Painting patterned clothes ?

[Maerk]

I'd like to paint my Gauls with patterned (mostly striped) clothes. Now I have a questions about the appropriate painting technique :

When painting a piece of cloth in plain colour, I usually do a base colour first, then apply a darker wash and finally dry-brush it with the lightest shade. Adding the pattern after that, spoils the whole shading; adding it earlier would mean the pattern colour gets affected by the wash or dry-brush.

How do you paint patterned clothes ?

[Giovanni]

Hi! I think that painting patterned cloths is very hard and of course I try to avoid it!! but for gauls is more appropriate. When I do it I decide first which is going to be the main colour, for example blue, paint it wash it drubrush it and then I woud add stripes of gray, and Higlight it with white. So you could have the blue highlighted and the white too, but without the washing! I think it might work.

ciao

Giovanni

[Volund]

I'm just experimenting on checks for my Galatians' cloaks and it's working like this. I paint a fairly pale base colour, eg light grey, then drybrush it. Next I add broad stripes (horizontal and vertical) in a slightly deeper colour, such as mid-blue, well-diluted so it acts like an ink. This means some of the drybrushing of the first coat shows through. Finally I use a very fine pen in a dark colour, such as dark blue, to put in fine horizontal and vertical stripes.

Actually the vertical stripes are truly vertical, but the horizontal ones seem to work best painted in a curve like a very shallow letter U, mimicking the fall of the fabric.

I'm sure others with more experience have better methods but this is quick and effective (especially en masse when you have 3 or 4 Wb figures with different patterned cloaks on the same base.)

Kim

[David Kuijt]

Checks are the hardest. I paint a base colour first (brown, or a medium earthy pink, or a medium dull blue, or a medium green), then do a dark colour (anything with contrast) in stripes across it. Then I paint a light colour (white, or a dull yellow) down in stripes perpendicular to the first colour. That gives you almost everything you want -- all you need to do now is paint some squares of a bright colour (red or blue or bright green) every other space along the white/yellow vertical stripes you've got. The Micron pens by Sakura work well for this, or you could just paint very, very carefully. When you're finished you've got some really nice checks. Then you dip the figure using Miracle Dip (Minwax Polyshades Tudor Satin) and the shading takes care of itself.

Some examples follow:

http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~kuijt/miscellania/Singles/CB08.JPG

http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~kuijt/miscellania/Singles/Potn25.JPG

[Macbeth]

Not being in DK's league I had a more simplistic approach to a kind of check/tartan for my Pre Feudal Scots back in the early 90s when I had more time, better eyesight and steadier hands.

Step 1. Paint the cloak in a base colour;

Step 2. Paint 2 - 3 vertical stripes in a second colour;

Step 3. Paint 2 - 3 horizontal stripes over the top in the original base colour. You are left with around 9 rectangular blocks of the second colour on the base colour; and

Step 4. With a finer brush and a third colour (I usually used bright yellow or white) draw fine stripes (horizontal and vertical) that cross over in the middle of the rectangular blocks.

Cheers

[Maerk]

Thank you;
I will try the painting techniques you suggested, beginning with the easiest one. I'm not sure if I'm able to advance to David's stage ..
Your checker patterns are truly amazing, David !