DiscoverThat - Journal: September 2026

Tuesday, 29 September 2026

Painting flowing fabric

Flowing fabric refers to things such as; cloaks, capes, dresses and flags, to name just a few. I've been trying to both get faster and better when painting those parts of miniatures.

There are a number of common techniques that I come across regularly including, layering, stippling, wet blending and glazing.

Having tried some of those, I have tended towards glazing.

To be clear, I am not an expert at painting cloaks etc., I still need a lot more practice, but this is what I have achieved so far and the process I have used.

1. Prime the miniature

I normally use black, but for this technique, some brighter colours may be easier to apply over a white or grey primer.

2. Take a photo of the model before I start.

Use a single light source from the front and off to the side of the area I intend to paint. This becomes the reference to see which areas are in shadow and which are in the light.

3. Cover in the base colour.

This is the colour that I want the end result to look like. In most cases cloaks do not have any fine detail to obscure, so the paint can be applied in a relatively thick coat.

4. Select the paints.

I tend to use three colours and black. A dark, base and highlight colour.

5. Paint in the deepest shadows.

Typically I mix a little black in with the darker shade colour. This is watered down to a normal layer consistency. I paint this at the bottom of the deepest folds.

6. Paint the edge shadows.

This is commonly a thinned down darker shade colour mixed with the base colour. It is painted on the shadow side of each fold. The reference photo can be useful for this stage.

7. Start the highlights.

This uses a mix of the highlight colour with the base colour. Paint over the crown of all the folds.

8. Let that paint dry.

It needs to be dry enough that the next stage will not take all the paint off but it can sometimes help if the paint is not fully dry.

9. Glazing

This is not one step but the same process applied with different shades of the colour.

The glaze is a very wet, translucent, mix of paint. Before applying, soak up some of the water from the brush on a cloth or paper towel. I find getting the consistency right is a little difficult, but the aim is that the colour applies thinly but does not flow down and pool in the recesses.

In my case there will be four boundaries, the colours to glaze are as follows:

Deepest black to side shadow - glaze with the side shadow colour, pushing the paint towards the deepest shadow.
Shadow to semi-highlight - glaze in the base colour pushing the paint towards the shadow.
Semi-highlight to lit side - glaze in the base colour pulling the paint towards the highlight.
Lit side to deepest shadow - This is not necessary for sharp creases. It's for more sweeping folds. Glaze in the base colour mixed with the darker shade. Pushing towards the deep shadow.

It takes me a few attempts to get a smooth gradient. Sometimes I do better than others. This is where I need to practice.

Lastly. Depending on the colour, I'll add a highlight to the very top of the folds and glaze this to blend it towards the base colour. For sharper folds I use less glazing.

Some of my efforts are better than others, but I think I'm improving.

Sunday, 20 September 2026

Not sure how to paint miniature tanks

I am still undecided how to paint model vehicles. Particularly the sorts of tanks and APC's that are used for grimdark future tabletop games.

The process I used the previous time that I painted tanks, was not entirely to my satisfaction. To find better ideas, I've been watching YouTube videos. Most are in some way similar to what I had already been doing, however they gave me some ideas.

For the most recent vehicles I did the following.

I started by airbrushing the base colour. I tried using a gradient on each side, but the wash obscured that, so for this process, it was a waste of time.

I painted in some of the details, before using a couple of washes. The undercarriage, wheels and tracks are washed in black. The undercarriage is in shadow, so it did not need anything else.

Behind airbrushed, front sepia wash

On the desert style vehicles I used a sepia wash for other colours a black wash is my preferred choice. The wash on the panels brings out the contrast however, it also changes the colour significantly. Not surprising. Pushing the wash about with a brush to get rid of the tide marks was not as effective as I had hoped. The result at this stage was still a little mottled. It gets fixed by the next stage.

An alternative I saw on one video was to use a cotton bud to clean off the outer surfaces of the panels more thoroughly. I did a test panel with the sepia wash and that looked tidier and nowhere near as yellow. Something I may consider for future use, but my feeling is that the dry brushing makes that a largely redundant process.

In both of the following photos, the model in the foreground is after it has had the wash applied. The model further back is after that has been covered with a layer of dry brushing.

For all of these models, I used a large dry brush to reinstate the base colour to the panels. The tip I got from several YouTube channels, and the change I made from my previous process, was to leave a little more paint on the dry brush and apply it in a circular motion. It takes a while but I think this works well. It covered the panels while still leaving enough contract.

The dry brushing leaves the edges of the tracks dusted in that colour. In some colours it is a good dirty effect, however for most it is necessary to tidy up the edges. Not too perfectly, another dirt colour usually looks good.

Adding in the final finishing touches is the quick bit to do. This included re-instating the colour on some of the pipes, edge highlighting a couple of areas and a touch of silver dry brushing to the edges of the tracks and other areas that would get worn.

With a darker base colour I do some slight edge highlighting of the panels with a dry brush, but I didn't think that would be noticeable with the sand colour.

As these are for tabletop use and are not display models, the final stage was to spray with a matt clear coat. I painted them over a number of weekends and evenings, so I am not sure exactly how long any of them took. It feels like they took a little more time than I would have expected, but that is probably just due to the size of the models.