Optimized! My Favorite Speedpaint Technique.

welcome to goober Town Hobbies my name is Brent okay check this out the first model was primed white number two was primed black and then sprayed with white from above to give a xenithal highlight number three was primed black and given an all-over dry brush with gray and then an all-over dry brush with white the colors were applied in exactly the same way to each of these spending a bit of extra time on the undercoat can really pay off give a model a black and white undercoat slap on some colors and before you know it you've got a sweet paint job this is an efficient way for folks at any skill level to get some nice looking models this is simple but that means that every step in the process has a big impact today we're going to do some side by side testing to optimize the paints the brushes and how we use them it's useful to see what the options are and what effects they'll have on the final paint job I'm standardizing things with a single test model this is from loot Studios New dwarf release and this cutie has a good variety of textures there's a whole bunch of ways that we can apply the black and white undercoat I ran a whole series of tests to figure out which variables were the most important one way to undercoat is to Prime the Mini's black and then Spritz on a bit of white spray paint from above the most realistic way to run this test is to use some old cans of spray paint that I've had in my basement for years I found two working cans of white primer one from Rust-Oleum and one from army painter there are best practices for using spray primers but there's also an element of luck and I never quite know what I'm gonna get the two cans each gave a different flavor one is more grainy and one is more runny but they're both decent examples of xenethyl primes I also had a bottle of gray Rust-Oleum so I tried a variant of black to gray to White this is what that looks like black a squirt of gray and then a squirt of white in this case the Spritz of gray in between the black and the white didn't seem to matter too much I think that gray primer does have a use though and we'll get to that in a bit an airbrush is another way to do a xenithal highlight in general this gives a smoother and more reliable coat than rattle cans do I experimented a bit with white primer for Monument Hobbies some white airbrush paint from the Army painter and some acrylic ink from liquitex all of these gave similar results white on top black on bottom and a transition of Grays in between my personal preference is white ink I feel like it gives a bit more control but the difference was pretty minor in this case okay we've got some examples of xenethyl highlights now let's get to the dry brushing first we're testing brushes we've got a lot of options here almost any brush can be used as a dry brush but they do give different results makeup brushes are commonly used for this sort of thing I've got this Darth Maul makeup brush here and I'm going to test both sides for this test I'm using some golden artist acrylic White I got some paint on the brush and then wiped most of it off onto a paper towel then I dry brushed the mini most of my brush Strokes are from top to bottom but I switched it up a bit for the hard to reach areas the idea here is that the raised details are going to get highlighted with white the recessed areas are going to stay black and with a bit of luck the in-between areas will end up with a little bit of black and a little bit of white later on we'll try using an intermediate dry brush of gray but for now I want the stark contrast between the black and the white to really see how the different brushes compare for the makeup brush the long soft bristles and the short soft bristles both gave nice results the different length bristles each had a different feel to them though with the longer bristles I felt like the brush was doing all the work with the shorter bristles there's the option of being a bit more stabby this gives more control in the hard to reach areas like the armpits after the makeup brush I pulled one of my old synthetic paint brushes at her retirement giving an old paintbrush a second life as a dry brush is absolutely an option I did one test model with this and then I modified the brush by cutting the bristles to about half of the original length once again I feel like the stumpier bristles give better control the makeup brushes gave smoother results than my old synthetic round brush the old synthetic has thicker coarser bristles which seem to manifest as a scratchier and grainier coat this isn't necessarily a bad thing I think the scratchy look can be pretty cool on the armor but still it's good to have an idea of what each brush is gonna do on the face I think the makeup brush definitely looks better the makeup brush gives a result that actually looks like a face okay this all helps us to pick our brush but now let's test some different paints I've got that golden artist acrylic white some Monument Hobbies Pro acrylic white and some bottom of the Apple Barrel craft smart white when I used the same makeup brush to apply each of these the results were pretty similar people who are very skilled at dry brushing could probably tell a difference but at my skill level they were pretty close my conclusion is that the type of brush matters a lot more than the type of paint for me the one dollar craft paint works just fine for dry brushing okay now let's add some gray to the mix I'm starting with a black undercoat I'm doing a heavy gray dry brush and then I'm doing a white dry brush to pick out the details this is the standard variant of what