I would absolutely watch longer form breakdowns. Although I know most of what is discussed, content like this is great to keep these concepts fresh in the mind. It is easy to forget just one of these concepts and then wonder why a piece just doesn't quite look right.
Vince it goes without saying, this entire hobby owes you so much. Your video output, content and quality of it all is outstanding. I can't thank you enough.
A watercolor book I have had this great quote in it (which I am probably paraphrasing): "Everyone knows tomatoes are red; the problem is we paint them that way." Another great video!
Can I just say, that your tutorials really aren't about cheating at all, are they? They are about the perception of light and then developing and training the skills to mimic (and sometimes artistically overdo) a lightning situation onto a miniature. That said, well done, Sir, again! Thank you!
Another really interesting video Vince. Like so many other commentors I would quite happily watch a 3hr video of any of your theories and techniques- in fact, if you remember I've been asking for longer videos for a while! Such videos would be very informative and also keep me company during long sessions in the hobby shed 👍😁. One interesting issue that you mentioned was the "art terms" used. Although I quite agree that in general the actual words used don't matter, when describing things it is helpful that everyone understands the same "language" in order to convey the meanings efficiently. For example, as a motorcyclist "tint" generally means a different thing to me than it does to you - a tinted visor on a motorcycle helmet is darker than an untinted one. Having some knowledge of photography I am happy with hues and saturation and how to create them for the camera (and even in post-processing 🤮) but it would be helpful to have a more in depth guide as to how to do it with paints. Examples of how to desaturate pure mid-tones into both shadows and highlights would be useful. My attempts just seem to end up muddy in the shadows and not believable in the highlights.
Hell yes I'd watch you do long form vids like that, you have such a great way of teaching that it just makes wrapping my head around complex techniques or subject much less scary.
This really did help me. Not there yet, but followed what you were explaining made alot of sense. And conversely, yes...I would watch a 3 hour video on this if you had the wherewithal to make such a video. Thanks Vince. Cheers!!
I'd watch(listen to) a three hour recording of Vince talking about highlighting. I could be getting work done or painting done. If you could make it so you didn't have to see and only had to hear then I'm in.
You have helped me so much on my painting journey it's incredible. I apologies for giving feedback when it wasn't requested but I have a bit of a video background and if I may help you in turn. Your headshot has too much headroom or in other words you are too low in your frame. It makes you look small. Easy fix is to lower your camera and place your eyes at the top third of the frame. Currently your eyes are in the middle of the frame. Look up "headroom" to see what the frame could look like.
I struggle with mid tones, and where to start. A lot of videos I see say to start with mid tones, or shadows using layering to work up. I figured out on my own that I have to plan, visualize what I want. But there’s no substitute for experience especially in color choice. Does the feeling that I’ve missed something ever go away? You’ve helped a lot and I thank you.
Most comprehensive highlighting video I have seen. Very well worded and put together, touches on all essentials. The way you describe highlighting cylinders is not intuitive though and if I were a beginner I would not understand it,
If you did a video like Miniac where he used to paint a specific thing in real time and talk about it with minimal editing to the painting process. I would 100% watch / listen to that while trying to apply techniques and the technical things you are discussing
This video was very informative and helpful, thank you! I just started watching your Hobby Cheats/Beginner playlist, so sorry if I missed it or didn't see it, but is there a video where you talk more specifically about volume/volume sketches? I've heard you use the term often and get the meaning from context clues, but just wondered if there was a video where you go into it specifically.
I’d be interested in a deep dive that goes into warm/cool highlights. For clarity- when you say “cold highlight,” do you mean a “cold light source”? Can you have a “cold highlight” on a warm color? Normally something like Glacier Blue is used for cold highlights, but does that apply to warm colors? Do you mix Glacier Blue into red to get a cold red highlight? Or do you just need something “colder” than the base color? Is the typical “partly cloudy day” one that would apply warm or cold highlights? Does it vary based on the color you’re highlighting, or is it standard? Lots of questions and they may be better suited to a video, but these are some things I wonder about when selecting highlight colors.
FOrtunately, I have videos answering most of this already - Night - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pMFN3uNLwNs.html Vampiric Skin - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Bb7AJQheUWw.html&pp=gAQBiAQB Shadow Colors - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cD3bahZd_Nw.html&pp=gAQBiAQB Universal Warm Highlights - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KHg1yfX-dXI.html&pp=gAQBiAQB
The forearm wrap on that rat guy at 6:15 is boss. On the parts where the outer edges of a strip are highlighted, are those actually raised on the model, or just painted to look that way? And if the latter, do you have a suggestion for deciding when to highlight the edges versus the middle of strips in bandage-style wrap stuff like this?
