Painting Heroforge 2: Layering & Highlighting

[@mooncabbagere]

This is shaping up to be THE definitive Mini Painting for Dummies video series. So many important basics people skip over. Very much appreciated.

[@fourkayminimaster1879]

HEY, Thank you for your videos. I have been watching for a while and trying things out. My painting has improved wonderfully, I love that when I am done with a mini, they don't look painted after using so many techniques from your channel. The BIGGEST is just thinning paints and layering, have not got the guts to do "fleshy" minis yet, but getting there. Thank you for sharing your talent! - yeah going through and commenting on some of my favorite and more helpful videos!!

[@ericlang7408]

This truly is an amazing, if not THE most amazing, tutorial on layering! Thank you so much for your explanations

[@geofffoden9245]

there's almost a clear ratio between number of drops of water: paint and the number of overall layers required for coverage. Thus, paint: wanter 1:5 = 5 layers and 1:3 is 3 layers.

[@adampender2482]

Started painting minis 10 years ago after a 20 year hiatus and I've been following you for a couple of years now as well as watching other artists' channels. I must say I've learned more with this video than any others. I struggled with layering. I could never get a smooth transition between layers. But I had never been shown just how thin to thin my paint. This will take my layering game to the next level. Now just learning more on exactly where to highlight.

[@drackuscolchicous598]

Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos! I really appreciate you breaking everything down, including color choice. As a beginner I often struggle with choosing complimentary colors so it's nice to have a better idea of what works best together. Also, thank you for making an effort to use different skin types in your videos, I am interested in painting more miniatures with brown skin, so I will stay tuned! Thanks a bunch! - Lexy :)

[@TheRunesmythe]

This is a perfect example of why I always look forward to your videos and why, when it comes to miniature painting, yours remains in the top of my most watched channels; I always enjoy watching you paint, but your explanations offer a lot of insight. I'm most definitely looking forward to future installments of this series (as well as other videos)!

[@Haunted_Gallows]

I must have watched this video 100 times and I think I'm finally getting the hang of layering. I'm REALLY looking forward to the wet blending, OSL, and glazing installments of this series.

[@DennisCeteris]

Stumbled upon this after several years of not painting. This is great. Thank you!! The Acquisitions Inc. reference was a good bonus too.

[@scottgower80]

Think I will try your palette idea instead of the wet palette I started with. Seems easier to control the water ratio with this method.

[@killerkodscorner]

I was thinking that too but there's just so much wasted paint left on that tile! Makes my wallet groan...

[@wicek3d]

I've started painting minis recently and am in love with these vids and the Heroforge series. Layering looks incredibly powerful! I tried it a bit now. not getting great results yet, but I feel the experience growing. Thanks for this vid ;] I'll come back many more times for sure.

[@Haunting_Hyena]

This is absolutely the video I was looking for. I've got my minis looking decent but now it's time to take it up to the next level.

[@writeheroics7490]

Awesome, clearly explained video that gives me everything I need to practice layering. Saved for future reference (I'm sure I'll watch it a dozen more times for sure). Thank you!!

[@AlanW]

This was fantastic, thank you so much!

[@M7352169]

Thank you so much! I'm just painting for a month - this video showed me how thin the layers actually have to be. The example without a base coat was very helpful.

[@willierants5880]

Dr. in tha HOUSE! I got here as soon as I could.

[@agsilverradio2225]

Can't wait for Heroforge 2 to come out! Just for the paint options alone!

[@lain4231]

Always glad to see your videos.

[@ariels36]

Some shades of green on his arms and face will give the illusion of the green fire illuminating.

[@philRminiatures]

Stunning job, most impressive technique...and colors!

[@chuckgardner5153]

Thank you for another great video. This one came in just at the right time as I am just learning this technique. You did such a great job explaining the technique and I can't wait to give it a go. Such a big thumbs up! Keep up the great work!

[@junglelands9119]

Great work, just wondering what brushes do you use. Thanks

[@liquiddeath5684]

Green Flame! .. nice call back, great vid. did not like the mini at the start but came out looking great just goes to show a good paint job can fix an average mini

[@isabellmemphis6734]

GREEN FLAME!

[@jimnop2000]

So helpful to see these techniques on an actual miniature mini, and not a giant, dragon et al.

[@liam10071]

First video I've found that has really helped me to understand. Going to give this a try soon. Thanks so much!

[@Darkbirdy]

Thank you for this. What I'd love to see is an episode dedicated just to color. For example, you touch on using a different gold for the trim to balance the other elements. But what is 'color balance', why's it important, and how (in theory as opposed to this single example) is it achieved?

