Let Your Minis Have a Religious Experience: Stained Glass - The Miniatures of Tomorrow Method.
Hey there true believers, today Iâve got the long promised tutorial on how to create your own stained glass for diorama & display. This method, creates a very true to life effect, that while not as fast as printing on transparencies, replicates both the texture and actual principle of stained glass. This means that it casts a colored light like stained glass, and has the same high gloss as glass proper.Â
Weâll get started with supplies after the jump.Â
Stuff Youâll Need
ESSENTIAL BITS A bit of blister plastic, from anything with a plastic clamshell container.
A Fine Point Sharpie, or similar (black)
High Gloss Mod Podge
Tamiya Clear Paints, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue
OPTIONAL BITS
An image you want to stained glassify.Â
A printer
INSTRUCTIONSÂ
First off, youâre going to want to figure out what you want to portray in stained glass. This can be a bit harder than you think, initially. Youâre going to want something iconic, that wonât be too distorted by the heavy black lines of âleadâ that separate the individual colored panels. For my tutorial example, I chose a fairly recognizable bit of Dark Angels iconography. The personal banner of Supreme Grand Master Azrael of the Dark Angels in Warhammer 40k.Â
This piece already features strong blacklines, and is broken up into very distinct blocks of color. Additionally, it has that two dimensional bas relief feel to the positioning, making it a figure ideal for a stained glass treatment. I resized the image to my needs in paint and printed it out on normal printer paper. My printer is running low on toner (as itâs more expensive to buy toner than it was the printer proper) but that didnât really matter. Then it was a simple matter of taping a cut square of blister plastic onto the paper, over the image; and beginning to trace the outlines with the fine point Sharpie.Â
I ended up adding some blacklines to break up larger contiguous panels, which you wouldnât see in stained glass. I recommend getting some photo examples and then following the rule of cool (if you think it looks cool, then it is). When youâre satisfied with tracing on this side, itâs then time to flip the plastic over and trace over your tracing on the otherside. Weâre going to be repeating every step on both sides of the image, as itâs important to insure that youâve solid coverage and the correct opacity. If you just blackline one side, the âleadâ will be less than 100% opaque in some areas and diminish the effect.Â
With both sides blacklined, then itâs onto the next step. Weâre going to paint high gloss Mod Podge over the panels themselves. If youâve been a follower of the Miniatures of Tomorrow tutorial series for any amount of time, youâll know that I practically drink this stuff. It has so many applications to the aspiring dioramist that I think it should be in every miniaturists toolbox. Weâre applying the mod podge to bring texture and depth to the glass, so that it catches and refracts light more like actual colored glass than just a flat plastic pane. This step is essential to nailing the look, so take your time here. Itâs essential to apply a thin coat to every glass panel and avoid covering the black lines. This will make them pop out against the lead and really convey that this is more than a plastic sheet with some stuff painted on it.Â
Below, youâll see a clip of the shimmer in action. Note the difference in the way the light plays off of the panels with Mod Podge, VS the naked blister plastic. Quite a distinction.Â
With the one side done and given time to cure (itâll be completely transparent when set), itâs time to flip it over and do it all over again. Not the least tedious task in the world, certainly, but we get the results that we work for in life, our craft included.Â
With both side textured and allowed to cure, itâs onto the coloring bit. You canât use normal hobby paints for this, as theyâre opaque and the whole point of the window to to catch light, so weâre going to reach for the Tamiya âClearâ series of paints.Â
These are both a blessing and a curse. They dry transparent and with a high gloss, staining whatever is beneath them while still allowing light through. This saves us a ton of hassle in mixing inks and mediums, and allows us consistent coverage and color, throughout the project. On the flip side, theyâre a damned nightmare. They donât play well with paint mediums and additives, nor do they mix well with other paints (themselves included). They dry into a sticky gelatinous mess very rapidly, but take several hours to cure to the touch. This means you have a very short window to remove or tinker with the paint, but hours to ruin the effect of leave a perfectly defined fingerprint in your glass. This is exacerbated by the fact that we have to color both sides of the glass to get a convincing effect, as just one side will be blotchy and inconsistent. While stained glass does generally have some variation in the color intensity within a panel, it definitely doesnât have any clear patches in it. The extra effort goes towards eliminating that issue. At any rate, this step is pretty much paint by numbers. Color in the panels with the color you find appropriate, flip and repeat.Â
THE RESULTS
Now for the final product. This example is MUCH larger than the pieces Iâve done previously, and would represent a massive stained glass piece on the 28mm scale. Even with this bit of grandiosity, the effect is still convincing.
Now itâs just a simple matter of cutting it out of the surrounding plastic, and placing it in your scene. I hope you folks enjoy this tutorial in my neverending series to make you a better craftsperson. As always, feel free to send questions, comments and commission inquiries to [email protected]. Keep your bristles damp! Will











