Painting fire – muzzle flashes
In today's tutorial, I have painted a muzzle flash which occurs when a shot is fired from a machine gun or rifle.
There are three things to keep in mind here:
1) It is important to know that the color gets more red and darker the cooler the ignited gunpowder gets, so the part of the flash that is adjacent to the barrel will be yellow, and will gradually become red and black towards the tip.
2) We start with a white undercoat, because if we start from a black undercoat, as we are mostly working with yellow, orange and red paints (which in 99% of cases cover VERY weak, even unthinned), we will spend more time for the same result.
3) Gradual transitions using the glazing technique.
A glaze is a highly thinned and transparent paint. There are a number of ways to achieve these transitions, I have used Lahmian Medium by Games Workshop/Citadel which is very good for thinning Vallejo and Scale 75 paints, as well as a matte finish in the case of Vallejo Game Color.
We start with a white undercoat, I have used White from Scale 75 thinned with Lahmian Medium, and have applied it through 3 layers until I achieved solid coverage. It is important to emphasize here that the next layer of paint should not be applied until the previous one has dried. A hair drier or similar device can come in handy to accelerate the drying procedure.
We then continue with two shades of yellow color, one somewhat cooler than the other, I have used the following paints in order: Sun Yellow and Gold Yellow from Vallejo Game Color.
It is important, when creating a transition, to create a glaze of the midtone of every pair of colors and paint the location on the flash where we want our transition to be. Here it is also important to note that a glaze, that is, a very thinned color has even weaker coverage, as well as drying somewhat slower, which enables us to play with the transition towards one color or the other, depending where in the end we want to have the transition, as well as its width and intensity. Also, when glazing, the place where the brush leaves the painted surface is the place where the most pigment will be deposited.
The next two colors are orange, one slightly more yellow, and one slightly more red, I have used the following paints in order: Orange Fire (Vallejo Game Color), and Clear Orange (Vallejo Model Color).
The last two colors are red (Scale 75 Antares Red), and black (Scale 75 Black).
I would once more like to emphasize to mix your paints, thin the midtones in order to achieve more gradual transitions, and take your time, especially if the previous layer of paint isn't completely dry.
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