The long awaited figure tutorial

By this step your figure should be looking quite decent, but now we're going to bring that flat, boring paint job alive by applying some shading. This is the step that makes your work look real - a properly shaded figure will look like a miniature version of real life rather than a bit of plastic with some nice paint work. I'll divide this step into two main parts - explaining what shading is and why we do it, and showing you how to apply that knowledge to the paint and plastic.





What is shading? This is a question that baffles many modelers. Why we do it is often the biggest question, some fail to see how it adds realism. In short, shading - in real life and in miniature -  is when the top surfaces of an object are lighter than the lower surfaces - simple light and shadow. In miniature, we emphasize the natural light and shadow by using lighter and darker shades of the base color on the upper and lower surfaces, respectively. To understand why this is necessary and why we can't just rely on light and shadow, you first must understand something called the scale factor. I have heard this explained in various complicated ways, but the simplest way to put it is that detail in scale will not be as clear as in 1:1 because you have no scale light source. Because you do not have a scale version of the sun, lamp, or whatever other light you may use, the natural shadows will become nearly invisible, especially when your figure is not painted in solid colors. So our solution is to either shrink ourselves to a few inches tall, or to shade our figures. Personally I prefer the latter, so that's the solution I'll be teaching you.

So what do we shade? Both shape and detail. An example of shading shape would be lightening a figure's upper back and shoulders, while darkening the area under the arms. Shading detail is when we lighten/darken the top/bottom of very specific areas like clothing folds, equipment, and facial features.

How do we decide where to apply our shadows and highlights? While lightening top surfaces and darkening bottom surfaces sounds easy enough, it's not so. Hardly anything you'll be painting will be as easy to shade as a cube. Fortunately, Shep Paine thought up something called the stop sign rule, which makes it much easier to understand how to shade complex shapes. See the diagram:



This makes it easy to see how it works. Vertical surfaces stay close to the base color, while the closer an area gets to the upper horizontal plane, the lighter it needs to be. Areas towards the bottom of the "stop sign" should be darker. It is helpful to examine your figure while in its white primer, directly under a light source, so you can see where the natural shadows fall and begin deciding how to shade it.

The most common mistake with shading is treating the highlight and shadow like drybrushing and washing. While the principle is the same, the techniques are different. True shading will shade the sides of a vertical fold, while a wash would shade the lowest area, in between folds - even though it is an upper horizontal surface. Likewise, drybrushing will highlight the sides of folds, not the top as proper highlighting would. Drybrushing and washes are useful in some instances, usually for creating wear, but they are not good at all for shading.

Hopefully you understand what shading is and how it works. Let's move on to actually doing it!





So far, there have been two main methods used for shading: slow drying oil paints, which can be blended together, and quicker drying acrylics which are blended by using a series of nearly transparent layers of color called glazes. I have used both methods on my figures, and they both have their strengths and weaknesses, but on the whole I find acrylic glazing easier. Many modelers who shade with acrylics still prefer oils for the faces, but I find that it is easier to achieve good faces using acrylics, especially in scales smaller than 70mm. In this tutorial I will teach you how mix and apply glazes using Vallejo acrylic paint.

The basic condition for a proper glaze is that it must be thin, thin to the point of looking more like used thinner than paint. Usually, the method is to apply several layers of the same thin color, each a little narrower than the last, to slowly build up a transition. Once again, see the diagram to understand this better:



Modelers who shade with oils usually mix two highlight and two shadow colors, to cover all five faces of the stop sign. With acrylics, on the other hand, most modelers would use only one highlight and one shadow, for basic shading at least. You should mix a color with a good deal of contrast (about as much contrast than you want your lightest highlight/darkest shadow to have) but you thin it down so you can vary the amount you change the base color by how many layers of the glaze you apply. For faces, you should always use at least five layers - on uniforms, you can sometimes get by with two or three thicker ones. That is what I did on this figure, just to make it simpler for beginners - although I usually use 5-7 layers on the uniform, and occasionally as many as 25 on the face

Some modelers would use more than one color for highlight/shadow - I do sometimes - however, for beginners, using just one is probably easiest.

