the low parts are darker.

Adding white proves especially important when drybrushing the barbarian’s flesh. In Miniatures 101, I explained that flesh tone was essentially orange, white, red, and brown. Mixing in the white, you see that the paler your initial flesh tone coat was, the more white you have to add in to drybrush it. The barbarian could end up pretty pasty if you started too pale. You can correct this problem by completely remixing the flesh tone and painting it all over again. (Never hesitate to cover up old mistakes!)

The second basic lesson of drybrushing is painting "against the grain." That is, if the folds of the cloak are vertical, you drag the paintbrush across horizontally. And vice versa.

The third lesson is pressure: The more pressure you apply to the brush when drybrushing, the deeper the paint goes. So, adding another, lighter coat on top of your previous drybrushing gives you yet another layer. You can continue this as long as you like, though eventually, you’ll have pure white in a very thin line, which will look like a sharp crease. It’s a great effect for things with sharp edges, but not a rugged barbarian’s cloak.