Blending earthtones and creating a mudd effect

In This tutorial I will try to show how I blend the robe of a warcrow miniature in a natural green colour, and also how I make a mudd-effect on the clothes. This is the same technique that has been used on Sir Broderick in the my gallery. I excuse for the difference in the quality and nuances of the pictures - but it is extremely diffucult to create the same light-conditions when taking pictures. I hope you find this tutorial usefull.

1)First stage...the mini has been cleaned for mould-lines and glued to the base.

2)The figure has been primed with GW’s white spray. This was done lightly 3 times.

3)Finally some colour…. This colour is a 50/50 mix of GW’s Dark Angels Green and The Vallejo Model Colour Dark Green (#893). The color was thinned down with water and applied smoothly 3 times before it covered satisfyingly.

4)First some picture-explanation: The colour which have been cut out and put in the upper-left corner of the ‘palette-picture’ is the colour used at this stage. So…the first highlight have been applied here. This was done by adding a little Vallejo Bonewhite (34) to the base-colour + thinning it dramatically. Afterwards it was applied several times - because of the poor covering-ability, but this gives you a lot of control, ’cause you can see how the colour slowly starts to change and build up. You can create a very smooth blend by using this technique carefully. It’s called feathering.

5)A little bit more bonewhite has been added, and blended further up on the raised areas of the folds.

6)More highlights… as you can see the colour is beginning to become noticable lighter. The highlights is still ‘feathered’ on.

7)More highlights

The highlights are beginning to be applied only to a small area on the top of the folds.

9)Final highlight. This is done using pure Bonewhite. At the last stages the highlights are applied to a very small area and sometimes tend to become too powerfull, therefore a bit of retouching with the previously used colour are sometimes necessary.

10)Shading. This is done with a 50/50 mix of GW Chaos Black and the base colour. Apply to the deep part of the folds. Again the colour used is VERY thin so that you can slowly blend the colour smoothly in to the basecolour.

11)First layer of mudd. This is created using, again, a VERY thin 50/50 mix of the basecolour and the Reapercolour ‘Oiled Leather’ (18043). The colour was applied carefully, and several times (poor covering ability), at the bottom of the robe.

12)Second layer of mudd. This was done with pure and very thinned Oiled leather. The colour is applied further down the robe, to create the feeling that the mudd-layer is thicker closer to the ground.

13)Last stage. Here the mudd is highlighted with a 3/5 mix of Bonewhite and Oiled Leather. The colour is kept at the top of the folds, and is retouched afterward with Oiled Leather to make the blend smoother. And that was it.

14)Picture of the finished result.
A small note: You can change the colours if you don’t have those I’ve used, with these: GW’s Bleached Bone Instead of Vallejo Bonewhite. A 3/4 mix of GW Snakebite Lather and Bestial Brown Instead of Reapers Oiled Leather. And any dark green instead of my mix of GW Dark Angel Green and Vallejo Dark Green

15)The finished mini.

Reproduced with permission from Kaple, visit his website here

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