The most important step in successfully applying glazes is to remember that they are not a wash. You should soak most of the glaze out of your paintbrush before touching it to your figure. You should barely be able to see the effect of a single layer, if at all. Most importantly do not let your glazes pool up. Also be sure to let a glaze dry completely before applying the next.

When you mix your colors, resist the temptation to simply lighten/darken them with white or black. You must make your highlights warmer (more yellow) and your shadows cooler (more blue) or you will end up with a monochromatic effect that looks like a jail suit. You will need to use primarily white and black for lightening or darkening a color, but you'd be surprised at the difference the touch of blue or yellow will make!

For the colorblind modelers out there, Vallejo has made many of their colors with premixed highlight and shadow shades. Alternatively, such modelers could also ask me for mixing ratios.

Finally, remember that when shading, less is more. You are trying to slightly enhance the natural light and shadow, not paint a striped suit. I've seen many figures whose shading looks like an overdone black wash - this is not the effect you want. It's done just before you think it is - especially with faces. Don't overdo, especially when you are just starting out.

Enough description of technique - here is the pictorial step-by-step. On this figure, I did the face first as usual, but I'd recommend you start by shading the uniform, since it is much easier than the face. Do some detail shading like folds and wrinkles to get the hang of the technique before you try to shade shape - lightening the entire upper back and blending it in properly is much harder than lightening the top of a small fold.

Here you see the majority of the shadow layers applied. I used thinned 146/818 Red Leather for this step. I started with two overall applications of the glaze color to give tonal variation to the basic face color. It is okay for these first shadow glazes to pool a little bit, but only a tiny bit or you will get a more opaque effect with a hard edge. After that, I applied 4-6 layers to the following areas: the demarcation line between the head and the helmet, the eye sockets right under the eyebrows, the bottom of both lips, the crease between the edges of the lips and the sides of the nose, underneath the chin, and behind the ears. I used a lighter, 2-4 layer effect to shade under the cheekbones and around the muscles in the neck.

Next is the five-'o-clock shadow, if you want to apply one. This is the hardest glaze effect to pull off because it is not as similar a color so it is harder to blend in. The trick is to avoid using straight gray or black, but rather add gray to your shadow color. This is much easier to blend and is much less stark. On this figure, I opted for a fairly light shadow without defined edges, created with about 8 layers of an extra-thin glaze. Generally you will do best to end the shadow a little ways past the typical goatee area, because the sides are much harder to blend in.

Finally, I add the highlights. I do this last because your light yellowish-tan highlight color is also used to highlight the beard areas. I used a 1:1 mix of Medium Flesh and Foundation White. I applied 4-6 layers to the brow line (entire forehead if no helmet or hat brim), bridge of the nose, top of both lips, top of the chin, and the edges of the ears. Once again, I used a lighter effect, about 3 layers, on the top of the cheekbones and down the highest part of the cheeks close to the nose and mouth. 

The entire face took me only 20 minutes. Once  you get good at this, you'll be a veritable figure factory!

Now for the uniform...this is simpler, since in this figure I used only about 3 layers on details and one for shading shape. Since it is simpler, and...because I forgot to take take pictures of the separate steps ...I will simply show you before and after shading.

Before:

After:

So, that's pretty much it. One final tip would be that when you shade equipment, dry brushing can actually be better if you want a worn look. On this figure, I drybrushed the leather gear and helmet and shaded the gloves, you can compare the two to see the difference.

Shading with glazes can be frustrating until you get the hang of it, but once you do, you'll be able to do it in your sleep. You may want to try this out on a scrap figure before you do it on the figure you just detail painted. The key to learning this, like most of the other techniques, is practice, practice, practice.

Next up will be weathering and making bases, both of which are fun, easy and take no time to learn. Once you get shading down, you can call yourself a good figure painter

Part 2: Painting the basecoat

This will be the step that takes more time to learn than any of the others - acrylic shading can be picked up pretty quickly - but learning to paint details takes a steady hand that you'll only develop over time. Don't be discouraged if your first figures don't look as good as mine - and I almost guarantee you they will not - but keep trying, you'll get better much faster than I did if you know what you're supposed to be doing. So you don't feel bad, here is a mini-gallery of some of the figures I've done, from when I started in 2004 up to the most recent ones.