Hey Vince this was a amazing video, can you make a video where you show how things look when done wrong ? So for an example a highlight done too broad or with the wrong tone etc.
I think a 3hr video would be good, you'd have more time to give examples not just visually but if able also put it into practice so that the lesson can sink in more. Not that you're bad at explaining you did a great job, for me I know I understand something better when I'm given information but then shown it in use Love these videos I always try to incorporate something I learn from them whenever I paint even if it's small just so I can gain a little bit of experience to refrence later when I look up the video again
For people who are looking to get comfortable with their highlights, would you recommend 1-5 or 1-10 on the light spectrum? Particularly looking at the more common balance of metallic/non-metallic objects, I'd think that painting the same 2-4 on the lighting scheme would end up making the lighting fairly monotone.
It really doesn't matter which scale you use, as long as you're running the appropriate gamut on the spectrum based on the material, light and intensity/position. I usually use 1-5 in general conversation just to keep things simple.
What are your thoughts about mixing both reflective metal paints (TMM) and matte paints to create metallic colors? The mixed paint is then used in a NMM style. I've seen Sorastro use this approach when painting his Blood Rage Fire Giant's gold.
Sure, I have many videos on painting TMM in a NMM style. Oldest video - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aX25IsoNaLM.html&pp=gAQBiAQB Shading Gold - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EvbaRcYZYuo.html&pp=gAQBiAQB Mixing Paints - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T-gyIO3Ncpk.html&pp=gAQBiAQB
Great, enlightning video! Thank you so much for your insights. One question stayed though: What kind of surface is skin to handle? Very reflective or a matte surface? I'm still struggling with highlighting different skin tones...
Yep, in general, skin is treated as a matte surface, but it's got extra complication as it's also transluscent and so needs a great amount of hue variation.
Than k you for another great video, Vince! I have a question about the cylinder lighting. I get that the highlight will stretch along its curved surface long ways, but the "opposite" side has never made sense to me. A rectangle and circle both have highlights at the top, where the light is coming from - makes sense. But why does the cylinder have a highlight going down both sides of it? For instance, if light is shining down directly from above and you're holding your arm straight out (a cylinder shape), clearly you would highlight the upward-facing surface of the arm, but would you really highlight the ground-facing surface of the arm, the "opposite" side of the cylinder, just like the top and leave the side in shadow to make the cross of light and shadow you spoke of?
You would highlight it with the mid-tone, because light will bounce up from the ground. Light doesn't travel in one direction and stop, it bounces around. The more reflective the surface, the more it will pick up that light and the higher value that "bounce" reflection will be. James Gurney color and light has some really excellent examples of this in practice.
I don’t quite understand. In the example of a space marine, their leg is a cylinder and so don’t we have to focus the light as we would on a cylinder, as opposed to stocking the light near where the knee begins?
Because it's a widening cylinder, we can vary the width of the cylindrical reflection to oppose that. We can also sometimes just have the art beat the science a little. :)
How would you handle highlighting spandex? I painted a lot of Power Ranger figures and sometimes the fabric looks like cloth, other times it's very reflective.
Vince, maybe it's a fault in my perception or the way my brain processes color, but I have a heck of a time seeing a highlight or shadow color in isolation from its "base" color. Do you have any tips or art references for eye training? (e.g., jeans are blue... I know intellectually that the highlights could go up to cool white, and shadows down into a desaturated darker blue, but my tiny brain just says "Nope, that should be blue".) Also, maybe another perception problem, but as mini painters we're painting light and shadow onto a 3D object. Unless you expect the mini to largely be viewed from a given angle (like a display piece), doesn't the changing point of view onto the mini change how we'd see it? We're painting a tiny thing to look as if it's realistically much larger, or to give specialized light effects (torches, glowing undead eyes, etc). Probably I am overthinking things, but the 3D aspect of shading/highlighting has always bothered me.
You're always making a choice about optimal viewing angle and the lighting position. You can't create something that is responsive and will always look best at any angle and any lighting position. Now, as to references - James Gurney, Colour and Light and the follow-up book, that is what you want. It will really show you how environmental colors work.
I'd definitely watch a 3 hour deep dive on whatever painting topic you want to explore. Deep dives can touch on interesting minutiae that aren't covered by most quick tutorial videos.
Your perspective, presentation, clarity and ability to articulate the point in an easy to understand and digest manner are unmatched. I would absolutely watch you speak for 3 hours on lighting.
Vince... your tips are gold... but Man i wish you had a better microphone. Or at least better Mic set up. Please see the vid titled: 3 Steps to SOUND like a PRO on Stream... and it might help.
