Hobby Cheating 78 - How to Paint Gems

In this Hobby Cheating tutorial, I take you through a simple process for Gems using some quick blending. I also cover the basics of why gems have such a unique look due to their translucent nature.
Twitter: @warhammerweekly
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Dude towards the end of the video I couldn't concentrate because I kept getting distracted by the gold NMM you've done, it's looking awesome!

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you sir, I appreciate that he has been a long road for sure.

[@RadixFinder]

Thanks for your awesome tutorial (and ALL the other stuff you are doing)! I really love your channel. This specific video gave me the guts to try the loaded brush and it worked out quite okay for a first try! I bow before your greatness, metaphorically!

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, glad I could help. It's a great technique to have in your toolbox and can really achieve some great blends quickly. Thanks again and if you ever have questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

[@vivekbarnvasynanndi3439]

Very talented, thanks to uncle atom for helping me find this.

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you sir, thanks for watching and I hope it was helpful.

[@marrokwolf1600]

Awesome tutorial man super helpful. How would you go about doing a coloured metallic armour, such as red green, blue while staying in Tmm ?

[@VinceVenturella]

So there are two main ways. You can do the metal color and then candy coat it (as I do in the Ghost Tint Hobby Cheating) or you can tint the steel directly with a shade/ink and then gradient it from there.

[@bethanygraham427]

Thank you! Your Lord of Change is looking awesome...

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you, he still has much to do for sure, but he's coming along.

[@mikeljokinecheveste1287]

A great tutorial for round shaped gems, nobody does sculpt faceted gems?

[@VinceVenturella]

They are more tricky for sure. It's funny, because they rarely appear on miniatures. I could always do it just on paper, but I don't think I have anything with a faceted gem on it.

[@TheMonstersKnow]

They're going to appear a lot more often now that Hero Forge is a thing. It features base crystals and crystal-topped wands and staves.

[@SvenEnterlein]

Showing the paper art at the end instead of your final, polished product is a nice twist :D (not to say that the gems didn't look awesome there, too)... EDIT: Would you paint facetted (i.e. not rounded) gems the same way?

[@VinceVenturella]

Yep, basically each facet needs the same treatment, with the upper edges getting the white edge.

[@SvenEnterlein]

@@VinceVenturella Thanks, as always!

[@LamplighterMinis]

I just have to ask how danged thinned are them paints?!

[@VinceVenturella]

Pretty thin, glaze consistency (which I also have a video on). ;)

[@VictorQues]

Good video, well explained

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you sir, much appreciated.

[@nicreap8375]

Would this technique work with scale 75 paints? or should more standard less rely paints be used to do this?

[@VinceVenturella]

Sure, those paints I am using are Scale 75 (the Fantasy line). But really any paints will work, it's just a matter of thinning them right for the glazing phase or when doing the loaded brush.

[@danieldong5400]

I’ve also seen tutorials which recommend a gloss coat after using this technique. What are your opinions on this?

[@VinceVenturella]

I avoid it. The placement of the white dot is how you are showing light and reflections. When you add a gloss coat, you lose control of the light and you will make it look less like a gem.

[@zakhoskins6404]

@@VinceVenturella For lack of better terms, could you use Non-Gemmy Gemstone techniques (what you did here) to paint True-Gemmy Gems (ones with gloss). I really like glossy gems in the way I like TMM, but I do believe using the blending techniques you show here helps tremendously to sell the look of a gradient better. I just like the all over shine with the gloss varnish, and it's kinda hard to get that from any angle with just paint.

[@LoftOfTheUniverse]

What about small but not tiny gems like on Eldar models? Sometimes loaded brush is too much paint to get it to work properly (unless I'm mistaken)

[@VinceVenturella]

They generally are, a traditional layering will work fine there.

[@chrisunderwood7954]

Thanks for the video. Very good tutorial. I'm not sure I can replicate it because I stink, but gives me something to shoot for.

[@VinceVenturella]

Always happy to assist. :)

[@quejebo]

Does warcolours gemstone paint change your methodology for painting gems?

[@VinceVenturella]

Nope, because in the end, I don't like gem paints over metal paint. I just think it's better to creat the layers of acrylic paints to "fake" the gem effect.

[@codelicious6590]

Next, paint the Arkenstone?

[@VinceVenturella]

There you go.

[@Whorabl3]

Would using oils for the blending work with gems or are they too small generally? I was thinking of giving it a try but the problem was while you gain the smoothness of working with oils you sacrifice some amount of detail I'm sure? Also the gems are from the OBR range so they're perfectly cut polyhedrons so not sure if I can effectively come in after and edge highlight because of the size.