folks have been calling The Slap Chop technique the gray helps to get a smoother transition between black and white I'm doing this in two parallel tracks the Walmart Slap Chop is craft paint gray craft paint white and a cheap makeup brush the monument hobby Slap Chop is pro acryl warm gray Pro acryl bold titanium white and a monument dry brush Prime black dry brush with gray and then dry brush with white again most of the brush Strokes go from top to bottom but I switch it up a bit for the hard to reach areas adding the gray step reduces the harshness of the transition between black and white but it also adds a lot of time to the process I want the gray to end up in more places than the white and I want it to create a somewhat gentle transition this means a whole lot of brush Strokes with the gray once the gray is down the white is meant for the sharper details I got a bit too bold and ended up blotting this face with white in a single brush stroke this isn't going to ruin the model but it's a good reminder to have a bit of patience when we're dry brushing anyway the Walmart Slap Chop and the monument hobby Slap Chop both worked pretty well I think I may have been too cautious on this one because the whole thing is darker than I'd like I took a couple of fresh models and I tried going harder with both the gray and the white dry brushing steps and yep I got an undercoat that was several Shades brighter once these are colored in that brighter undercoat gives a brighter finished model this is all a matter of taste but in this case I do like the brighter one better I have some more thoughts about the gray step so this painting technique can be done with black white and no gray at all actually in a previous video this is exactly what I did to paint a whole bunch of DnD characters black undercoat a sloppy white dry brush and then speed paint colors over the top this gives a much harsher look it's all right depending on what you're painting and what kind of style you want but personally I really like the way that the intermediate gray softens the transitions so in my brain the gray dry brush is to establish some smooth gradients and the white dry brush is to pick out the sharp details the gray and the white have different purposes and they shouldn't necessarily use the same technique so this gave me an idea I took a few of my bottles that had a xenithal squirt of gray Rust-Oleum and I finished off the undercoat with a white dry brush this saves a ton of effort in the gray step and as it turns out the gray xenathol to White dry brush actually gives a pretty nice result okay here's one more undercoat that I want to show off I call it the brown chop I primed with black brown I dry brushed with brown craft paint and then I dry brushed with beige craft paint this is just a warmer sepia variant of what we've done before and I think it's gonna color up pretty well okay it's time for colors I took a few of my extra models and tested out some possible color schemes I'm using Army painter speed paint for this but any set of transparent colors should work fine full disclosure I have a friendly relationship with army painter and I've actually been involved in testing some of their upcoming speed paint colors you'll see you'll all see for this project though I'm using the original set of 23 speed paints speaking of disclosures I've got a good relationship with Monument Hobbies too and we've been doing a fun lizard collaboration and of course I've got a good relationship with loot Studios they sculpted this silly dwarf model for me and I'm showing it off in this video okay I tried some different colors and I decided that I like this teal these bright transparent colors give a good Showcase of what the undercoat can do next test I'm calling it The Wash verse glaze test of applying color this speed paint is meant to act as a wash it's meant to pull in the recesses of a model to create some contrast I want to make sure that this pooling action isn't confounding our experiments here I took one test model and applied the speed paint in big droplets and let it run around a bit for the other I put only a tiny bit of color on my brush and I tried to glaze it on top of the base coat as lightly as I could I've got good news on this style of base coat it really didn't matter how much or how little color I swapped on there a thicker coat is a bit more vibrant but the undercoat is doing most of the work in terms of the contrast the shading and the highlighting presumably the wash is still settling in the recesses but those places are already dark this simplifies things all I need to worry about during the coloring step is coloring inside the lines okay it's time for the big head to head I picked nine distinct undercoats that I want to see colored 1. Brown chop two white dry brush directly over black three spray paint gray xenathol plus white dry brush 4. Walmart Slap Chop 5. monuments laptop 6. brighter Monument Slap Chop 7. airbrush white ink xenithal 8. spray paint Rust-Oleum white senethol 9. white primer just white primer okay let's batch paint these nine Minis this approach of black Prime gray dry brush white dry brush and then colors has been dubbed The Slap Chop technique the word comes from a silly video by Rob the honest wargamer the technique isn't new but calling it Slap Chop is new enough of the painting Community has adopted this term that I think it's gonna stick xenathol NMM wet blend and now Slap Chop quick shorthand ways to communicate how we're painting our models some folks have pointed out that this is pretty much just the French grasai technique and it's been around since the 1300s now the