20 Minute Purple Robe

Last Late Night Video

This is going to be my last late night video for sure. I’m going to start painting first thing in the morning so I can stop doing this twice.

Testing Speed Paints

I’ve been curious about what “strong purple” actually means. Continuing our speed paint testing with Moody Mauve on this cloak.

The Setup

In case you missed the other video: I brush primed this, dry brushed with a warm white (vanilla white), then came back and sketched in more white at the top of the robes. I wanted to get that worn-in, faded look on this purple.

My Problem as a Painter

I know a problem I have—I try to make my blends too smooth. I put too much into the transition from low to high, so I lose the contrast. There’s not a big enough difference between my shadows and highlights.

Here I’m forcing myself to go from dark to bright and have it be crazy. Learning to accept that’s okay to do.

The Stippling Technique

Instead of dragging edge highlights down, I’m going where I would normally edge highlight and just very gently stippling in, building up a highlight.

I’m using an abused brush with a curved tip—actually works well for this. Starting at the very top, just working down with chunky dots following where my dry brush was.

Going Brighter

I’m taking this highlight way brighter than my brain is telling me to. Almost pure white with a little purple tint. My muscle memory keeps wanting to do subtle highlights, but I’m intentionally going chunky.

Painting for the Tabletop

I’m specifically trying to paint to make this guy look good at tabletop level. At 2-3 feet away, it looks pretty cool. It’ll look terrible if someone picks it up and stares, but that’s the effect I’m going for.

Defeating the Inner Beast

There’s a book called Rational Recovery that helped me way more than AA ever did. It talks about an “inner beast”—the critic always telling you you’re a failure.

I’m doing this to defeat that beast telling me I’m a terrible miniature painter. And also telling me I should go buy a six-pack right now while everyone’s asleep. But that’s probably unique to me.

The Answer Is Always Glaze

If you ever want to make your paint job look better, just glaze it. I can glaze over those highlights and tone it back down—which is exactly what I don’t want to do here, so I’m not going to keep glazing.

20 Minutes Done

Quick one—13 minutes, probably 15 because I had to stop when I threw the model across the room. But hey, not bad. 20 minutes of painting, got the robe done, and I think it looks pretty good.

Also, this is the last video to comment on for the giveaway. I’ll pull the winner tomorrow.

Transcript

All right, this is going to be my last late night video for sure. I’m going to start painting first thing in the morning so I can stop doing this twice. I’ve been very curious about what strong purple actually means. Uh so we’re going to continue our our speed paint testing uh with Moody Mauve Mauve. Uh we’re going to hit this this cape, this cloak with the purple.

And also, uh, what I’m going to do is hopefully finish most of that up tonight cuz I kind of I have some ideas I want to test out on it. So, uh, starting here in this front part cuz there’s a little bit of stuff I don’t want to get this paint on. So, just going slow, being a little careful. Yeah, I’m being careful as I throw across the room. All right, let’s try that again.

I should probably have a painting handle on, but let’s just not worry about it and keep keep trucking. We’re focused. There we go. There’s a sweet spot. I had it and then I lost it.

There we go. Yeah. So, this will be like the last kind of late night cheesy one. Not cheesy, but late night short one. And tomorrow I plan on finishing Maximus.

And I got to get the rest of that Infinity Commission built for sure because I really want to finish that this month and move on to some other projects. And by other projects, I just mean finishing Crucible Guard because uh right now it seems manageable. It’s still quite a bit of figures, but I’m just been trucking through it and it seems manageable. But once I get all that infantry at the end of the month that I got to do, that’s going to seem crazy. So, in case you missed the other video, I I’ve just uh I brush primed this And then I dry brushed like a warm white, vanilla white.

And then I just came back in with a other brush and just sketched in more of the white at the top of these robes cuz I wanted to try to get like this worn in like faded look on this purple. And what we’re going to do is uh once once this purple dries, I’m going to come back in. I’m going to mix this same speed paint purple in with that warm white and come back in on on the t final. I’m going to try to do just one pass of like almost kind of like edge highlights but with stippling and see how it looks cuz I want to use these Dolmanwood figures not necessarily to only practice speed painting. But uh I don’t really care.

Like this guy seems out of scale to me. And maybe it’s just cuz this is a true 28 mm instead of 32. But he just seems like way too tiny to me. And like they don’t it’s not like the Dolwood figures all seem way too tiny. It just seems like a few of them are out of scale.

But it could just be like I could be the one who’s wrong, you know? Uh maybe the goat people are just smaller uh in Dolmanwood. But either way, I mean, it’s a cool it’s a cool sculpt. Like it’s a really cool sculpt. Like I love what’s going on, but I I just don’t not too worried about the model.

It’s more about the practice and just kind of experimenting with things. All right. So, now I just have this other side. Just going to be really careful not to mess up that brooch thing. I hope everybody’s year starting off well.