[@VinceVenturella]

I think most of the time, they are too small, that being said, if we are talking about larger gems, say on the eldar stuff, it would work fine.

[@ryanglynn2327]

Hey Vince, would you apply the same sort of principle if you were painting something to be translucent? I.e Jellyfish models? Love your work!

[@VinceVenturella]

Certainly, goggles are the most common place that this same technique will apply.

[@DanielEbeck]

Can you do another vid like this one with the Warcolours Gem paints to show how those behave?

[@VinceVenturella]

So they are pretty simple, they are actually very much like the GW paints, basically, you just get a dollop and put them over the silver metallic paint and pull toward the top.

[@benhadaway3322]

Do you put a final coat of Glass Varnish on the gem to get the Shine Effect?

[@VinceVenturella]

So you have two options, paint the shine effect (the light spot), or use gloss varnish, if you place the white highlight and then gloss varnish, you will have conflicting light spots. Your other option it to place the strong light spot, then do a thin coat of satin varnish to give the rest of the surface a slight sheen.

[@IDICBeer]

Nice one Vince

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you sir, much appreciated.

[@KerfluffinMcWooly]

Hey, I could not find a video specifically on painting things like eldar wraithguard helmets. There are some cool effects out there with different patterns that look like carbon fiber/geometric pattern fade. On table top minis that would get coated with a protective coat, how do I maintain the sheen from the helmet without making everything else look glossy? In my experience once I matte finish something it does not work very well to paint a gloss coat on something. If I gloss seal than matte, that seems to work but I lose my high sheen.

[@VinceVenturella]

I would have to see an exact example of what you are talking about, there are some ways to get lots of effects, usually with clever placement of bright white paint for reflections.

[@KerfluffinMcWooly]

www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/744564-Wraithguard%20Eldar.html In this photo the wraithguard seem matte with a gloss over the face piece. I am guessing that if I used more matte paints for cloth, satin paints for enamel armor, and gloss for stones and high reflective surfaces and hit the model with Vallejo matte varnish that it might get the look I want. The matte would be matte, the satin and gloss a little less shiny but enough of a difference to add some variation to the model. i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/bf/5d/1abf5ddae86312f25f41777827ad22bf.jpg I really like the helmets on these miniatures. Not sure how he did it. Hope this helps give substance to my question. Thank you so much for all the help.

[@VinceVenturella]

So it's difficult to tell with 100% certainty in a static picture, because illusions like this are sold in static pictures and more obvious in reality, but I don't think there is any gloss in either picture, I think it's just a trick of the eye with white paint. You can really see it with the central large spots, they are just placed white paint that is faking reflections. Everything is matte. Now, as to the effect on the second groups helmet, it's pretty easy. It's just a mask, like you paint it black, then you put the diamond pattern thing over top, then spray white, glaze with the yellow and red, and then remove the mask, ta da.

[@KerfluffinMcWooly]

Thanks. I am working on several projects that have a mixture of cloth, metal armor and gem stones. I want to keep the metal more shiny as well as the gemstones. I primarily use GW and Army Painter since that is what I have at the moment. I was looking for a quick and easy way to preserve the gloss and matte finishes. I could submit a model to the PMP? There may not be a magic solution. So far my experiments have not worked. Thank you so much for responding. My skills have been greatly improving. Thanks for helping us all.

[@maximebakleh8052]

12:58 did you just flipped the bird? :)

[@VinceVenturella]

It sometimes happens I suspect just because of how I move my hands and I always have to laugh as it's never intended of course. I do the same thing all the time because i tend to adjust my glasses with my middle finger and then realize what I am doing when I do that in conversation.

[@maximebakleh8052]

Dear Vince, you did no wrong, you just mentioned your lord of change as « the bird » before flipping it :) keep coming with your awesome in depth tutorials! I think what I like most is both that you have a clear « scientific method » like way to organise your explanations and that you obviously struggled to reach mastery in the techniques, trying for yourself new experiments and never set by the old common painter culture (do that thing that way, I know best because I said so).

[@HiveMind3006]

Thanks Vice. A much better method to the way I was doing them. I really liked the tutorial on this one with first a paper model and then the application on a miniature. Found it very helpful in understanding exactly how it is done. I would like to see you revisit some of the different techniques such as glazing, wet blending etc. in a similar format. Thanks again.

[@VinceVenturella]

Yes, I think I am going to stick to this format whenever what I am showing is a very small detail that is just never going to show well on camera. Thanks as always. :)