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Painting Stripes,
Checks and Tartans
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Well painted stripes, checkered cloth and tartans can make your miniatures truly stand-out, but are also a great challenge to paint convincingly, especially in smaller scales such as 15mm. Here are some collected tips.
Stripes
Simple stripes can be anything but simple. The typical problem encountered by first time stripe painters is that they try to paint too many stripes (emulating the frequency of stripes on actual clothing) rather than simulating the visual effect of stripes. Another problem is stripes that are too thick because of the difficulty of applying a thin line of color with a brush. Here are several techniques for painting stripes:
- Use a brush with long but fine pointed bristles (i.e. a lining brush), load it with just enough paint and draw your stripe by moving your brush up or down the figure in one quick and light swipe.
- Use an ink pen (e.g. Micron) in the desired color to hand draw stripes.
- Paint the figure in the color of the stripe. Then rather than painting on the stripes, use your brush to paint on the base color of the fabric, leaving gaps between each brush stroke which become the stripes.
- Paint a broad colored stripe. Then taking a fine brush, paint a line of base color down the center of the stripe, thus dividing it into two stripes.
Gamers Feedback
Andy O'Neill: Stripes usually look wrong because the painter paid no attention to how the garment would be made, and just painted stripes straight down. Maybe OK in 15mm, but on 30mm it'll stand out like a sore thumb that
"Something's wrong". Look at the way the material would be hanging. If you think about it, the stripe will go into the folds, and will be parallel to some sort of edge. Trousers are not made out of just the one piece of material, so you need to allow for that.
My method:
- Stain the base colour.
- Apply thin stain stripes using lightly loaded brush, paying particular
attention to following the path a strip should across any folds and
getting them parallel to each other.
- If it looks wrong, fix the bits wrong.
- Put another thin stripe over, to firm it up a bit.
- For sort-of-plaid, repeat across at right angles.
- Darken and neaten the checks between.
J. Martin: Anytime you try to do things like stripes or tartans on a figure, you put yourself in real danger of going plum nuts trying to do it "just right". There are three things you need to remember.
- Contrast - it does NO good to put black stripes on a dark green or dark blue background. It really can't be seen very well. So what you have to do is paint the initial blocking (basic painting technique as opposed to staining and
washing - see text file for more details) color at least one shade or hue
lighter than would be considered normal. For example, if the tartan pattern
requires a very dark blue base and I'm going to be putting black stripes on it,
I'll use a medium blue shade instead. Counting on the black stripes to make
the blue look darker while still being able to see the lines.
- Size - don't put too many lines or too close together. Leave room for all the colors you're using to be seen. For example, I try not to put more than
three horizantal stripes of a single color on a tartan pattern.
- Wet paint - you have to keep your paint well watered down in order for it to flow properly when trying to paint a straight, consistent line. Too dry and it tends to smudge and flatten out. Too wet and while it might be straight,
it's too transparent and doesn't define the pattern well enough. This just
takes trial and error to figure out what works best for you and the paint
you're using.
TOOLS: Only one tool is essential for doing stripe work. A very good quality 000 or
smaller red sable pointer. Natural hair only - acrylic brushes simply will not
do for this particular job.
TECHNIQUE: The most important technique is the near-horizontal brush: Your standard method for blocking, staining or washing a figure is to use the tip and perhaps the top 1/4 of the brush. So your paint brush is held near vertical to the plane of the figure. When painting stripes you have to hold the brush tip closer to horizantal in order to use more of the brush sides when painting the stripe.
The downward stroke: Any loose piece of fabric like a cloak or a kilt has an
attached point (around the neck or the waist) and a loose end that flaps
around. When painting a stripe it is essential that you start the brush stroke
at the attachment point and smoothly bring the line of paint downward and off
the loose end.
It works best if you try to complete a stripe in one fluid motion.
Cloaks are useful for practicing techniques.
Vertical stripes: Start by putting one stripe right down the middle of the
cloak. This defines the center. Then one either side of the center stripe, do
a set of stripes, trying to keep them the same distance apart from the center.
Also realize that stripes are going to be wider apart at the bottom of the
cloak than the top. Do more sets of stripes until you've reached the outer
edges, trying to keep the distance between each stripe the same.
Horizontal stripes: Start at the bottom of the cloak and paint your first line
just a little up off the loose edge. The go up a certain distance and do
another. Then another, etc. As you near the shoulders of the figure each end
of the line should slightly curve up, the curve getting more and more pronouced
until you go around the neck.
Master class: I've found it useful to put in a series of wide stripes done with
a 0 or 00 acylic brush. Then go back in with a 00000 red sable and the same
color and paint a very narrow line between the wide stripe.
Checks and Tartans
One of the great painting challenges for historical wargamers is realistically simulating checkered cloth, particularly in 15mm scale. As if making a check with two colors is not difficult enough, multiple colors could be used in the pattern; up to seven in the clothing of an early Irish king. Here are tips and techniques for those so inclined to try their hand at checkered cloth.
Mike Demana: I recommend Window Paneing...as in painting, in effect, a
grid like a window on the figure. For example, take a 15mm figure with a simple
long sleeved tunic with a belt. First, I'll paint the tunic a solid color like a
yellowish dun or khaki. Then, I'll paint horizontal and vertical lines in
another nice contrasting color, say Reddish Brown. I'll start with a horizontal
line at the bottom of the hemline of the tunic. Then I'll do another horizontal
line underneath the belt. Then, I'll do a third horizontal line in between those
two. Next are the vertical lines, spaced apart as looks nice. If the miniature
has pleats or folds, put the vertical lines on the folds. Not only is it easier,
it looks nicer, too. It does get more complex when you deal with the upper
body, with sleeves and all. I'll do one line at the neck, another at the belt
line. Then I'll space out my horizontals, making them flare slightly at the
chest, contracting at the waist.
J. Lim: To paint the annoying Celtic checkered trousers etc:
- Undercoat white.
- Paint the darker colour on first. Cover the entire area needed.
- Then, using the second colour, paint on lines in a grid form, making sure
the spaces between lines is the same as the width of the lines.
- You now have a flat area of the lighter colour with regular darker
squares. Now paint squares where the lighter lines cross, using the first
colour again. You now have a checkered pattern.
- Now highlight the centre of each square, this making the checkers look
more regular.
Still takes a damn long time though.
Chris Brantley: My own technique for checked cloth, a la the tartan-like
plaids of pre-Feudal Scots, is to paint the figure's clothing a dark or drab green or dark orangish red and then use a Micron pen (black ink) to draw lines to create the checked pattern. The effect is minimal and only apparent under fairly close inspection. If you are of a mind to experiment, you could use contrasting color inks such as red or yellow, to make the pattern more obvious. For inspiration, here are the plaides worn by Liam Neeson and Mel Gibson in the movies Rob Roy and Braveheart respectively.
Rich Kurtin: Personally I put the lighter color on first and either use a thinned darker color to make the guidelines and fill-in the checks - which will then tend to highlight itself - or the Pigma line of markers. They have 'brush tips' so you can get varying line thickness, and they come in blue, black, yellow, green, purple, rose, orange, brown and red. The lighter shades are marginally transparent so you can use them to 'tint' areas too.
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