I’m like I’m at that part where I had like such big plans and like routines I wanted to do, I guess. And it’s always getting blown out of the water as we’ve all been sick and then this stuff with my my son getting um cervical lymphitis. I don’t I don’t know. But he’s going to be fine. his lymph nodes are just got swollen from a bacterial infection.

Uh but it’s not even a big problem, but we at first we were led to believe it might be the thyroid and then that would have been like a lot for the little guy. I mean, this was a lot for the little guy. Uh he’s been been really impressed with him uh how he’s been handling it and taking it, but he’s he’s already like super super improved over where we started last week, especially after talking to the doctor yesterday. All right, quick hit uh with the heater I which I have running now. Hopefully, it’s not too loud, but it is freezing down here right now.

So, you can see on those spots now, we can see where we need to come back in with the stippling. And I’m going to take the next highlight color way brighter than like my brain is telling me to do it because again, I want I want the shadows to be very dark and I want this highlight to be very bright. And I I think it’s probably gonna look a bit ridiculous and I’m trying to talk myself out of it, but I really want to try like I I know a problem that I have uh as a painter is I try to make my blends like too smooth and too uh too not really too smooth is not my problem. The problem is I try to make the gradient from going from low to high. I try to put too much into the transition.

So, what happens is I lose the contrast because my my low to my high ends up not being there’s not a big enough difference in between everything. Uh, if I’m hopefully explaining that right. So, here I’m just trying to force myself to go from that to this and have it be crazy and one like learn how I can take it to be crazy without it looking ridiculous and two just like accepting that like that that’s okay to do that. So, that’s my that’s another reason I wanted to do a Dolmanwood uh character a week because I can practice this stuff on models that don’t aren’t like super important to me. And and some stuff I do like this guy, like I’m so excited to paint this guy.

Like, I want to try hard this guy. Uh I want to I want to paint him this week and finish him. Uh I want to get Maximus done and uh I might take a break from Crucible Guard even though I shouldn’t. Okay, so I’m just I’m just working this out. I’m I’m hyping myself up.

So, I’ve got a very small amount and this I’ve been abusing this brush. So, my tip is curved or curled, but that’s okay for this. So, instead of like trying to edge highlight this and drag it down, I’m going to go where I would have normally edge highlighted it and just kind of like very gently stipple this in and like build up a highlight. And maybe I’m already like too thick trying to stipple. Maybe this is the wrong brush for this.

But we’re going to make it work. So, see, I’m just I’m starting at the very top and just kind of working. And I’m going to go I think I actually need to go brighter. So, what I’m I’m going to take this I’m going to take this all the way down because I said I was only going to do one, but I think I am going to do two. And I’m just like very sloppily slipping stippling this here.

That’s a little bit too sloppy. I don’t want it to look like look bad. All right, hold up. I’m just going to go for it. So, we’re This is a ton of white right here.

A little bit of purple. We’re just going to take it there. I was talking about what my problem is and then I went to do it again. So, we’re just going to take it there. And honestly, maybe we’ll even take it there that way.

So, there we go. So that is a very there’s a slightly tinted purple white is even in this one out. Yeah, I think that’s a much better where we need to be. And I I think I am going to switch a brush. So I have a smaller brush over here or at least one that I can get a real point on.

Here we go. This one’s going to work. Hopefully a little bit better. All right. All right.

So, I’m going to start here and put some dots on this hellacious mold line. And again, I’m just dotting it like stippling all the way down. Not all the way down, but like I’m going to stop right there for that shadow right there and just hit it at the edge. and then hit this corner. I’m going to edge highlight it because that’s just out of habit.

All right. Now, here on this one, this very prominent one, I’m just coming in with this one that’s really white. And I’m just going to hit it. And I’m going to let it ride. And I’m going to tell myself it’s going to be fine.

And that nobody’s going to look too hard at these. And that by doing this pretty like heavy-handed and thick effect, it’s going to make it look great on the at like the tabletop level. It’s going to look terrible if somebody picks it up and is like really staring at it. But I’m like specifically trying to paint to make this guy look good at the tabletop level. And my paint’s drying out on my brush here.

There we go. So, I’m trying to make these like like thicker than normal than I would normally. And like my muscle memory is like still crazy. It’s like I just highlight that thing. Uh, but I’m going, like I said, just chunky chunky dots.

And I’m just following where my dry brush was. That’s too chunky. All right. So there’s there’s the bag now. And when he’s on like a tabletop level when you’re looking at it, like that looks pretty cool.

Like that’s the effect I’m going for is like I don’t know, you’re 2 or 3 ft away from it. Uh you’re looking at it and you’re like, “Oh yeah, that’s cool. That’s what I’m I’m going for. I’m intentionally trying to paint to that effect.” Uh, I’m just talking about this now uh to make myself feel better about it because in my mind I just did a bad job uh with like I messed up edge highlighting is how I’m telling you know it’s like that critic.

