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Painting guide: Deep One By razorspoon


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Painting guide: Deep One

 

By: @razorspoon

Translation & proofreading: @Roolz & Jay Adan

 

This guide is designed to paint Deep Ones miniatures quickly, with simple techniques, accessible to beginners. I used Citadel Colour (CC), Prince August (PA) and Amsterdam art paints (references in index).

 

We will discuss pre-shading, inking -a cousin of the successive washes technique-, drybrushing and creating a rust effect.

 

Before moving on to painting, I researched what a "Deep One" looks like. Lovecraftian mythology gives me a rather appealing image for this painting project. The creature combines, in a humanoid body, attributes of several marine creatures (fish, but also crustaceans, molluscs and reptiles). The painting potential is enormous... Let's move on to the realization.

 

533475256_00depone.thumb.jpg.1f102bbea6d1fb6ab37a02795681b009.jpg

 

Preparation

 

The preparation of the miniature is an important step for painting “by inking”. Indeed, creating a shading or pre-shading scheme at this stage will strongly influence the final result.

 

First, the entire mini must be painted Black. For this, a spray can or an airbrush are fine. Personally, I do this step with a brush, because I find the method more precise: with sprays, it can happen that the deepest hollows are not reached. With a fluid paint (I add a little fluid medium) applied with a brush, I can guide the paint into the hollows more easily. For this first step I used Ivory Black Amsterdam.

 

The jewels and the anchor are then painted with Black Red PA to prepare the rust effect.

 

Finally, I spray an off-white, such as Corax White CC, at a zenithal angle (70 to 80° from the horizontal). The sprays bursts must be short, one does not want to repaint the figure in white but to quickly get a gradient of gray that prefigures the shadow and light areas on the miniature. To accentuate this effect, a light drybrushing of pure Titanium White can be applied to the most prominent edges.

 

501111547_01PrepaDO.thumb.jpg.d6fd3cb6e124f5b78cde39079ab04ac4.jpg

 

862727944_02preombrageeffet2.thumb.jpg.0f04687ac6eec90685e08a449fcbd8a4.jpg

 

General painting

 

I’ve chosen to present a method of painting by inking, because it is a technique that is coming back in fashion with the recent popularization of "self-contrasting" paints. Contrary to the classic technique of blending, it is a matter of applying a coat that will outline all the volumes and create an overall shading, in conjunction with the preparation. A finishing highlight touch will bring back the shine to the whole.

 

Before applying the paint, I define the "skin" and "fins" areas of my mini.

 

- For the scaly skin, I'll start with a neutral grey slightly tinted with blue, to recall the marine element. For this, I chose Gryph Charger Grey CC, to which I add a drop of Terradon Turquoise CC (one drop of Terradon to 12 drops of Gryph Charger). The coat is applied all over the skin. The paint will build up in the hollows and leave a thinner, tinted layer on the reliefs.

 

- Once my first coat is dry, I add a second coat of Gryph Charger Grey, slightly diluted with Contrast Medium CC. This second coat will strengthen the shadows without altering too much the blue component of the previous mix.

 

- The fins are then painted with pure Terradon Turquoise. The turquoise blue will match the skin tone, creating a delicate and harmonious contrast with the rest of the mini.

 

1467215377_03peinturetep1.thumb.jpg.7933d1d703c8d1669521b4f2341ac56b.jpg

 

At this stage, without having painted any details, the miniature is already quite readable, in-game.

 

Rust

 

One of the focal points of the figure is its weapon, that big anchor from the bottom of the abyss. To make it a little more realistic, it needs to be painted as if the metal had spent many years under the sea.

 

The “jewels” and the anchor are first painted with Black Red PA, then a first wash of Agrax Earthshade CC (which will bring a dull brownish tone) and a second wash of Fuegan Orange CC (which will rekindle the red component of the black red) are applied.

 

To simulate the rust, I dilute Bright Orange PA, until I get a wash that I put in the hollows.