[@Rabbott3565]

I love your channel what a life saver and blessing! I’m loving my new hobby and you’re my Master Class, thanks!

[@maxbrandt6]

Nice work, as always and informative. Layering takes a little longer but the results are worth it, only good for character models too.

[@StevetheSteve01]

I've binged near every video you've made and learned a ton! Your channel is easily the best I've found for miniature painting.Thank you for that. I have one question though. How do you get your paint to flow off your brush so easily? You seem to paint forever on a single brush load. I've been playing around a lot, thinning my paint with water and other thinners, and I haven't found that sweet spot between thick paste that needs to be reloaded every other stroke, and a watery mess. Is Vallejo just that superior to army painter paints? Is there a significance between synthetic and hair brushes I've yet to experience?

[@TheRunesmythe]

The size of your bristles really plays a large part here; this is why a lot of painters will give the advice that you should try to use the largest size brush you can comfortably handle for a given task. Larger bristles hold more liquid (in this case paint) and, assuming your paint is thinned, will keep it wet for longer time (because you're absorbing both water and paint each time you dip your brush). You can examine other alternatives if you're not really comfortable using a large size brush, such as adding flow improver and drying retarder to your paints; those will both help the paint stay wet longer, though you'll need to experiment and tweak ratios until you find your comfort area so keep that in mind.

[@AlexFry01]

Having the paint flow off the brush easily comes down to both the brush and the paint. A larger brush is always better, you want to use the largest brush you can get away with for a task, normally a size 0 is the smallest you'll ever need to use for even the smallest details, some people don't even go lower than a 2. A bigger brush is able to hold more paint just by virtue of being bigger, although the actual belly of the brush (whether the bristles are all fairly straight or whether they bow out in the middle before tapering to a point making the brush have more space to it) will also make a difference as a bigger belly is going to hold more paint. To get the details with bigger brushes you need a sharp tip to the brush. This comes into what you were asking about synthetic versus natural hair brushes. A natural hair brush (most common used for mini painting is red kolinsky sable) will almost always be able to keep a better tip than a synthetic. This comes down to the synthetics being machined to a point and cut to have that so once it loses the tip that's it it's gone, whereas a natural bristle is shaped with a slightly wider middle of the bristle and a tapered tip so it naturally falls into a point when bunched and the natural oils in the hairs hold it together in a tip (this is why you need to use brush soaps with natural hair brushes, it not only cleans them and makes them last longer, it re-adds oils that get washes out with use to maintain that tip). Natural hairs also tend to be better at transferring paint onto the model with more control as they're softer and more pliable, although some high quality synthetics such as the Windsor & Newton Cotman series are almost as good as sable hair brushes so sable isn't the be all and end all of good brushes like it once was. You also want to wick off the excess paint in the way the Doc shows in this video, just touching the brush to some paper towel to get rid of the excess water. That way your nicely thinned paint isn't going to just pool at the bottom of the bristles and all spill out in one go onto the model. It seems kinda wasteful when you first think about it, wicking off the paint, but you actually get a lot more out of it from doing this as the paint can transfer onto the model so much more smoothly and thinly. Vallejo is superior to Army Painter paints in general. Whilst talking about "best" paints to use for mini painting is a very time consuming and personal thing and will always spark discussion (okay let's be real it'll spark arguments) and everyone will have a preference, it's safe to say without any controversy that Army Painter are the lowest quality of the readily available paints for minis. That's not to say they're horrible, they'll still do you a lot better than using cheap £0.50 a bottle craft paints, but compared to the likes of Vallejo, Citadel, Scale75, Reaper, Warcolours, P3, etc they always come out at the bottom, I don't know of a single professional or award winning painter who uses Army Painter, but I know loads who use the others I listed above. The main thing for them is the pigment density and pigment quality, how finely ground the pigment is and how much of the actual solid pigment is in the paint. Because there's not as much as other paints you can't thin Army Painter paints as well as others, so thinning them out to say a layering consistency (not to mention a wash or glaze consistency) will cause them to behave not very well and give you bad results. This makes sense when you think about it, for one they're a lot cheaper than other mini paints (eg half the price of Scale75 which are some of the best paints going) so you'd expect things like pigment density to be lower, but also Army Painter as a company have their Army Painter style, the "Base-Dip-Details-Done" thing, where they encourage you to just do a basecoat, then using one of their Quickshade dips, then doing some detailing, just to get the model to a tabletop standard quickly. Because all they want you to use their paints for is basecoating they don't make them with layering or glazing or anything else in mind so they don't bother with amazing pigment density. If you want to get better results something like Vallejo Model Colour or Reaper MSP will do a lot for you, you don't realise how much better something like Vallejo or Reaper are until you try them.

