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Painting Tutorial: Caesar Sherden - I
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Escrito por Jakub Mroczkowski   

 

While writing this article my intention was to interest those who paint single individual figures form a set, who pay more attention to details rather than for those who paint 40 or more figures a night. It needs some patience, practice and what is probably the most important factor time to paint with this approach. Anyway it could be for everybody who would like to make some usage of the tips given below and of course it would be my pleasure to contribute to somebody's new experience. I've been still learning something new every time I get to my little friends so that's why I'd like to share it with other hobbyist and enthusiasts of 1/72 plastic soldiers.

 

 


My workbench


Some tools

Usually it takes me from 5 to 8 hours to get the final result of painting one figure this way but I'm not a well organized quick guy so it could be probably shortened. I used acrylic paints (Vallejo and GW) and Humbrol enamels in one case. I chose Caesar's Sherden Royal Guard to picture this step by step article. The figure seems for me perfect since it has good proportions and its stance is rather passive so it was easier for my camera to get proper focus on parts of the body.
The first step of course after removing flesh ( which was almost unnecessary in this case) grease by washing in some liquid soap is PRIMING.



I often use white paint for body parts, cloths , leather etc unless they are going to be very dark and always black for the part that are going to be covered with metallic paints.


The second step is SKIN PAINTING.



There are variety ideas of painting human body but it's always about shading and/or highlighting and blending. Some put the darkest shade as first layer and go up (if you get what I mean) to the lightest one. Some do it other way round from the brightest to darkest going deep inside the figure. All in all the final effect is to make the figure more 3 dimensional and full of life. 1/72 scale figures have usually deep sculpting and fine details which become more vivid when get shades. Personally I do compromise between the techniques mentioned before.
My first shade of skin tone I put is something in-between. Then I go down (shading) and later go up (highlighting).



In this case I used only five basic skin tones and stilled water as a thinner. The paint should be rather of ink thickness. For acrylics I use something which is usually called wet palette to keep the paints as long fresh as possible. Easy to make and really helpful especially when you blend colors and need them for longer usage. It's called wet palette because you will need some water in the bottom of the box to keep the sponge and paper wet and paints as well. When you don't paint just keep the box cover with a lid. Paints are still usable even a couple of hours later if kept covered.




SHADING



The transitions between colors are still visible and not nice so to get better result I blend colors The picture shows the way I do it.





I'm not happy with the result yet so I make another blending and so on.

HIGHLIGHTING




Now I feel I finished it and I go on to the next stage...