Requested Guide: Red glow effects on miniatures

[Kugane]

Hello, 

I was asked a few times on here and other sites concerning the glowing effect on my Shadespire Orruks:

First of all I want to say that I usually paint for a tabletop standard, and all of this is done with speed painting and using XL brushes. The Orruks were completed in about 5 hours including drying steps of washes, which would sometimes take half an hour each, so my goal isn't a golden demon winner, instead, I want something that pops on the tabletop :).

A few people requested how I do these effects, originally Dez pointed me in the right direction and I have been improvizing ever since. I never found a clear guide how to do it online, so all this is trial and error on my part. If people want pictures, I can add them some time! Feel free to leave questions and I'll see if I can help.

I wrote this guide from a red 'glow' effect point of view, but I think it applies to any glow. 

First for the weapons and glow on the mini:

1. The first thing to do when I decide any kind of glow effect is grabbing a colour wheel, selecting the glow I want, in this case, red.

When you look at the colour wheel, you have to look for a colour opposite to your glow colour. That colour will make your glow 'pop' more. The opposite of red is green, so I made sure I put just a tiny bit of green into the metallic black colour of the Urruks to a level that you can't even spot it anymore.

2. Now that your black coat, or whichever coating, is done, I started by VERY drybrushing the edges of the weapons with Rinox hide, leaving a midtone between the black and the edge of the weapons.

3. Now take  a good look at your miniature and imagine if the weapon were glowing, where would all the light land? With that mental map in mind, grab an XL drybrush and some Evil Sunz Scarlet, make sure there is VERY VERY little paint on your brush, almost as little that you can hardly even see it go off the brush and start drybrushing the part you want to glow and very lightly drybrush the areas you want the glow to fall on. The areas near the weapon you do several strokes of drybrush, and the areas far away with less strokes. The XL drybrush should help you to put an even drybrush all over. I personally do this by doing 3 quick strokes around the weapons and handles and such, then 2 next to that and 1 stroke next to that. Its not a perfect gradient, but it should be subtle enough to give a hint of glow.

4. This will be all you need to do for the OSL effect, the remainder you just focus on the weapons. Now without cleaning the red of the previous drybrush off your brush, get some trollslayer orange and get a tiny bit on your brush, wipe it out on a flat surface, the red should mix a tiny bit with the orange while doing so. With very little left on the brush drybrush the tips of the weapons, allowing a tiny bit of the red to stick out. Repeat with a new 'brush load' or troll slayer orange, wipe it out first again and repeat the drybrush, again, leaving a tiny bit of space between the red and previous red/orange drybrush.

5. Get flash gitz yellow and repeat previous step. Dont wash your brush, let the orange left on the brush 'mix' a bit with the new flash gitz yellow. Drybrush lightly dodging the edges of the previous orange drybrush. Get more flash gitz yellow, dry brush some more.

6. Now clean your brush completely and make sure its really dry. Get some skull white and dry brush the edges of the weapon, almost like you are edge highlighting

7. Dillute your flash gitz yellow with water until a very runny and see-through consistency and apply a tiny layer on the edges, now before  this glaze dries, do the same with Troll slayer orange and wet blend the transitions, and again with evil sunz scarlet, wet blending. You should be left with a really nice gradient of red to yellow.

8. Grab your edge highlighting brush and put a little bit of white highlight back on the edges after the glaze has dried.

9. Now back to the colour wheel... Your glow may still look like its missing some of its punch, so what you can do is take some coelia green shade (or any green wash for that matter), and you wash the black areas around the red, maybe even glazing a tiny bit of the red. The green will help the colour pop ever so slightly. 

After this step I end up painting all the details like faces and such, and after I finish those I do a very slight drybrush with evil sunz scarlet on areas that would be lit.

Also In case of miniatures with something other than black armour, you can use an almost black green, to black, to rinox hide midtone between your original colour and the glow, similar to what I did with these:

Other glowing parts on the Orruks:

As you can see I also made the holes on the weapon and armour glow, this is pretty easy to accomplish. I use airbrush Skull White, since its very runny and watery for this step, but you can dillute if needed with lahmian medium or water:

1. Wash the holes with white, in my case skull white air. I put a tiny bit on a brush and I let it soak into the hole like a wash.

2. After the white has dried, I either add a 2nd layer, or if the white is good enough, I dillute Flash Gitz Yellow with Lahmian medium and wash the white with it. Repeat the same with Troll Slayer orange when the yellow is dry.

3. Grab some Evil Sunz Scarlet, lightly drybrush the edges around the holes with it if you want, but this step isn't necessary.

You should end up with something like this:

My painting skills are limited (I just restarted the hobby about a year ago, so I have a lot left to learn), but I hope this helps somebody out there!

[Antonio Rodrigues]

Amazing tutorial! Thanks for sharing!

By the way, fantastic minis!

Cheers

AJ

[Kugane]

13 hours ago, Antonio Rodrigues said:

Amazing tutorial! Thanks for sharing!

By the way, fantastic minis!

Cheers

AJ

Thank you!