The Bust Saga (part 4)
If you are a bit older and from Zagreb, you probably remember Saga o Pičekima? If not, the joke will elude you. Well, hopefully beside the Croatian pun, you will like the rest of this saga. Goran and Marko will take you on a miniature painting journey while they build and paint one and the same bust for their Admin Challenge. Why call it a saga? Because everyone who knows them knows this will take a while to finish.... They chose a bust by Crecy Models that comes in two options – as King Ladislav Jagellone and as Grand Master of Teutonic Order Ulrich von Jungingen. Goran and Marko will do different versions...
MARKO: What I forgot last time, this time I stol… borrowed and brought with me to the Hobby Corner on Wednesdays. A technical pencil. I lightly sketched on both shields the elements (a checkered plate on one plus a half lion half a bird on the other). After being relatively pleased with the look, I set out to apply the base paints. Then I added a couple of highlights to the design. This is enough for this phase since I plan to add light weathering towards the end of the painting.
GORAN: This time I continued to work on the cloak, with the same color palette as last time. The colors used are Scale75: Rainy Gray, Nacar, Birch and Mojave White. Here it is important to note that I used a fairly diluted paint, which is also called glazing. I think I could work with an even thinner color and be more patient, but even this is more than good for my skill level.
I first set out to fix the shadows using Rainy Gray. I drew the shadows by taking a slightly thicker brush (2 from the da Vinci Maestro series for example), and where the recess in the mantle was widest I applied the most pressure with the brush, so that the most paint would accumulate there. Then, while the shadow paint on the miniature was drying, I set off with a mixture of Rainy Gray and Nacar to fix the transitions between the shadow and the area next to the shadow, as they seemed relatively uneven and rough (although the roughness turned out to be a texture mantle).
MARKO: Then I set out to work on the cloak. If you remember, last time there were white stains from washing. This time I managed to cover those and add a few more layers of shadows ... As the cloak goes towards the shoulders, so the color becomes lighter. At least that's the idea.
GORAN: Then I set out to lighten the shields on the shoulders and even out the layers of a lighter color, with pure Nacar. I also further evened out the layers and thickness of the lighter colors on the shields on the shoulders, also using Mojave White.
Then I started to smooth the transitions towards the lighter parts of the crease with an equally clean Nacar, here I leaned the brush against the crease itself, and I evenly smoothed the transitions near the tops of the creases with equally uniform movements towards the lighter part of the crease. Then, with a mixture of Nacar and Birch, I started to lighten the tops of the folds, the same technique of applying the brush to the folds, and uniform movements towards the lighter part of the folds. In the next step, I used Mojave White, and I additionally lightened the creases with the brush application technique along the crease tips.
MARKO: For the end, I painted the fabric on the bust’s chest in a base red color. After I paint every layer on the gown, only then will I add the white eagle.
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Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
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U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
" ["created"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" ["modified"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" } ["Member"]=> array(10) { ["id"]=> string(2) "64" ["group_id"]=> string(1) "1" ["first_name"]=> string(9) "Krunoslav" ["last_name"]=> string(8) "Belinić" ["first_name_mask"]=> string(9) "krunoslav" ["last_name_mask"]=> string(7) "belinic" ["username"]=> string(5) "Kruno" ["password"]=> string(40) "eb3fda45fbec0258e90d809803b10491c548b22f" ["born"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:19:00" ["created"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:20:39" } } Krunoslav Belinić, 20th November 2025 - We attended: ModelMania 2025 Marko Paunović, 5th November 2025
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