Painting Illuminated Text and Magical Pipe Smoke

The Goal

Day 127 of daily hobbying. Today we’re finishing the Dolmenwood model—specifically the book and the pipe smoke effects.

Painting the Illuminated Book

I spent more time on this book than the whole rest of the model combined.

The Technique

Using a 5/0 zeros brush (the thinnest I could find) with Mephiston Red mixed with a small amount of black ink. You have to be careful mixing black and white with red—otherwise you’ll just get brown or pink.

The goal is to make it look like illuminated text—the fancy margins and images you see in medieval manuscripts with those big ornate first letters.

Key Tips

1. Keep the paint wet - With such a small brush, paint dries quickly
2. Pull the brush towards you - This is how you get straighter lines
3. Brace your wrist on the table - Use your pinky to brace your hand against your other hand on the painting handle
4. Practice first - I practiced on paper behind me before touching the model
5. Make it vague - The letters should look like they could be an E, an R, a B, or an eight—keep it mysterious and in-setting for Dolmenwood

The Design

The sigil I’m drawing is inspired by the Sigil Fur from the Goat—not a one-to-one copy, just inspired by it. I’m rotating the model constantly so I can always be pulling the brush down for straight, uniform lines.

Creating the Pipe Smoke Effect

The Process

1. Base layer - Multiple layers of Vallejo Game Color Fluro Green, building it up over three to four different applications
2. Add depth - Dry brush Dark Russian Blue from the bottom up, hitting more of the top as you get farther from the ignition source
3. Add magic - Dots of Vallejo Pure White throughout the smoke to create swirls and suggest something magical

This looks janky up close, but from tabletop distance, it makes the smoke look wispy and glowing.

The Final Result

From tabletop distance:

• The smoke pops
• The dashes of white make it look wispy
• His eyes peer over the top of his glasses
• You can see his colorful clothes
• Then you notice that blood-red book with the strange sigil and think “Wait, what is he doing with that weird book?”

It doesn’t match his cheerful appearance at all. Did he just find it? What is he up to?

Terrain Nostalgia

I had to pull out terrain I made 20 years ago because I’m flocking bases like it’s 1999. The secret to making terrain last forever? Slather it in Elmer’s glue. I have terrain from the early 2000s that’s survived many games of Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar.

Another model down. Back to more Warmachine content tomorrow.

Transcript

What’s up, guys? It’s a 127 uh daily hobbying, and today we’re going to finish the Dolwood model, the book, and the smoke. Um, and I’m also going to ramble about the new War Machine patch. Also, you probably have seen them in the background of other videos, but my I I live right by a bricks and minifig store and obviously going there all the time with the kids, but they had like a full set of like the one piece sets that all were like damaged in various ways. So, they gave me like I have everything but uh the Baratier.

Now, this is the last one to build. So, I’m going to build this one too to chill. It’s a chill Saturday. Get to finally relax. But, I got all the one piece sets for like the price of one of them.

Uh so, it was really cool. If you guys are like me and you haven’t done like love Legos as a kid, but I haven’t done any as adult, like definitely get yourself some newer Lego sets cuz it’s pretty crazy like what they can do. And these little stud shooters are some of the coolest things. If I had this as a kid, I would have gotten myself in so much trouble. Okay, let’s stop messing around and actually get the painting.

All right, coming in. Uh Vallejo game color, the floro green. uh hitting the smoke. It actually I’m gonna build this up over a couple different layers. I think it actually took like three to four different layers of getting it all built up.

And I was just letting it dry. Just like traditional two thin coats kind of thing. Um and I wanted this established everywhere. And you could probably like just leave it if you were in a hurry. Looks fine.

But now onto this book. I spent more time on this book. I did like the whole rest of the model. So the trick here, this is also a five 50 zeros brush. Uh thinnest brush I could find.

This is the methan red mixed in with some black ink. A very small amount of black ink. You have to be careful mixing black and white in with red cuz otherwise you’ll just get brown or you’ll get a pink. That’s not actually a really good way of of shading red. Uh, but what I’m doing here is trying to make it look like an illuminated text.

So that’s that’s like when you got the fancy margins and and all of the images. The first letters of the book are those big black ones. And so I I didn’t want it to look like real language one cuz it’s kind of in setting in Dolmanwood. So I just made it like is it an E, is it an R, is it a B, is it an eight, you I just kind of made it like vague and just doing very small squiggles of the brush and doing this first pass of the text and just keeping it straight, keeping the spacing between lines uniform, but not just doing the same squiggles in every line. And the hardest part about this is keeping the paint on your brush wet, cuz it is going to dry out with such a small brush.

All right, now I’m just moving over to the other side. And I I practiced this on the paper behind me, which you might see in some other shots. So the the important thing here, you can see it right there underneath my hand. I was practicing a little bit. You want to pull the brush towards you.

That’s how just in drawing and painting and anything, it’s easier to get a straighter line by pulling, especially with something like the paintbrush where the bristles of the brush will flex. And here I’m just being really careful to make sure I have the perfect amount of paint on my my brush. I don’t want it too thick. I don’t want it to bleed. I want to keep a straight uniform line.

