Textured material - approach 1

Today I'll try to show you how I painted texture on the red cloth around Grinder's hair, and recreate the same effect on a blue mantle.

First I'll tell you how I achieved this texture on Grinder and them I'll try to do step-by-step on the Wraith and Viking, as the used technique may vary a little.

Red cloth:
At the beginning I was going for plain and smooth red, so I basically did all the lights and shadows as smooth as possible. Then I noticed that it doesn't look good enough, especially next to the leather elements. Besides with this scale it's almost a sin not to try some freehands.
Because I noticed that foldes and recesses of the cloth look almost like feathers, first I was thinking about emphasizing it with adequate freehand, but I was worried that it may look too girly, so finally decided against it. Then I tought about simple fabric pattern. It shouldn't be to difficult to do, and should look real/believable enough.

Because I had only a general idea how to achieve desirable effect I simply jumped into a deep water and took the brush with a bit of 'Jack Bone (P3) and started to paint thin lines on the brightest parts of the cloth.
Why 'Jack Bone? No idea, honestly. I guess it might be simply because it was already on the table and I was to lazy to look for off-white. I trully doubt there was any clear thought behind it.
Of course not every single line was nice and thin, but I decided it's OK. Sometimes manually weaved fabrics have thicker threads as well.

To keep colour nicely red I did some red lines on the bright areas too. It helped to create even more contrast between threads. Then I used the same red to create light threads in the shadows. And finally some Leviathan Purple (GW wash) to create dark threads there as well. After a while I added few beige lines in the shadows at the back of the cloth, in the shadows. And when threads were more or less done, I applied a layer or two of red ink (Deep red W&N). Few more touch ups and little corrections and the cloth was ready.
I think that using wash instead of ink would also do the trick, but probably I'd need few more layers (as inks have more pigment than washes, while still being transparent).

Blue mantle:

For this piece I was planning to do mantle full of mystical symbols and signs.... but I was too affraid that I'll spoil the whole paintjob, so decided to do something simpler. 
The technique used here is pretty much the same as with red cloth on Grinder, first smooth blending, then thin and faint white lines, then some turquoise glazes, turquoise lines and some more glazes. I decided not to introduce really dark lines here, because the whole mantle should stay rather light in colour, ethereal. Also I tried to do the lines thinner than on the Grinder, mostly because the mini is much smaller, and I didn't want the fabric to look fake or extremely thick.

Colours I used to paint the mantle:
- VMC  off-white (70820)
- VMC blue green (70808)
- VMC medium blue (70963)
- VMC black (70950)


At the photos below you can see few steps of the process:

The noticable differences in the hue of the cloak are mostly my experiments with painting, and only a little inconsitency with lighting.

Textures - crushed velvet

This time I'll try to explain how I did the velvet robe on Menhom Dark Shadow.

I started the robe as plain red. As you can see I even added some initial lights and shadows. But then I realised that this robe is big enough (I'd even say huge) to add some freehand, or maybe texture.
Because initially I was going for old and dusty look, the embroidery, I was going to mimic with freehand, would have to be fairly damaged. I wasn't sure  if I'll be able to do that, so I decided to go with crumpled velvet look.

To do that I decided to try 'doting' technique presented by Alexi_Z in her video tutorial. That was my first try, so the results are far from ideal, but I'm quite happy anyway. I learnt a lot doing that piece, and the next attempt should be more successful.

On the first two pictures you can see the initial shading on the robe. It's not perfectly smooth or too contrasty, but it's OK. I'm gonna cover it with lots of dots.

When I made my mind how exactly I I'm gonna paint the robe, I did a little try on one of the creases to find out If I'm capable of pulling that off.

It looked quite nice, so I started to build shadows.
On the pictures below you can see how I was trying to control depth of the shadows not only by used colour, but also by placing more or less dark dots in the recesses.

Then I started to add dots with brighter colours to create lights. Like with painting smooth surface I was building lights gradually, by change of colour and placement of the dots.

