Hey guys,
Glazing this is a big thing I wanna learn, I've looked at the Brushthralls tutorial, it's good, but not fantastic. Anyone here got a good tutorial other than that one for it or have the time to explain it to me?

Thanks,
Pickle

*hijacks thread*

I also have a question about glazing which is.... what is the difference between washes and glazes?

O.K well firstly the difference between a glaze and a wash is: a wash is a large amount of watered down paint (or citadel washes) applied heavily over a mini to seep into cracks to provide shading etc. Or it is painted onto the parts of the mini which require shading.
A glaze however is alot different. A glaze is super heavily watered down paint (atleast 10:1 water-paint) which is applied completely over a surface.

Now a glaze.

Firstly when you apply a glaze you only put enough paint on the brush to cover the required surface. This meens that the glaze should dry in about 30 seconds if not less. What it is suppossed to do is just ever-so-subtely tint the surface to help the colours you have painted on blend into each other better or (in the case of glazing with inks) make the coloures a little bit richer.

So what you do is water down your paint so it is (quite litterally) coloured water. Then apply it over the mini. Once it is dried do it again and again untill you are satisfied with your result.

This is a very easy technique but requires a decent brush and a little bit of knowledge of how to water down paint.

Hope this helps,

-Dwayne



p.s: Pickle would this make a good article for Warzone mag if I explained it clearer/longer and better?

Thanks, Dwanye, cleared it a bit more, it would make a good article I think.

Jacob Neilsen has a good tutorial on his site, it was quite easy to find- I'm just too lazy to make a link.

Well, unless I don't know what I'm talking about, I believe a glaze is the transparent stuff that GW sells? You know, the one where you get it EVERYwhere, and when it dries, it makes the model shiny :D or something like that.

EDIT: Well, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about :P

Well, unless I don't know what I'm talking about, I believe a glaze is the transparent stuff that GW sells? You know, the one where you get it EVERYwhere, and when it dries, it makes the model shiny :D or something like that.

Thats a varnish.

Yeah, I have only JUST gotten the IDEA down of the difference between the two.

Basically, they both involve heavily watering down the paint. Including glaze medium is not a requirement on the actual "glazing," but it helps quite a bit.

No, the REAL difference is the amount you put onto the model itself. To do a wash, you have to dip your brush in the thinned-down stuff, then blot it on a paper towel or something, then liberally apply, typically to fill in cracks for definition and depth.

A glaze uses even LESS stuff on the brush, gently applied. It's usually done over a SURFACE, as opposed to in the cracks, and often is used to soften/blur a line between two different color shades. It helps you accomplish those "magical" transitions between one color and another, or it can be used in place of layering to create shadow and depth.

When you apply the glaze, you're barely putting anything on the model at all. There should be no "blobs" of color visible when you apply it. If so, your paint/ink/whatever is not thinned down enough, and you've got too much on the brush. Odds are, you won't be able to see a good glaze the first time you put one on. In fact, sometimes you'll only know where you've put it by holding the model up to the light to see the shine on the wet surface. Almost like it's... glazed. Get it?

The trick to proper glazing is repetition. The trick to proper glazing is repetition. The trick to... wait a minute. *ahem* Sorry. Seriously, you want to build up a soft, translucent color, which means you have to do it over and over again in the same spot, letting each application dry fully before putting on the next. The good news: Each application is so thin it dries VERY fast, making a 12 or more-step process very doable in a single painting session.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, guys, helped a lot. Especially teh essay from Canew :P

I tried glazing with Vallejo glaze medium a few times to smooth out the transitions between layers, but to be honest the effect wasn't as good as I thought it'd be, in fact it was barely noticable. But, now that I read Canew's post, I only did one layer, so maybe I should do more layers to get a better effect? Hmmm...something to try out.

As I understand, glazing tints/changes the color of the underlying basecoat. A wash would be applied over the same area, but, the main purpose is really the shading of dark areas. The wash will use a higher concentration of pigment to suspension so that it deepens the color of low lying areas more significantly. A glaze would change the color of the underlying base more evenly.

Just to add two cents.

I was reading about this the other day on some multi golden daemon winners website and he included dish soap in his glazes.

Also I've head glazing softens the shine on your model (to metallics.. not sure about others)

Check out Canew and his stealing of what I was going to say.
OoooooOOOoooOOOooooh!

As far as getting started in glazing goes, the Brushthralls article is very good, because it shows you at what point you turn from being a wash (a very useful thing), into a glaze (another very useful thing).


I would heartily reccomend Glaze Medium as a general paint adative any time you are doing washing or glazing. It is a really good way of making paint do what you want it to (or so I find). It's a funny thing to try to describe, but I know that once I tried it, I won't be going back to straight-up water.


Seeing as it's a big thing, it's worth saying again:
The trick to proper glazing is repetition.

With careful work, and a bunch of repeating glazes, you can achieve some amazing things with glazes.
Extreme colour changes, smoothing out layers, tinting, source lighting etc etc...

Good stuff all.

-t.

Would Vallejo Glaze Medium be best or another brand???

Vallejo is the one I use.

-t.

so looking into a bit further...
glazing makes the model shine a bit, SO if your not wanting it to shine then add tiny bit of dish soap and it holds it out of the cracks and gives a matt finish.