When I refer to 'painting the basecoat', I mean painting the entire figure, details included, or in other words everything you do before you start shading and weathering. There will be two major challenges with this step:

First, painting details accurately and precisely...

...and second, painting opaque, smooth color coats without leaving any brushmarks.

Detail painting can be described in enormous detail but that's still not going to make you able to do it, you must learn how by practicing. Explanation can help, though, and will make your job much easier.

My first rule for detail painting is paint from the inside out. This means you paint the center stripe on an iron cross ribbon first, the shirt underneath the jacket first, and the blacks of the eyes before the whites. Some more advanced modelers may have their own techniques for detail painting, and I respect that - but I find this one to be the easiest for beginners to use. It will be explained in more detail later.

My second rule for detail painting is don't kill yourself trying to paint precisely when you can trim it down to size later. There will be a few instances where this isn't true, but for the most part it is easier to paint the whole eye black and 'trim' it down by painting two white stripes on either side, than it is to paint a fine black line through the middle of a white eye. This rule will become clearer after you read #3.

My third rule is paint your details like you mow your lawn. This means that you shouldn't try to paint a perfect belt or strap in one pass of the paintbrush, just like you don't try mowing your lawn in one swath. Do in in rows - one side, then the other side, then the center. The same works for ultra fine detail like eyes or ribbons, when you are trying to put some color in an exact spot - you don't have to trust to luck, but rather paint the detail in swaths, pushing the paintbrush a little closer each time. If you're going inside-out, you really only need to be worried about your inside edge, because you'll paint over the outside edge with your next layer. This may seem confusing, so I'll use the Iron Cross ribbon as an example. To paint one of these, you could start by painting the whole thing white, even though only the center third is white. Then, you could paint the entire outer quarter on each side in red, even though the red stripe is between the white and the black. Finally, you'd add the black edges, trimming the red down to the appropriate size. You could even go oversize here, too, and trim the black with the uniform color.This technique enables you to worry about only one edge at a time, rather than both.

My last rule is always keep your hands/wrists braced. This is best accomplished by resting your wrists against the edge of your workbench, and makes your painting much more precise. Posture is important when painting figures and 'if you're going to be hunched over like a clerk in a Dickens novel, you'd better raise your workbench'. (Another Shep Paine quote)

The other challenge, getting opaque color coats with no brush marks, is somewhat simpler to address. The most common beginner mistakes with Vallejo paint are working the paint too much and thinning it improperly. According to many modelers, you shouldn't thin Vallejo paint because it's perfect already, but I've found that the exact thickness of the stuff varies from batch to batch. Since proper paint consistency is huge, especially for detail painting, I usually thin mine a little with warm water. Use distilled water if you live in the city - the chlorine can do strange things to paint. I usually thin mine to a consistency a bit thicker than milk, and slightly thicker for fine detail. If it won't come off the brush, it's too thick, and if it runs at all it's too thin. You should also clean your brush in warm water at least every five minutes to keep it moist and keep the paint flowing.

"No brush marks!" and "Covers in one coat!" have been the main advertising points for Vallejo ever since it was introduced. While it does level better than any paint I have seen and is very opaque, one coat is pushing it. I usually do two or three, keeping them thin and laying the paint down quickly. The two most important things to remember for basecoats (especially larger areas) are to lay the paint down quickly with a minimal amount of brushing, and not to leave any 'seams' or areas where you painted a section, let it dry, then painted the rest. Also be careful not to apply another coat to one that isn't fully dry or you will get an ugly peeling effect.

In case you are ever tempted to skip the primer coat in step one, remember this: Vallejo will not stick to bare plastic/resin. You should see your white primer coat slowly disappear as you paint each layer of the bascoat.

Now that I've covered the principles you should know, we can move on to the actual painting process.

On our example figure, I began by painting the basic skin tone and eyes. I do not shade the entire face before starting the uniform like most modelers do - I've found that my brushful of green or red always manages to find the figure's face at some point, so I prefer to leave shading until all basecoat painting is done and the risk of accidentally overpainting my carefully shaded face is minimal. Remember we glued the head only slightly, so it is removable - making painting the collar and neck a much easier task.

