highlighting and shading cammo clothing...question

Just remember this is just practice. Heck every figure I paint is practice. Someday I will sit down and paint one for real. LOL

CJ is right, you can let the figure beat you if you worry about messing up. You'll do fine.
Keep in mind that no matter what happens, its a step forward. We always learn from our mistakes and sometimes it takes a major mistake to learn the most. There are no steps backwards, sideways maybe but never backwards. Make an error? you learn that you can't do that and you also learn how to repair mistakes and as your skill set grows, so does your ability.
Take chances, try new things and there is nothing (short of dropping in to the oven and melting it) that will "ruin" a figure by painting. Its one of the reasons they make thinner/oven cleaner/simple green and any other number of paint stripping techniques. Its also not unheard of to go back after you improve your skills and time passes, to strip and repaint figures you weren't entirely happy with.

If you are really the cautious type, and are worried about results, take your time and do something in small steps. Lets take the shading techniques. Go with several very thin layers rather than trying to over do it with 1 or 2 heavier. Its always easier to add than remove. Same with highlights. Your first highlight layer (not unlike a good drybrushing application in modeling) may be almost invisible to the eye. The second layer adding just a hint more. This allows you to control your highlighting/shading and you can build up your layers (think of a topographical map if you are using acrylics) till you are happy with the result. The only thing it costs is patience and time. Too many errors come from rushing a project and wanting to get it all done too soon. A single coat of paint for the base coat should be 2 or 3 coats. Allowing each coat to dry before adding the next. You can cheat a little and use a hair dryer to speed the process up a bit but the principles are the same. Same as if you are using oils. An acrylic base coat with oils used to highlight and shadow must not only dry but cure for the best result. This takes time (24 hours) and will provide a better result, a more stable work surface and not suffer from the thinners, brushing and work of subsequent steps to achieve the finish.

If you're unsure, set a goal for your work session. Tonight I'm going to apply my first highlight layer. Then walk away from it for a bit. (hour, day, week) and take a look at it with fresh eyes. You should see a slight difference if you started right but almost imperceptable. The next layer can sometimes be the same paint ratio as it will add a second layer of paint over your first. Leaving an area covered only by one layer and doubling up the rest. This is more pigment, making it more opaque. Add some more lightening pigment and paint your 3rd layer. Again, you are adding a layer and covering paint so it should be lighter when it dries. The more layers, the smoother the transition to your high light. If the contrasts are too high, mix a glaze of your base color and overpaint. This should smooth out some of the sharper contrasts. Since newer paints are finer pigments (vallejo, andrea, reaper) you can really build up the layers because the paint and emulsion are so much thinner and not obscure detail.

Good luck

dont let it intimmidate you rich...you wont have as much trouble as you might think! good luck.

Thank you guys for all your replies. I shall take a deep breath and just go for it and not worry about messing it up...it's all experience. I'll try and post some pics in the coming weeks to let you kow how I'm doing.

Cheers,

Rich

Paint your base color, then your camo pattern. From there you can dillute your paint and use a film or glaze to create your shadows and highlights. Much as light will play on fabric. You can shade and highlight individual patches of color but this can be a self defeating feat of frustration if you're new to a technique, scale or genre of painting. I dillute my paints for this with a mix of 5:1 or 6:1 and pull some of the excess water out of the brush with a tissue. This glaze technique will allow you to progressively build up your shading so that deep creases or folds can be progressively darkened the deeper they go under an over garment, into a crease, under an arm, under equipment etc. Same going the other way with highlights. The glaze you use will be solely dependent on the pallete of colors you use for your basecoat and camo pattern. Do not use black or white.

rich, it's up to you but i would refrain from using a wash on such a large figure. however, i am no expert and if you feel you need to do so then that is up to you. i just stay away from them on the larger figures. smaller 1:35, 1:72 is fine. though even then i seldomly use washes (but that's me). as for the rest, yes you are correct in assuming what was said! good luck sir!

Thank you gents for the advice and taking the time to reply.

From what you've said, am I correct to assume that you would highlight and shade each colour individually. Rather than shade the whole recess in one dark colour, you would shade the green, brown and tan individually with darker green, darker brown and darker tan and the same with highlighting. Then apply a wash to tie them all in together.

Thanks again,

Rich

I willl throw my 2 cents in. I only paint before assembly if there would be parts of the model that I can't reach after it is all in one piece.

I paint exclusively in acrylics.

As for the painting of camo, say it is a green/brown/tan color pattern, I would base the whole fig in green apply my shadow layers with diluted paint (about 1.75 to 1 parts water  to paint) and build the shadows slow and then the same with the highlights. Next on to the brown pattern. First base then diluted shadow color and then highlights. Next the same procedure is followed for the Tan pattern. After this I might hit the whole uniform with a very diluted mix of the base green to bring the colors closer together. 

In my opinion always, always, always push the shadows and highlights on figs. I know it may not match reference pics but small figures can't cast the same amount of shadow that a full scale person does so we need to cheat a little to get it right. Plus this helps bring out the details of the figure.

Hope that helps. Have fun and practice, practice, practice, practice.

rich, first, i sometimes put it all together then paint and sometimes i dont. it depends on the ease of painting. if say an arm is blocking an ammo pack or some good detail then i will attach it after painting/paint it separately.

as for your painting issue, i assume you paint in acrylics...so im not going to be much help with that. however, generally speaking, i paint a darker/lighter shade of each of the camo colors on the uniform. may also just drybrush certain colors over it...which may/maynot be your best opportunity since your working with such small figures. but upon further reading i see u picked up a bigger figure. so yeah, in my opinion darker/lighter colors of the camo painted. i usually take a fine detail brush too (for that size figure) and "outline" my gear etc with a shadow color.

sorry i cant be more help but that's my method to my madness and hope it helps ou in some way. cheers rich!!