#painting tutorial

First obviously I had to get the sketch down, this was my first pass so the most changes come at this phase, I personally disliked how Umbra was so covered up so i moved a lot of things around and played to get a better layout- This would've been avoided if i did thumbnails lol

Next was the shading, for big complex peices like this i always start in greyscale, I dont zoom in and I use a big brush to get the basic forms down first, focusing on one flat color, then slowly zoom in and add compelxity and deeper shadow

Last I add the lighting, the lighting isnt always last but it's hard for me to do...so i procrastinate lmao, my aim is to make the contrast as nice as possible (I also. work on the background as well with these same steps)

At this point Im unable to make progress in greyscale and need to move onto color. Coloring is my least favorite step besides the background cause its tedius as fuck, theres multiple ways to add color to a grey scale image and theyre all great for different paintings- For this painting I have set colors I need to achieve for umbra, so something as imprecise as a gradient map wouldnt work so what I ended up doing was selecting each. individual. part. that needed a certain color and using tone curve ( I fucking LOVE tone curve) and then using mulitply or hard light layers to get the darkness or brightness I need as well as to get the desired color

multiply layers are needed becase if I only use hardlight or hue shift I wont get the value I need (Everything is the same medium grey mid-tone, but obviously his skull would be MUCH lighter, and Umbras dark green dress would be MUCH darker) So the basic work flow is -> Section off all bits that would be X color (The gold on Mals clothing for example) -> use tone curve to give the gold an orange/yellow hue, while also making the lights warm, the darks cool -> Use layer modes to further tweak the colors -> repeat until theres no more grey

Once everything is colored correctly I now finally get to merge all of my character layers together (My background layers are also merged, but still it's own seperate layer) and render it out, most of the work is done, the main chunk of rendering here is texture and small details, further color editing to make sure my lights are nice and warm and making it clean (and also adding umbras wings....i always forget his fucking wings)

Then the rendering is done and the only thing left to do is small edits! Grain, paper texture if you'd like, i added some blurring to things moving towards the camera etc...

Paints I Used

This is what I had on deck for this mini- substitute for your preferred colors, brands, and availability as you like

Army Painter Matt White (titanium white/pure white)

Citadel Khorne Red (dark red)

Citadel Mephiston Red (medium red)

Citadel Evil Sunz Scarlet (bright red)

Citadel Troll Slayer Orange (bright orange)

Citadel Yriel Yellow (bright yellow)

Citadel Lahmian Medium (thinning medium)

Method

Before you begin working on the heat sinks you want to complete the rest of the area around the place you want to do the glow effect. Light is an active environmental effect on a surface so you'll want to complete most of the base layers, highlights, shading, and other environmental effects before we work on the glow. Today our subject is a Manticore Heavy Tank that I used a modified pink-grey version of my weathered drab armor recipe to paint.

Once we've identified the sinks we want to paint and finished the rest of the model around them, our first step is going to be to paint the sink area white. This will increase the saturation on future layers and make the heat sink appear brighter, as well as giving us a consistent color to work up from. Try to stay within the vent area itself and avoid paining the outer frame- we want that to retain the color of the model. Once the white is dry, paint over all of it with our dark red color. Use one or two thin coats to do this.

Once the dark red is dry, go and get your medium red color. Make sure not to overthin this as we want to work this onto a pretty particular part of the model. Using the side of a small or medium sized brush, carefully paint just the ridges of the vent fins, leaving the dark red color in between. Leave this to dry briefly and then we can work on the interior of the vents.

Get your bright orange paint and thin it pretty significantly- more than you would for a normal color. Then, take a very thin brush, load it with some paint, and carefully dab/drag it in between the vent fins. Capillary action should focus this thinned paint into feeding between the medium red fins and make the impression that the interior of the heat sink is glowing. Make sure to leave some of the dark red color at the tops and bottoms of the fins when doing this.

Once the medium red and orange are dry, repeat the same process with your bright red and yellow, but make sure to only apply the paint this time where you want the glow brightest. This might be a particular side of the heat sink but in this case it will be the middle for me, to follow the curve of the turret.

Finally, we will 'extend' the glow of the sink to the area around it slightly. You could do this by applying a quick and soft drybrush before you start using lighter colors on the sink itself, but I prefer to use a glaze for this as it produces smoother results. Once the entire sink is dry, take your darkest color (quick physics lesson: reflected light will always be less intense than the source) and some thinning medium. Mix the two together at a 1:1 ratio and then add some to a medium brush with a fine tip before wiping off the excess on your pallet. The brush should be just damp and produce a thin and regular line of color when dragged across your fingernail for the best results. Once you're happy, sketch the color onto the area around the glowing heat sink with little motions. You should be building up an even, translucent layer of color over top of your base paint job, making it look like the heat and light of the sink is radiating out into the area around it.