[@mooncabbagere]

Natural hair brushes are usually better, the fibres are rougher at the microscope scale, so they hold more paint. They also tend to form a better point. That said, you can paint perfectly fine with good synthetic brushes, just don’t expect the same performance. Atleast you won’t destroy a $20 brush :) Also yes, Vallejo paints are that much better than Army Painter.

[@ThePaintingClinic]

The others already said everything I possibly could.

[@ColonelSandersLite]

Also worth pointing out - As others have said, quality natural bristle brushes simply perform better but it's really worth paying attention to what Mooncabbage said. If you're a fairly new painter or even an experienced painter that just doesn't take good care of your brushes, don't bother with natural hair brushes. You will ruin them quickly and that will get very expensive very fast. Only start looking into natural fiber once you find that you're taking good care of your synthetics and you have learned well what not to do. Even when/if you make the switch to some form of quality natural fiber brushes, you will still want to keep cheap synthetics around as a part of your tool kit. It's just a reality that there are things you will want to do that is incredibly hard on brushes and it's better to ruin a cheap brush than an expensive brush.

[@johnreynolds2512]

This video was hugely helpful to my efforts of painting CMON's Game of Thrones minis.

[@VikingMrRogers]

These videos have helped me a lot thus far. Thank you!

[@MatthewSwain]

If I had this video a year ago it would have saved me a lot of time and frustration. So many tutorials with bad production or that don't cover the whole process concisely as this that just end up confusing the learning painter.

[@Daedricsoulslayer]

I've hit my year mark on painting and wanting to start this. It's truly like he says easy to explain but hard for me to figure it.

[@SaschaKleiber]

Question: Do you also decrease the size of the highlighted area while using the same color? Or only if you switch to a lighter color? In other words: If you apply multiple coats of the same color, will this always be exactly the same areas? Do you also paint over a previous color completely because the layers are semi-transparent, or do you always go smaller with the areas?

[@colerape]

Thank you for making these videos. Question I just got one of the new color printed miniatures and I hoped you could do a treatment of these miniatures; how do you make them less "shiny", how do I shade and highlight the minis without detracting from the color print? Thanks.

[@reynaldoaroche2169]

Thanks for this video, it's helping me out a lot. im completely new to painting so I have question, how do you know what colors to use? like what shades and highlights to use? Do you just lighten and darken the base color you are about to use? Or do you use complimentary colors? Still learning the color wheel also.

[@KimHarderFog]

Damn. I would love to one day be able to create so exact and smooth blends. Great job !

[@theGermanPrintingNerd]

Beautiful Job Love your training Videos

[@karnage27]

Can you please recommend a good start brush that I can "attempt" to accomplish what you have shown in this video? Thanks........ Had to edit... just watched the video again, took notes, can't wait to paint. Thanks for much for an awesome video!

[@ThePaintingClinic]

I went over brushes in the first video of the series. Short version; try golden taklon, but experiment with different ones to find what works best for you.

[@DJTXD123]

Great video, would you recommend using a wash before layering and hightlighting or after?

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Depends on the situation, what you're painting, what's the purpose of the wash, etc. Most likely I'd say wash first.

[@claytaylor63]

How does the water ratio tanslate to Lahmian Medium from GW? I know you said 1:3 or 1:5 with water - is there a preferred ratio with the medium?

[@Anecron1]

Very nice vid, thx! Looks like you are wasting alot of paint thogh. Any tips on painting on a budget?

[@drakemallard4459]

Beautiful!

[@leighbrown5430]

Whats the difference between glazing and your latering technique ? Ive been under the impression layering was alot thicker than the layers you have been applying.

[@1234MartinM]

Any advise on lighting!?... sometimes I am getting so much reflection off the room lights that I can’t see my layers going on very well!?

[@stevethorne6535]

Thats awesome.

[@3lcost3]

Thank you!!! Can't thank you enough, I was trying to find a video like this, I've been trying to highlight but I noticed my "highlights" were too strong and didn't stand out naturally but very strongly. This helps tons, however, I have doubt, how does this ratio thing work? You mentioned 1 to 3 or 1 to 5, what does the 1 and 5 mean here? Could you please explain clarify this? Thanks

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Paint to water ratio. 1 drop of paint to X drops of water.

[@barlotardy]

Hey Doc. When you're running a D&D campaign, do your players paint their own character's minis, or nah?

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Haven't got enough stable players to start a campaign yet. However they will need to supply their own. I got enough crap to paint and do for a game.

[@sonicimperium]

Still working on the Batman figures?

