This Will Change How You Miniature Paint | Zenithal 2.0 

I love how you experiment with different ideas that are out of the box and solve serious limitations. You may also want to try Vince V's approach: 1) black base (for shadows) 2) cold grey at 45 degrees (mid tones) 3) white ink from directly above (bright highlights) 4) apply black wash (fix recesses that air brush accidentally sprays) 5) dry brush (restore detailed highlights and pick out areas of interest) This solves the issue you were talking about without having to resort to digital photography and complex lighting. It gives you the gradients you want that can also be leveraged with glazes or contrast-like paints.

Those models look awesome! 😮😂 thanks Lyla!

Hi Lyla! Long time since I don’t post a comment in your videos. First and foremost; hope Mochi is fully recovered. Next… this was amazing. I started painting minis not long ago and something I did since the very beginning was to put my minis under a really good and shiny light taking pictures all around them to see how zenital light was supposed to hit the most. So when I saw this video I got really proud of myself 😊 You made a deeper development of the technique and its awesome. Can’t wait to try this method out. Thank you. 😊

I always love seeing the science behind art. I also, as always, love that you document what does and does not work. Thank you for continuing to put out amazing content.

I absolutely love that one of the certainties in life is that I can learn something new from you. I can't express how much I adore your painting and willingness to share these techniques with us. 😁

I've always had this idea but never ever tried it. So glad I found this! Gonna finally give it a shot.

Awesome! Makes so much sense.

Another terrific reference video! I started using this method about 2 1/2 years ago and that’s when figure painting ‘clicked’ for me. You did a fabulous job explaining and illustrating how Zenithal Light works.

Excellent idea!

Lyla, just how much background knowledge you have in the arts is really coming through this video. I never would have thought to use reference in this way, but other art forms use reference all the time. It's such a smart tactic.

This video answered my questions about shadows and how to get a realistic look. Thank you so much Layla

That’s a cool technique!

So cool to see how you developed the zenithal approach for a more colorful outcome. That must have taken forever! You and Miniac have the best ideas and should do a collab.

Thank you so much! Awesome vid

Great tips in the video, many thanks for sharing!!!!

Um brazilian and o started a few days ago with my husband and we only have im youtube one channel about painting miniatures its pintando miniaturas, and now i find your channel and we loved, your ideia to make easier to paint thankyou so mutch ❤

Great experiment, and it really provides some new ideas on determining realistic contrast - thanks!

Really neat technique! The final result looks great. I'll definitely give this a go soon

Great video!

Very clever! 🥰🐶

That was amazing, such a cool use of tech and creativity

I think the need to do this would depend on what the end goal of the model will be. If you're painting an army, worrying about zenithal highlights and creating the light and shadow in this way would be somewhat of a tedios, time consuming step when you're trying to bang out a lot of models. Natural light from light fixtures and such would provide enough depth of shadow for most tabletop ready minis. If you're doing a piece for an art show, I could see the value in this method. Having photo reference is great. You could even push it further with alternate light sources for bounce lighting or dual light sources. If I wanted to noodle over a piece for a while, what you showed here would be a good technique in the toolbox.

I love this idea! Great video.

Great video. Keep up the good work.

Oh! That wall mounted airbrush holder is a wonderful idea!

I like all your videos, you are gorgeous!

Super useful video again

I think that black and white technique with a single layer of ink or contrast paint over it could make for some amazing looking ghosts.

This is a pretty cool process, I want to copy it for my showcase minis! I imagine the whole process is slower due to experience as well. I imagine refinements and understanding how to get the lighting your want and understanding how it works will probably speed things up and even improve the results.

great vid.

I love this -- it treats mini-painting like the art form that it is. When I was learning to paint (2D), my instructors said the same thing as you -- color complicates things. We also did an exercise like yours -- break the scene down into 2 or 4 or 8 colors, ranging from pure white to pure black, and paint the scene that way. It helps train your eye to see values v. color and makes the scene simpler to render. One thing about Postershine`-- for those of us not in the Apple ecosphere (gasp!), you can use the Posterize function in Gimp and PS to do the same thing.

Lyla ,you made great progress from video to video and now with this technique of light &shadow,you are close to the Pro miniatures painter cercle ,Golden Demon waiting for you !

