Painting fur

For Mierce products as well as anything else you may want to show off
User avatar
zedmeister
Posts: 131
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:26 pm
Location: Mercia, UK
Contact:

Painting fur

Postby zedmeister » Thu Jul 25, 2013 3:19 pm

So, one of my problems is painting Fur. I can't seem to get it looking right. It always looks dirty and messy. Does anyone have any tips or tutorials any painting fur? Anything from Creoda's fine fur through Maagaan's cloak all the way up to Beowa's heavy pelt.
User avatar
razormage
Posts: 147
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:09 pm
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Contact:

Re: Painting fur

Postby razormage » Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:02 pm

Fur's one of the things I have trouble with as well. I used to just drybrush it, as the texture made it very conducive to doing so, but haven't in a while. Usually I just overhighlight it significantly, then use progressive washes (adding a bit of floor wax to break up the surface tension) to shade the recesses back down. For really fine fur, I have a friend who actually glued static grass to the model before priming the model, and then painted that to look like really fine hair. I should find an excuse to try that out.
--Ryan Smith
Blog: http://thebeerwaaagh.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @beerwaaagh
User avatar
AndyP
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:31 pm
Location: Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, UK

Re: Painting fur

Postby AndyP » Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:47 pm

I'm no expert but I've generally dry brushed fur. It used to look very muddy but I think it was because I had too much paint on the brush and I was going too bright too quickly. Now I find that if I approach dry brushing with the same mind set as layering the effect is so much better. Slowly build progressive layers of lighter shades (6 or 7) too get a smooth transition and really make sure you wipe off 99% of the paint first. If it doesn't look like a coat has gone on just do a second layer of the same mix before move up a shade. Once the dry brushing is done you can add some spot highlights with layering in appropriate paces then a thin wash to finish should tie everything together nicely. I've tried the over highlight like razormage and found it to be a very good method but too time consuming on something that is covered in fur. Better for a mane or a pelt size area than a full model. As far as fine hair texture like Creoda's. I don't know as I haven't painted one like that yet. I would ask Andrew Spiers on that. His Creoda looks great. Hope this helps :-) I'm sure I've seen a good fur tutorial somewhere online. If I can root it out in my bookmarks somewhere I'll link it in here.
Last edited by AndyP on Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
As I always say. At the end of the day.................it goes dark :-)
User avatar
AndyS
Posts: 403
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:53 pm
Location: Trowbridge UK

Re: Painting fur

Postby AndyS » Thu Jul 25, 2013 8:44 pm

For Creoda I basically painted it as if it was regular skin, but darker with flesh coloured highlights. Then gave it a very light drybrush of grey over the top. The more 'fury' bits were just carefully drybrushed and layered as AndyP described.
Wyrd bið ful aræd
User avatar
Picklechu
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:52 pm
Location: Newcastle Under Lyme, Staffs, UK

Re: Painting fur

Postby Picklechu » Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:40 am

I put my base coats on very wet for fur and try and get a range of colours as the fur goes up/down the model. Then I drybrush/overhighlight that.
Endor
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:16 pm

Re: Painting fur

Postby Endor » Thu Aug 01, 2013 2:21 pm

I am facing the same problem with Beowa atm. I started off optimistic and went for a dark black/brown basecoat as I wanted to paint the bear like a black bear. I then overbrushed lightly with various colours from dark brown up to deck tan vmc. It became way too light for me, so I washed the whole model (fur parts) with a black/ devlan mud wash.

And then the trouble started. Normally my washes dry to a matt finish, but this time the whole fur became glossy! :/
Don't know why. Dulled it down with matt medium and a black paint wash, but I am still not totally satisfied. Got back to the highlights with gw shadow grey with a touch of green added and then gw space wolves grey w some rotting flesh added, but no. Still not satisfied.

Sigh. Maybe I'll just strip the thing and start over.
User avatar
AndyS
Posts: 403
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:53 pm
Location: Trowbridge UK

Re: Painting fur

Postby AndyS » Thu Aug 01, 2013 4:22 pm

I have been painting a bear lately. Not Beowa though. The only thing I learned is to treat the fur texture shading completely separate from the overall 'lighting' shading. So maybe paint all the fur the same colour. Drybrush that then add the overall shading with washes. Not sure if that's clear!
Wyrd bið ful aræd
Endor
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:16 pm

Re: Painting fur

Postby Endor » Thu Aug 01, 2013 4:44 pm

I think I see what you mean. I think I will go a little lighter black-brown on the entire pelt, then highlight extremes sparingly up to silvery grey possibly with a light bluish tint, then shade as you say. Looking at reference pics of black bears, the contrasts are really extreme with deep black shadows, brownish warm tones here and there and silver-like highlights where light hits directly. Not the easiest scheme to pull off, but there's no other way. I want him to be a black bear 8-)
Endor
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:16 pm

Re: Painting fur

Postby Endor » Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:00 pm

Actually Broadfoot from Ax Faction Miniatures has a nice looking studio scheme. Wonder which colours was involved, some of the highlights are quite warm. Hm. Ponder, ponder.
User avatar
AndyS
Posts: 403
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:53 pm
Location: Trowbridge UK

Re: Painting fur

Postby AndyS » Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:19 pm

It's broadfoot I'm painting, but I didn't really like theirs. Mine is more brown. I can put up pics but not until next week.
Wyrd bið ful aræd
Malachi B.
Posts: 67
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:36 pm

Re: Painting fur

Postby Malachi B. » Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:51 am

Didn't expect was so difficult paintin fur in a proper way. I expected spots for highlights, dry brush, lesser thin. So maybe like Andrew said, a final shadow in may be good to give prominence to high spots....

Return to “Painting and Modelling”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests