Monday, July 15, 2013

Playing With Fire: 6 & 7 of 264

I thought I'd jump in and try and experiment with some of the translucent figures this time, so I washed two of the small fire elements in dish soap, and glued them to black-primed fender washers. The first one I worked on was the ball of fire, of which, for some reason, I forgot to take work-in-progress photos.  I began by washing in red ink, then when dry I washed in black ink, thinking it would give a good shadowy effect to the fire. I then, then the ink was dry, dry brushed a dark and light orange, and a dark and light yellow.  Overall I was disappointed how the black ink wash turned out, making the fire seem muddy and dull.
  So on the second one, I skipped the black ink wash, and washed just with red ink.
Then I did a drybrush with dark orange, and then a drybrush with light orange.
These were followed by a drybrush with dark yellow, and then light yellow.  On both figures, when the paint was dry, I coated them with brush applied Ceramcoat 'Matte Varnish'. Then when the varnish was dry, I flocked the bases, starting with a small circle of dried coffee grounds immediately around the fire, to give the impression of burnt soil or grass; and then I put an edge of regular green flocking around the perimeter of the base.
Below you can see both of the fire figures side by side..  Of the two, I think  like the one on the right, without the black ink, better. Though the other one does have a certain dark, oily fire quality about it.
Figures 6 & 7: Complete
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7 comments:

  1. styxJuly 15, 2013 at 1:43 PM

    I like both. The one on the right is brighter, the one on the left to me is more realistic fire with the soot/smoke feel. Maybe a little less ink or thinned down a bit more?

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  2. phreedhJuly 15, 2013 at 3:23 PM

    Main problem with both of them is that you've painted inverted fire. =) It should be brighter at the centre of the flames and darker on the edges.

    I think I like the one without the black wash best too.

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  3. Chris PalmerJuly 15, 2013 at 3:33 PM

    Thanks for the input, styx and phreedh.

    phreedh, good point about the inversion. I hadn't thought about it, but am so use to highlihgting from darker to lighter. I don't know how to lighten the interior without obscuring the translucency, but maybe that's not bad...working from a more opaque center to more translucent edges. Well, two more models to experiment on...

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  4. Rob DeanJuly 15, 2013 at 6:32 PM

    I picked up some Vallejo transparent paints, orange, yellow, and 'smoke', for these...we'll see if that helps any.

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  5. phreedhJuly 17, 2013 at 5:00 AM

    Chris, here's a little article on the matter of painting fire that I found and appreciated. It gives enough insights without being an actual step by step tutorial.

    http://hot-lead.org/advance/fire_theory.htm

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  6. aka. Washu! ^O^July 19, 2013 at 2:29 AM

    Right fire is magical fire! (:

    For some reason, the left fire looks like a fire imp, sideways. Add an eyeball and a big toothy grin, jack-o-lantern style!

    The Reaper Bones subforum has a "red / green" thread that uses colored Magic Wash to paint these guys.

    Good work!

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