It’s funny if uh there’s a book called Rational Recovery and it helped me way more than AA ever did. But uh it talks about how there’s a be an inner critic is probably a more appropriate term, but it’s called the beast in that book. And it’s the beast is the one that’s always telling you how you’re a failure. Uh and I think if I’m I’m spending a little bit more time to do this right on the front and you can see like I’m I’m very lightly putting like now I’m actually I’m like stpping like I know what I’m doing here because the back of that robe uh isn’t that important. But right here, like everybody’s going to be looking at it and seeing it first.

And my like I’m doing this so lightly and gently that the paint is drying on the brush. So there’s very little actual paint on the brush. But you can see this effect is a lot better. And I’ll probably go back in and do this on the back, but I’m going to have to Let’s do it on the back, too. Let’s do it on the back, too.

I was saying I wasn’t going to do it, but let’s do it. So, again, just like very like this is the very tip of the brush, barely depositing any paint on any individual touch. And I’m just working it down. And it’s wet, so it’s going to dry darker. I’m not going to do the whole robe like that because I’m not that crazy.

But now just coming back in here again because now uh the first time the paint was a little bit dry. So now it’s it’s wetter, so it’s going to look brighter. So I’m just very carefully working that through. I’m building it up towards the shadow here. And I’m going to stop and let that dry and see see how it looks.

Go to the other side. Paint it all over my thumb on accident. And I also I really want to show you guys like you can do stuff like this. It’s pretty easy. Like I’m not it’s not crazy brush control, you know?

Like I’ve messed up multiple times and I just really quick wipe it away with my thumb, you know? And I I think it’s still like parts of it. I don’t know. But I’m doing this to be defeat that that beast, that inner beast in your head that’s telling you uh you’re a terrible miniature painter. And it’s also telling me I should go buy a six-pack right now while everybody’s asleep.

But that’s probably unique to me. And I’m hitting the bottom of this because normally like there wouldn’t necessarily be a highlight there, but I really want this to seem like he’s been trekking through the woods. This is pretty pretty frayed and tattered. Oh, I forgot to do this side. And I’ll keep this video real time.

Uh it might be boring, but that way you guys can see like how fast it actually is to go like this. And also like I don’t know, painting rubs sucks, man. I’ve never painted a robe in my entire life that I thought looked good. And I’ve painted a lot of robes and this one actually is shaping up to like not look half bad. And again, I think that’s definitely like a me thing.

Like I’m sure I’ve painted perfectly fine robes before. I mean, I know I have a menthol. My menthouth robes look good, but those are like the men robes are just one blue and I built it up cuz these scale colors are so dense in the pigment that if you water them down, you just kind of like can just keep painting over and depositing more and more pigment and it it makes it really easy. But again, they suffer from the same thing I was the problem I was talking about. I’m just rambling while I’m doing this.

Uh but they there’s not enough contrast between the shadows and the highlights. So, like it looks good to me, but I realize like it’s not a it doesn’t look good. Like, it doesn’t look painterly. You know what I mean? I don’t know.

Maybe you don’t know what I mean because I’m talking crazy. But also, this is the last video to comment on. I’m going to pull I’m going to do the winner tomorrow. So, if you’re catching this, this is your last chance. It’s probably going to drop right before midnight, but it’s going to be your last chance to to get in on the drawing.

And I’ll do the drawing uh for tomorrow’s video during like right at the start of the video. I’m not going to like click bait that or anything. Um, I’m just grabbing some more of the brightest white and just going to work it in just right there and right right there. And I think we’re going to call it a day on this guy. This very chunky edge highlighting pretty much to create that.

And then I’m hoping once we paint get more paint on them, it’ll kind of really hold it together. But every time I look at this in the camera, I think I need more. But I don’t like I think you could e easily overdo it. So, I’m going to get some of the Actually, it’s pretty dry right now. Oh, I’m going to do something along the bottom edge of this just because am I going to do something?

Is my paint already dry? Dang. That’s what that heater gets me. That heater got me. Can I get anything out of it?

There we go. It’s okay. All right, cool. Uh, so I think I put way too much paint on it right there. And it’s going to be dry.

Actually, no, that looks fine. If I come back in here, I’m just grabbing some of this contrast paint and working it up right out of the shadow cuz that is a little bit too too much. And I’m just working it up. Working it up. I’m just kind of blending now just to make it so it’s not super obvious of what I did.

And if and if uh if you wanted to, you could blend over these and just keep building it. Like the answer is always to just glaze it. If if you ever want to make your paint br your paint job look better, just glaze it because see like I can glaze over those highlights now. And it’s gonna tone it back down, which is exactly what I don’t want to do. So, I’m not going to keep glazing over stuff.

But I just got that contrast paint and now I’m glazing over I’m not going to hit the top of it. I’m just glazing over this bottom real quick cuz I started it and I don’t want it to be super obvious. But, uh, the answer is always just glaze it if you want it to look good. So, boom. Just a quick one.

13 13 minutes. Uh, probably 15 because I had to stop when I threw him across the room. But hey, not bad. 20 minutes of painting, we got the robe done. Uh, and I think it looks pretty good.

I see the