[@skibb3r5]

that robe is on point

[@mikrogamis721]

Hang on...what about the inside of the cape? How do you paint that? That's the missing step of the layering, the "unseen bits" How you take care of those?

[@basicminiaturepainting]

Wonderful video

[@johnyoungerman1857]

Thank you….That was quite imformative. Cheers

[@Thorin193]

Great training video! How long does it take you take paint a miniature like this. Just a rough estimate of how many hours you spent on this miniature.

[@wolfgangpassauf3092]

There are a lot of Videos of painters, who used a lot of different colors. Is there a possibality for a beginner in painting, to get these results with one color?

[@AdamPolitanski]

You're videos are great, they have really helped me come a long way with layering. I have a question about diluting your paints with water tho - i use citadel and Vallejo game color, and in my experience when diluting with 1 paint to 3 water or more is that the paint no longer sticks to the model well, it runs off completely like water would off a ceramic pan. As i understand it, it's because there's now much more water in my paint than acrylic, and this can easily be avoided by thinning using a medium. I should probably add that i use a wet pallet, the one from Red Grass you reviewed. I'm just wondering how you make it work, especially if you use 5 water to 1 paint.

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Are you wiping off the brush after loading it with paint? if it's running off the mini then likely there is too much on the brush.

[@AdamPolitanski]

@@ThePaintingClinic Thanks for the reply :)

[@trejosam00]

So it's like watercolor or ink washes?

[@j.mcq.8418]

So, how much time did you spend painting this figure, not including any waiting time? I know the video is sped up a bit and we don't see absolutely everything you do so I'm just curious how long an expert like yourself spends to accomplish such amazing results.

[@ThePaintingClinic]

I paint many things at the same time over several session. It's hard to track how much time is spent on one. 3-4 hours best guess.

[@Haunted_Gallows]

So how exactly is it that you're able to blend so smoothly, without manually blending the paint with a damp brush? I've probably watched this video 5 times now, even while I paint, and still struggle a lot with my highlights. Also, using this method, how much would you thin Reaper paints? I know that some brands are thicker/thinner than others, and Reaper tends to be pretty thing compared to Vallejo, though I use both brands.

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Can't say because I don't use Reaper paints. Though you do have to account for the opacity of the paint and not just thickness.

[@samuellambertmurrayduncan1412]

I'm still finding this very hard, I think my paint is still too thick... But I'll keep trying! :)

[@rinaskela]

I have a question about fire. I always thought fire needs highlight at opposte way i.e. brightest colour in deepest recesses and darkest at edges, am I wrong?

[@ThePaintingClinic]

That is correct. However this is a spell effect and not necessarily actual fire.

[@TheFlotis]

I really wanted to like your video, then I saw 666 likes. For Dr. Faust . Coincidence ? I don't think so. Thank you for the great work, your videos are amazing!

[@michaeljacobs2860]

what miniature is this

[@willierants5880]

What is that you are thinning your paint with at 1:30. Tried pausing, but just not enough to read what it is.

[@ThePaintingClinic]

It's just a generic bottle with water and some retarder mixed.

[@willierants5880]

@@ThePaintingClinic Ah, gotcha, it was a nice bottle. Thanks.

[@RodCloutier]

Any specific ratio? Couple of drops?

[@thebaronvoncarson]

What do you use as a palette?

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Ceramic tile.

[@pesto12601]

Ughh.. that music.. it's like cross beween a music box and a carousel and you are strapped in and going round and round with that song playing all the time... like that damn song Deana Troi kept hearing in her head during that TNG episode...

[@slydog75]

are these videos sped up at all?

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Slightly.

[@slydog75]

@@ThePaintingClinic works perfectly. It's slow enough that your can still easily follow what you're doing but fast enough to keep things moving along. However I was going to be extremely jealous if you were actually painting that fast!

[@cindykee3719]

I get panicky when I first put in my next layer because it so often looks SO BRIGHT and I'm like "Agghh! What did I do? This is too much!" And then it starts to dry and merges into the previous layer more and then I am like "Did I even add another layer here yet?" 😂 I am still not used to how the wet paint looks when I am adding layers.

[@Army0fJesters]

Are the Hero Forge minis you use in your videos made from plastic or premium plastic?

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Premium plastic.

[@Army0fJesters]

@@ThePaintingClinic Great thanks just wondering before I buy my own :)

[@redgreen09]

yes like it the mini looks good and wish had 3 d printer $ 10 bucks do as menny as need add troops to amazons do ones that di in past i play with like a game fun to do tell when i can get to print i just look and do not do a thing but be fun to do

[@socklips7655]

Keep circulating the tapes.

[@DieTabbi]

Damn my english not good enough to follow and more bad the camera is far to way from miniature to see what you do