How to Glaze for Fun and Profit

Late Night Glazing

We’re finishing up the skin on these squigs. Starting with Primary Red from Scale Color, just orange (literally just orange), and yellow orange ink.

That yellow orange ink we’re working into the final highlight of all our models army-wide. That’s going to help unify the whole army—same with the Hex Lyken purple.

The Consistency

It’s slightly less thick than you would layer paint, but not as transparent as a glaze. Now that we’re using a real brush, the pigment is going to be more concentrated. This will be a step up from the shade we dry brushed.

Think of this like a base coat in terms of the areas you paint, just with more water added.

Always Pull Toward the Highlight

Always pull the paint from the shadows towards the highlight. That deposits most of the pigment where we want the paint to be brighter and lighter.

Hitting the face, cheeks, all these little spiky things. Being sloppy with it because the paint is so translucent it won’t be a huge deal if we get it where we don’t want it. And it actually helps ease the transition from purple into red.

The Dry Brushed One

You can’t tell we dry brushed it, especially after the work tonight. What you’re seeing was about 35 to 40 minutes of glazing. You could do this longer to increase contrast by working up towards orange.

I wanted to get as close to the box art as quickly and easily as possible, keeping it skill-independent.

Mixing While Painting

Now just mixing in that orange. You can do this before you start, especially with a wet palette. But I like mixing while painting because I just vibe out.

It’s really easy to forget it’s not a job and you’re meant to have fun. It’s okay to screw up and get crazy with it.

Building Layers

Coming back in, no longer sloppy. Still not super precise because the thin paint is forgiving. Just slowly building layer upon layer upon layer.

I have a fan blowing on me and the model, drying my paint quickly. This is real time—not sped up. Just glazing it. 11:20 PM, glaze it.

Into the Orange

At this point, I’ve added in that yellow orange ink. Now it’s a little bit of red but mostly orange—fully into orange territory.

This is how we kick it into the box art. Up until this point, it was much darker. We were missing that orange element.

The Secret to Army Painting

Being even more selective, hitting just the tops of things, but still pulling paint from shadow to highlight.

The secret to army painting is knowing what you need to focus on and what you don’t. The body doesn’t matter as much—most people aren’t even going to look at it.

I’m trying to paint 2,500-3,000 points of orcs and goblins this month for Orctober. Definitely on a time crunch. You don’t want to spend time on stuff nobody’s going to see.

Once you get the army to tabletop ready, there’s always time to come back and glaze more. (Though how often will you actually do that when you want to move to the next project?)

The Top Squig

For the top one, I mixed in more orange from the very start because it’s higher up and the light is blasting it. It’ll just be brighter than the bottom squig, giving the effect that the bottom one is in shadow.

Not a huge difference—we don’t want them to be different colored. But starting one step above reinforces the shadow.

Know Your Paint

The secret to this type of glaze: you have to know your paint. You can’t swap paints constantly and glaze well because you won’t know the correct consistencies.

When I was a beginning painter, I was always buying the next greatest paint I saw in videos or forums. I never learned to use what I had because I couldn’t get consistencies right.

As long as you’re not using craft paints (they don’t have enough pigment—when watered down, it breaks up and looks like junk), any halfway decent tabletop paint will work. You just need to learn how much water to add.

The Thumb Technique

I’m getting a lot of paint off the brush on my thumb (that’s why I have all those lines). You can use a paper towel, but the thumb is easier. Gentle but assertive quick flicks to deposit the paint.

The Results

Freeze frame: I haven’t touched the airbrush one at all. You can see how much difference we made on the dry brushed one.

Now I’ve done everything on the airbrush one too. They’re both ready for tomorrow when we finish them up. Have a good night.