Just a Video About Painting a Belt Buckle

Technical Difficulties

I don’t know what happened. I think I recorded a 20-minute video on how to do this, but I looked up and my phone was just off. It’s not dead—it was just off. Hopefully I just recorded it.

The Gray Palette

Back at it for the belt buckle. Going to be using pretty much the whole palette of Scale Artist shades of gray: Art White, Art Black, Buff, Pearl Gray, Violet Gray, and Green Gray.

Still haven’t found my wet palette—I think I put it in with the kids’ art supplies. Just realized that this second.

The Base Work

It was a little crazy and I thought once it dried it would dry darker, but it’s still pretty bright. I’ll probably go back and do some glazing over it, but I’m happy with the texture we built up. I need to go back in and glaze in some of those purple shadows.

Setting Up the Brush Control

I have this hand on the table in a weird posture just because of the camera. I’m cupping the brush and that’s what gives me the control. Even though I want to be much closer to the piece, it allows me to get up in there relatively easily.

The brush control isn’t 100% in my fingers. The fingers do those quick motions, but the stability comes through my whole arm.

The Black Lining Effect

I’m leaving the black in the recessed areas—almost like a black lining effect to make those areas pop more. I absolutely hate to say “make it pop”—it gives me flashbacks to graphic designer days.

Following the Box Art Light Source

I’m painting where an edge highlight would be, plus a little bit beyond. I’m using my brush strokes to create that reflection, and using the box art to tell me where the reflection should be.

If I have a problem with this figure, it’s going to be that I wasn’t consistent with my light sources. But if I just follow how the box art has the highlights—even if I’m not painting in that style or with those same colors—it’ll at least be consistent.

Volumetric Thinking

When you’re painting at competition level, it’s volumetric—they’re painting in volumes.

In a traditional Games Workshop system, if something is green, you paint it green. Dark green, midtone, bright green. If something’s metal, you paint it metal.

But with volumetric painting—even the belt didn’t actually have any brown paint except for the first layer. It has purples, pinks, and a warm white. When you’re thinking like a painter, even though you see leather as brown, it’s not actually brown. You’re seeing a ton of different colors there.

This will either be a very short video or have all the steps in it. Wish me luck!