Great video! In his stormcast NMM video, Richard Gray points out that if you use a lamp as reference for NMM light placement, it won't look quite right because light behaves differently on a reflective surface than on a primed mini. Bearing that in mind, I think I am going to give my minis a gloss varnish coat before trying this technique to so the light hopefully behaves more like if it was hitting a metallic surface than a blank primed slate.

This was really cool. Have to try it now lol

From what I've seen of your videos you are amazing at painting (airbrushing included). I tried zenithal priming for the first time this past weekend and it has been a game changer. You've been great at inspiring me to try new methods for painting, so seeing this process that takes things to the next level is really informative for me. I think using colored lights will be next on my to try list. As you were experimenting with that (before the zenithal highlighting addition), the physics teacher in me was jumping to suggest what you had come to as well. My next thought after this is using multiple light sources of different colors, which I don't know how feasible that is. Thank you for your amazing efforts! Also hi to Cardamom.

So back in the day I used to make custom graphics for mods to a Video Game I played (Civilization 2, yes I'm old), the program I used was Paint Shop Pro and it had a tool called "Change to Target" with that tool you could basically palette shift a section of the pic with it to say for example a series of reds based on the selected main color. So with that tool you could take a monochrome image such as your picture of a zenthal highlight and turn it to purple by choosing a mid tone purple in the tool and cover the whole image. I unfortunately never learned Photoshop or Gimp so I don't know if their is a modern equivalent, but if there was then you could skip the colored lamp.

Dang! Lyla be playing 4D chess with the miniatures haha So many steps! I would never have the patience for this, I just start slappin' paint on. It's really cool to see though. Thanks Lyla!

Love your videos and your style...I only wish I could paint as well as you do...keep it up...

I would definitely look into using Pro-Acryl's Transparent White for doing zenithals. It's been a real game changer for me as it's a LOT less likely to speckle.

I totally forgot I learned this technique in my first year of art school. Thank you for the clear and concise lesson. This is something every painter should seriously consider using. I will say though as someone who paints armies, Zenithal's biggest flaw is how much of a waste of time it is. It's more subtle than pratical.

Interesting process.

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

Holy hell, when you started off saying Experiment one, I thought you were going to go into a Comedy skit where you let the Cat pick where to paint

Amazing video Lyla! Some incredible ideas in here! Similar to you, I've never had great luck with a normal zenithul so this great 👌

Brilliant video. Just learning how to paint miniatures myself, and this feels like something much more up my valley. As for the app step, you might want to try and use "gradient overlay" type feature in any proper graphics editor. That way you can control precisely... well, a lot. Starting with how sharp the jumps between shadows, mid-tones and highlights are, how many steps there are, how bright the model has to be for each step, even replace brightness with color. Deffinitelly something I will be trying out with my next projects :)

I tried the digital route once only I started with a warm grey base coat which I believe was a Krylon camo primer. I wasn't about to pay Citadel prices and I didn't own an airbrush then. I took the images into Photoshop to colorized them like a grisaille. Since it was PS, I had the chance to push the fantasy of the model a bit more. Once that was done, I then printed the colorized images since I was using the family PC and that wasn't near my hobby bench. However, I found out that when printed out instead of viewed on a screen, the colors were far easier for me to read and I could better match the target image.

because i mainly use stl's for my minis im able to put them into procreate and put some simple colour on the models and use the inbuilt lightsource to give me a good idea of how to paint the actual mini

Is there an alternative to poster shine? I cant find it in the app store.

Hi! Great Video again.Thanks for that! May it be that the shorturl to Poster Shine isnt working? I also tried to find it on Google App Store and couldnt find it? :(

I love the random cat footage.

Wonder if you can airbrush zennithal prime with colors? Never tried it but sounds interesting 🤔

I do a zenithal highlight with drybrushing, since I dont have an air brush nor I use cans. It leaves a stronger contrast that may be something to experiment??

Which editing software are you using?

This is such a great technique, can't wait to try it out. Did you experiment with glazing over the black and white version?