For Caucasian skin, I use Vallejo 021 Medium Fleshtone as my fleshtone base, with touches of 136 Red Leather, 143 Flat Earth, and 003 Foundation White mixed in. Vallejo 021 is an orangish yellow skin color, which is better that the typical pinkish fleshtone, but still needs to be toned down a bit, hence the other colors mixed in. This mixture is thinned as previously described, and applied to the face in 3-4 coats. You must be extra careful not to work the paint for more that a few seconds after you lay it on the face, or you will find ridges to shade around when you get to step 3!

Next up are the eyes. The eyes are what give a figure life - sorry to be using all these Shep Paine quotes, but here's another: 'A good face can save a mediocre figure, but a poor face can ruin an otherwise-good one'. This is the step you should take the most care in and re-do until you get it right.

Many modelers don't believe in painting whites because you can't see them on a person in the same scale (one standing about 20-25 feet away). However, I would contend that whites are important on all figures 1/35 and larger, because they are what give the eyes direction. By changing where you place the pupil on the white, you can have precise control over your figure's glance - looking right, left, up or down, even cross-eyed if you wish. I've always painted whites, and I haven't heard any complaints about my (recent) figures looking unrealistic.

So, here's a pictorial step-by step for painting eyes:

I start by painting a black line from top to bottom through each eye - pretty simple:

Then I trim this to a realistically thin proportion, painting in white on either side (this is the inside-outside method at work). As you can see, the border between the black and white is the only part that's precise:

Finally, I take some of my fleshtone mixture and trim the top and bottom of the eyes down to size:

And voila - perfectly painted eyes! This worry-about-one-border-at-a-time method will apply throughout the entire basecoating process, so if you can paint eyes, you can paint anything! I'll spare you pictures of ever different color going on, and simply show you what it looks like once you're done:

It's at this point that you'll want to add your PE details - here are a few photos of mine going on. The LionRoar German Insignia set has mind-boggling detail, even down to the '1939' on the Iron Cross! Since this set is etched in a silver-colored metal, I simply airbrushed the parts I would use with flat black, then carefully scraped the paint off the raised detail to reveal the silver color underneath. Works perfectly, looks amazing, and take only 5 minutes.

So, that pretty much covers step 2 and gives you what you'll need to paint your basecoat colors. Just remember to worry about one edge at a time as you paint detail, and not to work the paint too much. Even though you might be happy to leave your figure the way it looks now, you're not done yet! Up next is the step that really makes your figure look real - shading.

Part 1: Cleaning, Assembly and Priming

Many modelers tend to rush through this step to get to the fun part, painting. However, a sloppy job here will give you endless headaches throughout your whole project. Be sure your figure is perfectly filled and primed before even thinking about getting out the paintbrush

The Warriors figure I used comes in 5 pieces - legs/torso, arms, head, and the MP44 and right hand cast as one piece.

Cleanup is relatively simple, except for the MP44. Most resin weapons will have their barrels broken off, and if they don't, it will break when you try to remove the casting block. The MP44 is especially prone to this since the barrel is so fragile. Often the piece will be missing, so I usually take a barrel from a Dragon MP44 and glue it onto the resin reciever/stock. This is sturdier and less likely to break. See the picture:

Once I had fixed the weapon, the rest was easy. Like most resin figures, there's really no flash, only a few mold seam lines on the figure's legs and neck. I used a knife and a flat file to remove the pour stubs and smooth the attachment points, then glued all the parts together with gap-filling superglue. I glued the head and hand/gun very lightly so they could be removed later for detail painting, and filled the arm/torso seams with super glue.

One more thing to do before priming is to remove any uniform details you intend to replace later with photoetched parts. I do this a lot and find it to be a good alternative to pulling your hair out trying to paint the SS sig-runes yourself. On this figure, I forgot to do this before begining my painting, but later did so, and then replaced all the uniform details with PE insignia from LionRoar's excellent German Insignia set.

I primed the figure with plain old Tamiya acrylic flat white, Tamiya fine surface primer is really only neccessary if you don't have an airbrush. This revealed a couple seams I had missed, which I fixed and then re-primed. The figure is ready for paint!