 

Then come the metallic paints part. It’s done in 2 steps. First, I have to "roughly" paint the protruding lines of the anchor, leaving the rust effect that has just been achieved. This step is nevertheless delicate, because if the irregular texture of the anchor is present, it is also very fine. So be careful not to repaint the whole surface as a metallic basecoat. For this step I chose IronBreaker CC, but any metallic paint that is not too flashy will do. Then, with Necron Compound CC, which has a brighter tone, I drybrush the Deep One's weapon as gently as possible to deposit bright pigments on the edges only.

 

305990279_04pasapasancre.thumb.jpg.ea2c00a2d16db97cb0037c8c0663fc5a.jpg

 

Use the same method on the creature's "jewelry".

 

This is a convincing rusty metal and a painted miniature that will look great on a gaming table!

 

Details and to go further

 

To give "a little more life" to our creature, nothing better than to add some details and highlight the whole paintjob a little.

Regarding the highlight, I did two successive drybrushings.

 

The first one on the fins only, with Turquoise Blue Amsterdam, is drybrushed from the edge of the fin to the back. This turquoise, stronger than the one of the first coat, will bring back light and saturation.

 

The second drybrush is done on the whole miniature with light Sky Blue Light Amsterdam, to highlight the volumes. The Sky Blue has a high proportion of white and allows to brighten almost all the blue hues. In order to redefine the fins’ texture, their drybrushing is done perpendicularly to the first one.

 

963762831_05rehautep2.thumb.jpg.c0cd4b2fa3a396078b4100fcf2972baa.jpg

 

Regarding the details... The eyes are first painted black. Then, just add a glow by blending 3 shades of grey (I used the Citadel Colour chart: from darkest to lightest ; Eshin Grey, Dawnstone, Administratum Grey, but any home-made grey scale, based on a mix of white and black, will give a similar result).

 

The teeth are first painted with ecru white, obtained by mixing Titanium White and Yellow Ochre Amsterdam (1 drop of ochre for every 10 drops of white), then washed with Seraphim Sepia CC, and finally highlighted with Titanium White. The same method is used for the claws.

 

621875742_06detailvisage.thumb.jpg.908456f8427a2bff5740f0abb97576ca.jpg

 

I also applied some Flesh Tone PA to the "gills" in the neck of the creature. The pink component will naturally contrast with the turquoise blue.

 

1341347259_07detailfinish.thumb.jpg.5246eb1c406c2656360ed2dcbc740754.jpg

 

Time saving tip: the zenithal priming technique allows you to avoid painting      the areas that are theoretically not exposed to the light. As a consequence, less time is spent working on these details. Once on the table, no one will look at your figures from underneath! :)

 

effetzenithal.thumb.jpg.54f45a0023e7021abf221f819f321de0.jpg

 

 

Here is my painting proposal for the Deep One.

 

1939702285_08deepone360.thumb.jpg.e231659bd81efcbf7febb21e70de0958.jpg

 

As written in the introduction, I found the potential of this creature to be enormous, and as Monolith kindly entrusted me with two copies for the purpose of this guide, I also made an alternative version, using more "classic" blending and washing techniques that take a little longer. For this version, I was inspired by marine creatures of the abyss and by shellfish.

 

I hope you'll like it too.

 

533571645_09altdeepone.thumb.jpg.8229f673820de9a756d5025714a84535.jpg

 

 

Paints used

 

Citadel Colour:

-Gryph Charger Grey (contrast)

-Terradon Turquoise (contrast)

-Ironbreaker (layer)

-Eshin Grey (layer)

-Dawnstone (layer)

-Administratum grey (layer)

-Necron Compound (dry)

-Agrax Earthshade (shade)

-Fuegan Orange (shade)

-Seraphim Sepia (shade)


Prince August/Vallejo:

-Black Red (859)

-Bright Orange (851)

-Flesh Tone (815)

 

Amsterdam:

-Ivory Black (701)

-Titanium White (105)

-Sky Blue Light (551)

-Turquoise Blue (522)

-Yellow Ochre (227)

 

Additives:

- Contrast Medium Citadel Colour

-Matte Acrylic Medium Liquitex.

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