way I see it the French had 700 years to convince me to use the word grasai and they failed they failed completely the honest wargamer got us all to use the word Slap Chop with a single YouTube video language is funny like that love it or hate it the word Slap Chop is here to stay it's easy to use in conversation and we all know what it means now let's check out the results and optimize I'm gonna try to pull together some overall conclusions here the worst undercoat is the white Prime it's missing the contrast and the complexity of the other models also mistakes on this model are way easier to see there are white spots and areas where I didn't color inside the lines on every other model these are camouflaged by the undercoat but over white my mistakes are easy to see the next worst model is probably the Rust-Oleum white xenathol I can still see the liquidy texture that I got out of the spray can and it doesn't really work with the armor on a squid monster or something it might be pretty cool though in comparison the white denethyl from the airbrush looks pretty nice for those of you who have an airbrush or have some skills with a rattle can a black to white xenitho can be a great way to undercoat your models a sloppy xenathol is better than straight white but a smooth xenothol would be better one more not great undercoat is a coarse white dry brush directly over black primer this was my sawed off old synthetic as a dry brush this is certainly a style and I think it has its place but it's not my favorite for this mini I think it really fails on the face I painted them all with Caucasian skin and the black primer on the face really doesn't work for that as a general rule in the undercoating step I should try to make the face of this mini lighter and brighter on the brown chop model I think the face looked a bit more natural because of the warmer Brown undercoat instead of the cold black the sepia undertones slightly tweak all of the colors but I think this is a nice variant let's see what else the brighter undercoats yielded brighter finished models this isn't surprising but it is good to keep in mind the surprise hit for me was the black Prime gray spray can zenithal and white dry brush this looks at least as good as a lot of the other Minis and the gray xenathil spray is way faster than a gray dry brush okay let's try to synthesize what I've learned here this is going to be in the form of tidbits to keep in the back of my mind a high contrast undercoat makes the model look better than a flat white undercoat and it helps to hide mistakes for dry brushing brush type matters more than paint type craft paint is good enough shorter bristles give more control softer finer bristles give a smoother coat an intermediate gray step between black and white is very useful Brown can be used instead of gray if we want a sepia undercoat the gray or brown is for smooth transitions the white dry brush is for edges and details remember to pay attention to the overall brightness of the model pay attention to the brightness of the face as well as any other areas that you want to be a light color when coloring over a high contrast base coat there isn't a huge difference between washing and glazing put enough color on the brush to be neat and efficient okay keeping all this in mind I had two more undercoats that I wanted to try a good experiment will answer some questions and raise some new ones the weather outside took a turn for the worse so I'm doing an airbrush senathol instead of a rattle can xenophil one model is black Prime gray airbrush xenithal and white dry brush the other is black Prime tan airbrush xenithal and white dry brush I really like this idea of doing the intermediate color with a xenathol instead of a dry brush and I also wanted to try another sepia undercoat I made sure to get the undercoats reasonably bright and not neglect the face I got these colored up and yeah I like them these are some of the best ones yet I'm super happy with the amount that I've learned here I still prefer painting minis with layers of acrylic paint but every once in a while a bit of Slap Chop can really hit the spot this is efficient it's accessible to anyone and it feels good to get some minis done up fast these kinds of side-by-side hobby tests are some of my favorite videos on YouTube put aside the traditional wisdom roll up your sleeves and just try stuff out it's a fantastic way to learn what really works for you and it scratches that Curiosity itch today I improved my default settings for how I'll slap chop in the future real concrete learning that's a good day right there thanks to loot Studios for sculpting this High Thane of goober town he's fun and he has a good variety of textures a dwarf who can't grow a beard who's just trying his best I like him the STL file is available as a free sample this is promoting a big old release about Dwarven Clans the journey to nadalvir the journey to the net the journey to the devil leader I'll drop a link in the description check that all out and get yourself the high Thane of goober town well that's about it for this time thanks so much for watching

Channel: Goobertown Hobbies

Views: 554,331

Keywords: mini painting, how to paint, learn to paint, paint, painting, 4k, 40k, dnd, dungeons and dragons, dnd minis, slapchop, grisaille, speedpaint, speedpaints, the army painter, army painter, contrast, contrast paint, contrast paints, loot studio, loot studios, loot, dwarf, undercoat, underpaint, underpainting, warhammer, thane, high thane, 3d print, 3d printer, fantasy, lord of the rings

Id: gT2JV3Ks41g

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 20 2022