Later it was mostly going back and forth with various shades to build a nice gradient. I used quite a lot of base colour to make shadows and lights less uniform. To soften the transitions a bit and made it look more like a fabric, not just collection of dots, I used some red glazes.

 

On the pictures below you can see the difference glazes did. Colour is more vibrant, and whole robe looks more consistent.

 And here, finished robe, with some final highlights on the edges.

And at the end, colours I used to paint the robe, maybe someone will find it helpful. I know that I'm using some really old and discontinued GW colours, but you can easily find something similar in other ranges.

Base:
Red Gore (GW)

Highlights:
1st light Andrea Flesh Paint Set
Offwhite (70820 VMC)

Shadows:
Liche Purple (GW)
Storm Blue (GW)
Black (70950 VMC)

Washes (GW):
Baal red
Devlan mud
Leviathan purple
Thraka green


cheers

'eM

Textures - some sort of weird introduction

Recently I've been thinking about texturing that imitates fabrics on miniatures (due to my two beautiful Pegaso boys). Which scale is big enough to give it a try, to make it look natural, not only to show off.
Should we do that while painting miniatures up to 90mm, or maybe only bigger? Does it look realistic, or not really?
Sure, when it's done right it looks pretty awesome (for a freehand), shows the skill and dedication of the painter (you know, all these long hours he/she spent painting all the tiny lines). But is it necessary and believable?
Does it add more realism to the mini, or maybe is a bit over the top? I must say I do have my doubts, but still didn't make my mind.

Let's think about it for a moment, and look at some pictures:

Here are some close-ups of contemporary fabrics and photos of clothes made of them.

Silk

 

Wool

 

Linen

Velvet

I don't think threads of any of these fabrics would be visible even in scale 1:20. Well maybe except of thickest wools and roughest  linen. And of course old and crumpled velvet, but that's completely different thing.


But you may say: it's all contemporary fabrics, made by fancy machines. And what about old times?


Personally I don't really think it was that much different from now. Of course the technology of weaving, and used tools were different, but let's give some credit to our ancestors. Even in the middle ages people were able to weave some fine and delicate fabrics. 

Quoting Vikings Online:
 "The Vikings were not the barbarians that our Victorian forefathers imagined, so extremely coarsely woven cloth such as sack cloth, is not required for clothing. 10 threads per centimeter was average, whilst 60 threads per centimeter was not uncommon for extremely fine material." Source

Let's do the math:
10 threads per 1 cm, 1mm thick thread, and in scale:
- 1:10 it's 1/10mm thick single thread,
- 1:20 it's 1/20mm thick single thread,
- 1:35 it's 1/35mm thick single thread. 


And that's the thick wool... Made by Vikings. How much better should it be on royal courts in more developed parts of the world?

Here are some examples of real medieval fabrics found in archeological excavations.

silk brocade

 source

silk
source

 

wool
source

As you can see it's not that primitive and thick as we could imagine.

Looking only from that point of view, all attempts to recreate a fabric on a mini smaller than 1:10 is kinda pointless. Try to imagine how extremely thick would it be when increased to the real size...
Silly, isn't it??:>

But on the other hand....
Textured fabrics, if done properly, and not on every single piece of clothing, definitely add some visual interest to the mini (even if it hurts a little when we think about the 'real' thickness of the painted fabric).
After all, the contrast we build on a mini is way out of proportion to the real life, but it helps to show three-dimensional of the mini.
So maybe textured fabrics, if done with some sense, may be a really nice addition to the mini and not only show off?
I really don't know;p  I'll probably try at some point just to prove myself that I can do that good enough. And even said that, I don't think I'd ever dare to 'recreate' threads of silk or other delicate fabrics or on clothes of nobility and kings, but maybe on a woolen cloak it wouldn't be too bad?

And there is one more aspect of this textured affair...
Maybe it's only a temporary trend to paint fabric's threads everywhere it's possible, just to push the border of what's possible in this hobby a little bit further? Maybe it will pass at some point and we'll all get back to the smooth painting?


How do you think?
Am I making mountains out of molehills, or do we have a topic for valid discusion?


cheers


'eM