Painting Terminology

[Briggsy]

Hi All,

I think I'm ready to start painting and just wanted some advice to make sure I understand the painting terminology:

Basecoat: Paint on top of undercoat

Layering: Adding a color on top of basecoat or another layer

Wash: Applying a citadel wash to bring out shading

Highlighting: Applying a color to raised detail and edges

Dry brushing: Using a dry brush to bring out highlights and lighter patches

Shading: Is that the same technique using a wash?

Thanks

[snowblizz]

You are pretty much spot on there. I would say that "wash" isn't specifically using the*GW* washes, there are others. And it was called washing before GW renamed t range. But you've got the gist.

Shading is the opposite of highlighting. And just like you can highlight using different methods shading can be done differently.

One purpose of "washing" is to do the "shading" but you can also paint the shading as process reverse to highlighting so that you paint a darker version of the main colour in recesses.

If we are going to be very technical I think it is possible to highlight other areas besides details, but that's more regular painting that miniatures painting.

[Briggsy]

Thanks Snowblizz.....

[IBBoard]

Washing is mainly about shading, but I'd say that you can also use it to pick out and edge detail (like putting a wash over the pommel of a sword to edge the gem but not affect the colour too much).

Shading as a phrase is just making the shadowy/recessed bits darker, but as a technique then it is more likely to be the inverse of highlighting (taking a darker shade and painting it into the recesses by hand - mainly used on cloaks).

As Snowblizz said then their are different ways of highlighting, like drybrushing. Drybrushing is about using the existing texture (particularly fur, hair and chainmail armour) to pick out your highlights by removing most of the paint from your brush on a tissue and letting it collect on the highest points as you brush across the texture. Just make sure you use a proper drybrush as it'll kill a normal brush quite quickly.

As an aside, didn't they have a wash before and then rename it to an ink? I seem to remember it was the wash and the glaze. Washes (like black/red/blue/yellow/brown/chestnut/armour) had blue lids and glazes (in blue/red/purple and others that I can't remember) had red lids. They then dropped the glazes and just had inks, which could be watered down to act like a glaze (I think) and now they seem to have renamed it all to "wash". At least that's what I remember.

Also, that adds another (possibly now outdated) phrase: glazing. Basically, if you highlight and it ends up to pale or chalky then you can use a thinned wash (formerly a glaze) to just tint the colour back to something more reasonable without causing it to pool in the recesses.

Hope that helps

[Briggsy]

Yeah, thanks IB.