How to paint fire ?

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Lord Drakon
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How to paint fire ?

Post by Lord Drakon »

So in my army I have several units including a torch or something, but I have no experience painting how to paint fire. How did you do it, and do you have some pictures for me to learn from ?
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direweasel
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by direweasel »

I certainly don't intend to portray myself as an expert, but here is what has worked for me after experimenting with several different methods.

I started by looking at pictures of real torch fires, and tried to replicate them. I then took several shades of yellow and orange, and painted different parts of the torch different shades. The darker, more orange was towards the middle, the source of the fire, and the lighter yellows on the outside edges. Then I took a really watered down glaze of one of the middle colors and went over the whole area to kind of bring them together a little, to blend the areas where the colors bordered each other, while still keeping variation. Here are my results on some pathfinder goblins.

Image

Image

Image

Hope that helps.
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Ryank
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by Ryank »

A very basic way I've used to paint fire that turns out very natural looking is just basically painting what you want to be on fire or the fire itself any white paint or even just after you prime your model white.

After the white primer or paint completely dries, paint a thin layer of Casandora Yellow (Citadel Shade) over it and allow to dry. The more natural you want it to look, the more thin coats of Casandora Yellow you apply.

Hope this easy and basic technique helps.
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cultofkhaine
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by cultofkhaine »

I played with doing this myself in one of my last projects.

I think the thing you have to remember is that white is always to hottest point on the model, going to yellow, orange, red then black (not the other way around)

Image

You can see more photos on my blog http://www.cultofkhaine.com/
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direweasel
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by direweasel »

Cultofkhaine wrote:I think the thing you have to remember is that white is always to hottest point on the model, going to yellow, orange, red then black (not the other way around)


That was always what I thought too...but looking at some of these pictures, it's not how they look to me:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/ ... f1-gl-gen1

To me, the part of the fire that's closest to the wood looks darker, and then the more straight yellow is out on the edges more. Maybe it's the wood that makes the middle darker, I don't know.
Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how glorious your triumphs, nor how miserable your failures, there will always be at least one billion people in China who don't give a damn.

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Scythe
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by Scythe »

I know Dr. Faust videos get posted a lot here, as he has a dark elf series, but he's got a video on painting fire too.

Seems he ascribes to CultofKhaine's philosophy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUvK7ft9kt8
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Coop
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by Coop »

Cultofkhaine wrote:I played with doing this myself in one of my last projects.

I think the thing you have to remember is that white is always to hottest point on the model, going to yellow, orange, red then black (not the other way around)

Image

You can see more photos on my blog http://www.cultofkhaine.com/



I paint fire in exactly the same way, white to yellow to orange to red to black. I put black only on the tips of the larger fire parts.
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direweasel
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by direweasel »

See, to me, that looks less like fire and more like lava, but hey, whatever works for you. :)
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Draecarion
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by Draecarion »

I think this looks amazing. I will use the same color progression should I ever need to paint fire :burns: (probably on a phoenix if the elf armies get merged in 9th).
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Phierlihy
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Re: How to paint fire ?

Post by Phierlihy »

One thing to add - if you want the appearance of "glowing" hot, you need a fast transition between the hottest spot and the nearby cooler spots. On Cult of Khaine's picture above, the head dress feathers appear so striking because they are white-hot at the helmet but quickly cool to dark brown. Lava is often done very similarly in that the glowing inside is covered by a dark outside making the glow more pronounced. Just something to think about.
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