This Slaan figure's leather skin
outfit is coated with a thin brown wash.
Washing
is a technique that involves highlighting shadows by allowing
a thin mixture of color that is darker than our base color
to flow into the cracks, creases, and crevices of the figure.
Ideally if brushed over the entire area, the color will flow
off of the higher surfaces and stay in the cracks. If you
are using acrylics, it is often necessary to add a very small
amount of dishsoap to your paint mixture so that the paint
will stay down in the valleys when it dries. Simply add a
drop or two of dish soap into your brush washing container
and use this to water down your paint when you get to this
stage.
If
using paint, you will mix some of the base color with a bit
of black, making a much darker color than the original. Some
use straight black for this, but a darker version of your
base color will give a more natural look. Other than coal
and a few other exceptions, black does not itself exist in
nature. You will find that most things that you see in nature
that are dark are just dark blues, browns, or what have you,
albeit very dark sometimes. When you get a dark color that
you are happy with, add some water to the paint by dipping
your brush into your rinse container and mixing it with the
color. The consistency that you are after is about like milk.
It should flow well and be fairly watery. Washing is something
that you get better at with time, so don't get discouraged
if you don't get the effect that you want the first time.
You
will want to drag your brush loaded with the watery paint
ACROSS the grain of whatever you are washing. In other words,
you do not want to drag the brush down, say the length of
a fold in a cloak, but rather drag it across the folds. This
will deposit the wash in the cracks. If you got uneven amounts
of wash, you can put a bit more wash in these areas. It is
important to consider how the figure is positioned when doing
a wash. Gravity will tend to pull the wash to the lowest point,
so you would not want to, for example, stand a figure upright
and then wash his cloak unless you want much darker wash near
the bottom where it will flow to. Let the figure set in this
position until the wash is dry enough not to flow. You can
then go on to another section of the figure. You cannot wash
an entire figure at once due to the way that the wash will
flow, but will have to do it in sections, even if all that
you are washing is the same color.
Do
this for each area, noting the highlights that will really
make the details of the piece stand out. It is amazing how
good of detail that you can get out of washing in a minimum
of time. A special case is the face. I recommend using a mixture
of red and brown to wash with for the face. Brown alone will
make it dirty looking. Incidentally, use more red than brown,
about 2:1 to 3:1. It doesn't take much dark color to really
make things lose their intensity quickly.
As
for inks, the same basic techniques are used in brushing on
the wash. The difference comes in the fact that inks tend
to be more intense than washes of watery acrylics, so you
tend to get better contrast. Also you will only have to water
down your ink about 1:1 with water to get the flow that you
want. You can mix inks just like you mix paint. Inks can be
tricky sometimes, but with some practice you will be much
more pleased than with using paints for your washes. Again,
for flesh tone use a mixture of red and brown, perhaps adding
a half drop of black if you feel that you need more contrast.
If you get too much ink (or paint for that matter) on an area
when washing, simply dry your brush with a paper towel or
napkin and then soak up the excess ink with the brush. It
will draw the excess ink into it. Dry and repeat to get rid
of more.
If
you find that you get a 'dirty' look to the piece that you
are working on when you wash it, particularly with lighter
colors, you might try the following. Wet your brush with straight
water and brush this onto the area that you want to wash.
This will tend to saturate the dried acrylic paint that you
have already put down with water. When you apply the ink now,
it does not saturate the paint with ink, which stains the
original paint and makes it darker and 'dirty' looking. The
ink will tend to run off without changing the underlying paint
much. You will get more striking contrast and will not have
to drybrush over the muddied area so much afterwards. Some
staining occurs anyway, which is why when washing, you start
with a slightly lighter color than you want to end up with.
To
bring out the details of this miniature, a wash was
applied to enhance the shadows and crevices.