Uh and this uh thing I’m drawing and you can see it the big version in the back which I was I just wrote sketched out pretty quickly is inspired by the sigil fur from the goa. And again it’s not a onetoone uh just I don’t think that’d be very wise. But also I just again just inspired by it. So in any new line I draw, I’m holding the model so I pull the line towards me and I’m just going very slow, making sure I have the right amount of paint on my brush. Patience is key here.

I’m testing the brush strokes on my thumb. And sometimes, honestly, I have such a small amount of paint that that brush stroke test on my thumb takes all the paint off of it. So it’s just it’s just about going slow and being patient. And now I’m changing directions. I’m just drawing new lines.

So again, I’m rotating the model so I can always be pulling the brush down. So that’s how you get those straight uniform lines. And also, you can see I have my my wrist braced on the table. I have my I’m using my pinky to brace my hand against my other hand on the painting handle and I’m just jamming out on this. Okay, here we’re into where all our straight lines are done and now I’m doing these S’s.

And even still here I am pulling the curve towards me and here’s a circle. Uh, I’m still I’m the circle’s a little bit wonky. I wanted it to be kind of more of a square, but it’s definitely a little wonky. I’m I’m drawing the circle so that it’s two curved poles. So, I’m still again I’m still pulling it down.

And then now I’m doing kind of like the circles and the figure eight inside of it. Uh what I’m doing at this part right here is I actually have uh I finished the red and I have Vallejo strong tone on my brush and I just uh for some reason I didn’t press record on it. So I I went back and I highlighted all of the red parts with pure meist and red cuz the other one had black mixed in. And now I have that Vallejo strong tone. And I’m just going back in and just adding in a little bit more weathering across the pages.

And you can also see now that the or actually now you’re just looking at my thumb. All right. So, dark Russian blue. Uh, one of my favorite blacks. But here what I’m doing is I’m using that long bristled brush.

And this is one of the ones that was curling pretty bad. So that I’m fact that I’m messing it up here isn’t a big deal. I’m dry brushing that dark Russian blue up from the bottom. And then as I get farther away from the source of ignition, I’m hitting more of the top of it. And what this is going to do, it’s going to look kind of janky up close, but from a distance, it’s going to make it look like the glowing smoke with only spending a couple of minutes on it.

Instead of glazing and all that, uh, we’re just going to give it the illusion of looking good. And and now what I’m doing is I have this Vleo pure white and I’m putting dots of white onto the smoke. And this will come through again at that tabletop level. It’ll make it look like there’s swirls or maybe there’s something magical in the pipe smoke. And even here, you can see like with the way I’m holding the model and the way that we dry brush that blue.

Are you guys ready for a blast of nostalgia? At least that’s what this gives me in the the best way. >> Look at that. I’ve had to pull the whole terrain out that I made 20 years ago. Uh because now that I’m flocking stuff, now that I’m flocking bases, like it’s 1999.

I’m pulling the terrain out. Our boy is finished. We’re ready to play some games. This is like This is like tabletop distance. The smoke from the pipe pops.

Those dashes of white make it look wispy. You see his eyes peering over the top of the glasses. You can you can see like his colorful clothes and then you’re looking at that book and you’re like, “Wait, is that blood? What is he doing with that weirdass book?” Uh, it does not match him.

Did he just find it? Like, what what is he doing? You know, and maybe someday I’ll get good at taking pictures, but this is I’m definitely going to get better at taking pictures. I’m going to build a box or something, but today is not that day. But this is awesome and I love it.

And hopefully you do, too. Another model down. Oh, and I’m sure I’m going to get some questions uh just about this. If you want to like literally I I probably I made this in like the 2000s. It’s not for 1999, but I I made this in the early 2000s as a probably a teenager.

Um it’s pink foam. This is sand on the top with a little bit of of ballast and static grass and it’s probably like it’s you probably can’t tell. This thing has like a solid millimeter. Uh, not on the sides, like none of Whoa. See, like I just dropped it.

No damage. The this part, this has like a one layer of PVA glue on it, but this top part, it has like almost a millimeter of just flat out Elmer’s glue on it. So, like this stuff is like bulletproof. It’s It’s seen many many games of Warhammer Fantasy. It’s seen many games of Age of Sigmar.

Uh, even like this flock, like same thing. Like I soaked with this bad boy. Like this flock’s not coming off at all. It’s It’s seriously lasted that long. This one.

Um again, same thing as the pink. This one was getting a little bit tore up on these sides. Uh cuz this was always like the base plate to put other stuff on top of. Um I need to repaint it though. But you see like the paint on top of the Elmer’s glue is coming off due to all the wear and time.

But the actual base texture nowhere. And like you can really see how much Elmer’s glue and the answer is just slather this stuff in Elmer’s glue and it’ll last forever. Uh and getting this stuff out, having a a model like when I was making this stuff, I wish I could have painted like that. And now when I look at this, I’m like uh that was speed painted and I didn’t didn’t even really do that good of a job painting it like compared to this stuff, you know? But I’m really happy with how he turned out.

Very satisfied. If you’re watching this, I was going to make one video, but I realized I was talking a whole lot about War Machine and painting a goat uh for Domo Wood, and it didn’t really make sense to have it all in the same video. Got flock everywhere. >> So, the War Machine one will be tomorrow. Thanks for watching.

See?