Step Three: Highlighting

So this post should wrap up the walk-through on this ship, only the highlighting and finishing touches left.

I highlighted the Bleached Bone first, I added a little White, and an equal amount of Matte Medium, and a little water.  The Matte Medium, is basically paint without the pigment, by adding it to the mix my paint becomes slightly translucent.  This way each highlight just blends into the previous coat a little.  I made the Bleached Bone highlight a little too bright, and ended up putting it on too much in a couple of places, so I only did the one layer of highlight.  Next was the Scorched Brown, same mix to the paint, and this time on the second highlight I added a little Bleached Bone and just did the very edges.  Next was the reds, I started with Red Gore, and then added some Blood Red for the second highlight.  I then did the metal parts, using Chainmail for most of the highlights, and then just picking out the very edges and highest points with Mithril Silver.

At this stage the painting of the ship was finished, and it went into my spraybooth for a few coats of gloss varnish.  After the first coat I noticed that I forgot to paint the engines, so I quickly painted a blue to white transition, and with the aid of the hair dryer, I had it back in the spraybooth in a few minutes.

Once the gloss coats had a good amount of time to dry, I then added two coats of matte varnish.  I am always amazed at the change adding the matte varnish makes to the paint job, up until this point the highlights were looking a little garish, but as soon as I hit it with the matte varnish everything chilled out nicely.  Below you can see the difference, the first photo is just the gloss, and the second is the matte.

The big benefit of the type of basing I do, is being able to remove the base once the ship is done and repaint it.  Through out the process I had been getting overspray and errant brush strokes all over it.  I just pop the mini off, secure a barrel clasp to the top to protect the threads, and quickly re-prime it black, and then give it a gloss coat.  For whatever reason I prefer for the mini to be matte and the base to be gloss, and that is a really easy way to accomplish it.

And one last group shot of some of my other finished Narn ships to end this walk-through.  I hope you found this at least entertaining if not informative.  Now on to my next project, which should make its way up here soon.

Cheers.