I know that a lot of you out there are much more experienced painters than I who no doubt have their blending skill down pat and can whip up a flowing cloak or smooth skin at the drop of a hat - so long as the hat falls a significant distance. Of course, there's always the times when we want a nice-looking paint job on not one or two miniatures, but a whole regiment or even an army, and we want it fast. I'm sure there are at least a few of you who might not know how to go about doing this, so here's a rundown of what I do. This tutorial would work best for someone who hasn't watered down their paints and is, as I said, in a hurry to get this done.
 | I've used an Inquisitorial henchman for this tutorial, because a) the model has some nice folds in his robe that will work quite nicely and b) I should paint him up anyways. Here he is resplendent in Scab Red with a Red Gore highlight (my Red Gore is very watered down, so it doesn't really show). |
 | A shockingly contrasting Blood Red highlight, and covering most of the cloak too! Now I've gone and done it. This actually doesn't look too bad (my Blood Red is watered down too, making it less than ideal for this demo) but it is still pretty harsh. Don't be afraid to cover a good chunk of the raised surfaces with this - it'll be toned down in the next step. You could throw him onto the table in this state right now, or you could take an extra couple of minutes and make him look better. |
 | Now I've given the entire cloak a glaze (with this amount of coverage you might as well call it a wash) of the base colour, Scab Red. I've been told that Vallejo's Glaze Medium is ideal for the wash stage, but I have yet to try it. This will not only clean up any mistakes you made by letting other colours go into the deepest recesses of the cloth, but it smooths down the levels of everything and ties it together a little bit better. This step is where it is better for you to be painting a group of guys - by the time you're done the last one, the first will have dried up and you can go to the next step. I didn't bother to wait very long, so you can see that it's still wet at the bottom in the next picture. |
 | Blood Red highlights are once again applied, only covering about half of the original highlight surface. Bada-bing, bada-boom, there's a blended cloak. |
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