There's a way to do the whole color thing a lot faster. You'll need something like Photoshop, Clip Studio, or Gimp (I'm not sure if there are the necessary options to do this in stuff like Paint, for example). 1) Load up your black and white photo into a program of your choice. 2) Go to wherever your color/tone options are and invert the colors (so white becomes black and vice versa). 3) In that same menu, there should be a color/tone balance or color correction option. 4) Go to that spot and open it up. You should be taken to a window where there's a few sliders labeled red, green, and blue. 5) Lower two of those sliders to the lowest value, and increase the remaining slider of the third value to it's absolute maximum. 6) Go back to where we were in Step 2 and revert the colors again. Voilà. You should now have your black and white image in absolute magenta/cyan/yellow. You can repeat the above and change which sliders you use in Step 5 to get the other colors. You can even put each one in separate layers. You can then use regular color options to shift the hue/brightness/contrast to get whatever color you want. The best part is, you can change layer opacity to simply mix the colors as if you were mixing paint. Want a bright, orange-ish red? Set your yellow layer to 40% opacity, magenta to 75%, cyan to 0%, and the bottom layer is your original black and white at 100%. "Okay but why not just do Step 5? Why are we converting back and forth?" If you go that route, you'll end up with red, blue, and green, which won't mix the same way you would mix paint. Certain colors and hues won't be possible with this mixture. The invert -> change color -> invert again is so your shadows stay where you want. Otherwise, you'll lose your blacks and your whites will become too bright.

Love the experimentation. What about trying that first greyscale method using Poster Shine, and then going over with contrast paints, sort of like an advanced version of slapchop? It might work really well.

Grey base, white zenithal and paint with constrast/speed paint

Very, very cool. In photography, we tend to treat the sun as a point light source. An adjustable RGB color wand like that is very much not a point, being, well ... a whole length of wand. Now I can't help wondering what would happen if we wired up a wad of RGB LEDs close together for you. (To act as a point source, but multiple LEDs for MOAR LIGHT.) Wouldn't be a difficult Arduino project.

another experiment with metalics to really catch the highlights might be interesting

I did something similar when I painted the Night of the living dead Zombicide minis in monochrome. Always great to experiment with mini painting, you never know when you might stumble over the next game-changing technique. #NotificationSquad

I actually use drybrushing to do the zenithal. Look at the direction the light is coming from, and drybrush from that direction only. Then again, I don't use airbrushes because of encounters with Airbrush Elitists.

Kitties make it easier to pain, definitely!

cool sponsor. and helpful info

Something I've been wanting to do is make a model that looks as if it is just entering a street light but is otherwise in shadow (so strong frontal light but very little back light). Any tips for making it look interesting and not just half done?

Really cool, but so far above the level of detail and effort that I'm currently targeting 😅 One day perhaps! Question: for colour, have you tried using the black and white photos and just swapping the white to a different colour? If that's possible in the apps you're using? (I know it's possible in Photoshop.)

Your comment about not trusting the screen versus the color of the the paints. Video screens are what we, in the printing world, call "additive color", while painting/printing we call "subtractive color". It's pretty fascinating how those theories are applied, for specific situations. You might want to google search them when you get a few minutes.

Wouldn't it be possible to play with colour values on the initial gray scale image in software, rather then going the coloured LED step? A quick test with a random image from the internet and krita shows promise... Or am I missing something in how light/paint work?

Oh noes, this app in only in iOS. Any idea if there's anything similar for android or pc?

Too hard, I can't ever do this lol :P But it's a great technique for someone more into painting!

I struggle with this video a little bit... When turn and twist your model like that doing the zenithal, sure it's not going to work. essentially you place multiple light sources all around your model, thus you lose a lot of the shades as you would in any real world scenario with multiple light sources. 1) Typically I use some mid grey in a 45° all round the model approach 2) Some pure white from a single angle, no turning of the model at all! 3) light white drybrush over the entire model to also raise the details that are otherwise flat in the shadows You can replace 2 with pure white when you use a very light application, followed by a stronger top application

if you do the black/white, would a filter spray of translucent paint not be best? that way you get the ease of the white light and the colour filter will just tint in the colour you choose then. Sure it is not that easy but i will use this platform to shout whatever i want into the void so there!

Which app were you using for the editing software? 1:58

A small potential issue I noticed with your technique: it seems like your light isn't exactly above the model, which is fine in itself, but when you're taking your photos, you're just rotating the model in place; this effectively changes the direction the light is coming from in each photograph.

