Quickly paint engraved glyphs / OSL

Hello everybody!

Ever got a model that has those engraved glyphs that you would like to stand out more but all you have are dark washes? Ever tried to paint those glyphs and ended up in an eternal circle of going back and forth cleaning up mistakes?

Well that is what I had. I was painting 40 Necron warriors with converted weapons (engraved gun barrels instead of the green clear plastic ones) that I wanted to paint like the engraved detail was glowing. The easiest way to for me to do this would be to paint the glyphs white and airbrush some green glow over it.

Painting the white was a hassle and took way to much time to get it neatly done, so I set out to find a better way.

I found this by using the pin wash / panel wash technique, mostly used in historical scale modelling to darken the gaps between panels but this time, with a twist.

When you look online for panel lining you will find a bunch of video's and articles about black or brown oil washes. I used the mechanic behind this technique but I changed it by using white oil paint.

So what you need for this is:

• White oil paint (titanium white)
• (odorless) Thinner
• (preferably) synthetic brush

What you want to do is first protect your paintjob with a layer of gloss or satin varnish! 

Next you will want to take a bit of the white paint and thin it down with the thinner. The thinner can really mess with your organic brushes. (they will ruin your red saber brushes)

Once the mix has a wash consistency it is time to take it to the model. 

Next step is SUPER easy! (as seen in the short video below)

After this step you can clean your brush in some thinner and dab the brush on a paper towel or cloth to get rid of the excess thinner and then use the damp brush to clean up around the edges.

Once the white wash is dry all that is left to do to create a simple OSL (object source lighting) is to airbrush some green over the gun barrel.

An other example of this technique is on the glyphs on the forceshield of an Eldar Wraithblade. 

As you can see it is super quick and easy. If you would like to make them glow you could airbrush some light blue (or any other color) over them to create a mystical effect.

Another application of this technique would be on for example, powerfists and plasma coils. Here it would be logical for the crevices to be the lightest. So you airbrush or paint your fist or plasma weapon in the desired color, use a white oil wash, and then glaze in some color. to make it blend in. 

I hope this article helped you to speed up or improve your painting. 

If it did please share your results!

Thank you for reading and leave no model unpainted!

How to paint yellow (like for an Iyanden Eldar)

Hi guys (and possibly girls) and welcome to this new step-by-step tutorial. This time I will show you guys how I paint a nice, bright yellow that can be used for example on popular sci-fi tabletop armies like Imperial Fist Space Marines or Iyanden Eldar.

Yellow can be a hard color to paint using only a brush. A quick method to make this a lot easier is to prime your models white of a light grey instead of black. That will save you a lot of layers trying to get the color nice and bright. 

Using an airbrush makes painting bright colors like yellow a lot easier. Still I prefer painting over a light color to really make the yellow pop. 

I started with a light grey primer. I will start shading it first anyway so for me it doesn't really matter.

Eldar Guardian primed light grey

I used Vallejo light grey primer. It is important to let it dry for a couple of hours to really set on the model. It will be dry to the touch sooner and it will be possible to paint over it sooner, but you will still be able to scratch the primer of the surface. 

A quick coat of orange-brown

I mixed up some snakebite leather (old GW Citadel color) with a touch of golden yellow and sprayed it over the entire model. I focused on spraying it from below because this will be the shadow color. Next will be the highlight.

Top view after spraying white from the top

Using a zenithal highlight technique I spray white from 33º angle from the top on the model. As you can see in the picture above looking down at it it will be almost white. 

Shadows and highlights

Shadows and highlights

As you can see the brown still shows up where natural shadows would be visible. The rest of the mini is white which is an excellent base for the transparent yellow. Now cover the model with a thin layer of yellow. Make sure the paint is thin enough to let the shadows show through the yellow.

Model covered with yellow paint

You can see the light brown through the yellow

As you can see the yellow over the white gives you a really bright yellow color. When you look at the model at a downward angle you can still see the brown, creating a realistic shadow in the progress. 

Now this is only one of the many possible ways to paint yellow. I like this technique because its quick and easy and it looks good. 

Lets finish the model up real quick so you can get an idea of the finished result. I painted the gun, a kneepad and the head with a medium blue. You can further highlight these if you got the time but I didn't. I hope you liked this little tutorial and that it helps you paint better looking models or to help you paint your models faster.

Finished result