I find interesting that people tend to mess up how zenithal actually works. As you said: 1 lightsource shining from one spot. But please tell me, why do you move your model while painting, if you want a true zenithal prime on it? The moment you move airbrush/model from that intended angle, you are no longer spraying a true zenithal area. Hence it will never match a photo you take with a fixed zenithal light. But maybe thats just my mathematical brain kickin in to overthink this...

What brush are you using cause every brush I have does not keep it's shape like every video I've seen and it's driving me crazy

You are good with airbrush when you can paint for e.g 20 skulls, faces on a space of an quater. No joke, it can be done.

¿What's the difference between using a coloured light and using a colour filter on the same software you where using before?

Why have I never thought to paint in black and white?

The painting tips are revolutionary, sure. But the cats add a certain je ne sais quoi.

Wait I thought you zenithal prime and then immediately cover it with opaque paint. That's the correct way to miniature paint correct?

WHY AM I NOT SUBSCRIBED? Oh, no, wait, I am. Nevermind.

Ah, wait a minute there Professor... You're altering the contrast of the photo in your editing software? Also if your light remains fixed and you rotate the model 180 degrees, your shadows and highlights with also be 180 degrees off too. front is right to left but back would be left to right.... ??? Also what if you tried white-yellow-green blue violet red as high light and shadow underpainting? Maybe you'd have to plan out the colors you were going to use, the underpainting colors and take in account for any inter actions... especially complimentary colors that could go grey and lower contrast... So what's this slap chop I am hearing about? Any thoughts?

I think every time I see zenithal lighting (or even slap chop) everyone goes way to crazy with the grays and removes much of the higher contrast between the shadows and brights. Instead of using digital media to pop that contrast back in, I would first try out less gray. If after applying gray you can no longer see any black, you overkilled it and now have less contrast from gray>white vs having black>gray>white.

Baby orange floof just wanted to be included 😭

I hope there's some video metric that tracks my "thumbs up" occurring at the same time as the cats licking each other.

And here I thought experiment one was going to be how to zenithal with a cat tail.

why not just use slap chop?

Don't you just spray the zenithal highlight from the zenith (above)? The idea is you just pick a location the light is coming from and spray from that location. If you move the model around you are defeating the purpose.

Experiment 0: Attempt to zenithal prime cat model...

Experiment one, Step one: Remove cat from spray area Experiment one, Step two: Vacuum cat hairs from spray area Experiment one, Step three: Remove cat and cat hair from spray area, close the door after the furball is out. Experiment one, Step four: Wonder what demonic magic allowed the little gremlin to be laying on the work table, behind closed doors, after I saw the door close on them.

Angel Giraldez... follow him, he will make you the master, no need for all these imaging things.

I wonder how great painters in the old days did this all. Without technology? Am I just being too harsh, just because tech exists is it valuable to use? Or in fact is it a must use? It’s a nice study to help beginner painters to get familiar with shading gradients and using photo imaging to help with color schemes. But the extra steps will become redundant once you have learnt how to view your objects in shapes and lighting. The only steps necessary would be to photo your source material, refer to source material and then get cracking with the painting. As you would have built up the knowledge of advanced painting in volume and colour theory through practice.

Personally it's just to much, considering when you have a whole ass army to paint... to much work.

I love when they say "Realistic" looking shadows while doing all the highlights and shadows from a fictional light source, then placing the completed model under a REAL light source and see all the highlights under shadows from the model lol. Shading only works and looks good if the model is placed under real light reinforcing the "Decided" direction of the fictional light source. There's a reason why sculptors do not preshade or add them into their works and that's because it looks silly when you try to. Light will make all the shadows for you if you are painting 3d models, the only time preshading and highlights work is when you are painting on paper or other 2d media where that simulated shadow look is actually necessary. There is nothing worse than looking at shaded models placed under lights from another direction and seeing highlighted areas under shadows, it's a bad method for anything not static like gaming mini's. Static never moved models under dim lighting is where shade painting really starts to look cool, but said models under directed bright lights not so much. I've seen many great mini's at shows and events that look great until you move them, they turn into what looks like "Plaid" unless they are under the exact lighting used for the painting methods used. Light creates shadows and while paint can mimic (Weakly) light it doesn't move with the subject thus making it a waste for mobile subjects.

waste o time

This one is a dud