Painting Drow?

[pajamallama]

Can anyone give me some advice on painting Drow. I'm not sure about the colour of the skin...
Is it just plain black or do you add anything to make it look a bit less plain/boring?
Please help me, I'm a quite lost on this one.

[adamantinedragon]

I've only painted a few Drow. When I do I paint them with a medium-dark gray face with lighter gray highlights and with light gray hair with bright white highlights. Maybe something similar to these colors:

But not nearly as good, of course.

[pedrodevaca]

I've seen a few hues of drow as well. Some with purple or blue undertones, some with more red. I think you can pretty much do whatever you think would look cool, as long as the overall effect is dark or ashy its gonna look right.

[adamantinedragon]

Yeah, now that you mention it, I have used a slight blue tint to make them look a bit colder.

[belatucadras]

I think I would decide what the tone of the rest of the mini will be. If warm colors will be used, the a dark, almost black, reddish hue as the skin will pick this up. If the mini will be painted in cooler colors, then a dark blue as the skin picks up those tones. These would be hilights on a black base. You could finish with stark white in small areas of extreme hilight.

[neil]

For me I prefer a grey black charcoal color for something like drow.

Over a black base coat I would paint either burnt umber or a dark chocolate brown - then Charcoal keep it thin - Then a very thin tan highlight - then thin white or bleached bone on the raised parts - cheek bones - bridge of the nose.
Wash with thin black ink for the recesses then dry brush white.

If you don't have time for all those coats it could be black base - then charcoal - next thin brown ink wash then white drybrush.

Its weird that you can highlight black with white but it works especially if its thin so the black shows through.

[pajamallama]

Ahhh, thanks for all the great advice. Will definitely try a few of these methods.

[Deleted]

I would start with a matt base of black, layering successive coats of lighter grey highlights, probably favouring a dry brush method, always considering if a single light source was shining on the figure, highlight accordingly, with the painted bits getting smaller as they get lighter, ending in grey bits that are very fine and sharply define the sleek, angular features of the Drow elves.

See on the photo how the skin is a dull, matt black, and the highlights look grey, mostly not very defined apart from the ridge of the nose, the lips, tops of fingers and such?

Close one eye, try to imagine it is a flat drawing on some paper.. what method has the artist used to give it a 3D look? How can you replicate that on your miniature?

[monkeywithtacos]

Reaper has an awesome set of Dark Elf Skin coloured paints that I use on my drow... 

link 1


link 2


link 3




Not that I'm some kind of pro painter or anything, but here's some of what I have done with them....











Damn focus issue on the latest drow I finished painting =/ You can see the face clearly though...just the hands were blurred by this craptastic camera...



Slightly better pic here...

[monkeywithtacos]

Here's a much better painters results with what I linked above....



A couple more.....

[pajamallama]

Wow they look great, these are from the Drow campaign you posted a while ago? Thanks for the tips

[sgtslag]

Before you do any highlighting, be sure to look carefully at the black-painted figures: the light may just give you highlights without doing anything! I recently painted a Black Dragon figure using matte Black craft paint. I protected it with a brush-on coating of pure, full-strength Pledge Floor Shine, with nothing added to it, to seal and smooth the chalky, microscopically rough surface of the matte paint, before adding a wash. I was planning to use a Magic Wash (Pledge Floor Shine) + White, for highlighting the figure... After the Pledge Floor Shine dried (15 minutes, at most), the light gave it the white highlights without anything further from me -- I was done painting it! It took me a few minutes to realize the Dragon had the highlights already, but it finally occurred to me that I would only ruin the effect, if I tried to do it artificially.

This may only work on larger figures, I do not know for sure. My suggestion is to try it, see what you get, then proceed as necessary. The white highlights only occurred due to the sealing/smoothing of the surface texture by using a full-strength application of Pledge Floor Shine, straight out of the bottle (Pledge Floor Shine is acrylic paint, without pigment -- it is water clean-up when wet). This will smooth the paint surface, seal the paint against wear, and protect the work done up to that point -- you cannot lose by doing this simple step, no matter whether you continue to apply paint thereafter, or not. Cheers!

[thorswulf]

Black can be a real bear no matter what the application. I tend to highlight it with charcoal, and sometimes a further highlight of a mix of charcoal and light gray. If it looks to pale add a wash of black or blue/black. One intersting effect is to paint black with a wash of green ink. It produces a color that looks so dark green it might be black!

[pedrodevaca]

This is not meant as a criticism, just an observation.

Check out Bloodchokes pics, notice how much more detail is easily visible on the faces in the last pic. All of the drow in the last pic have off-black or off-gray palletes mostly with purple or blue undertones. Even the darkest tone on the face, isn't black. This is why I would not start with a black base for any mini face, especially a drow where you don't have the liberty of an entire range of hues to add highlights. Regardless of whether or not it is 'correct' as per the published art work, don't paint them straight up black, use hues of purplish or bluish grays.

[monkeywithtacos]

I suppose it's all preference.....I prefer the darker tones like the ones I painted rather than the lighter ones I posted for illustrative purposes.... but to each their own...Just wish I could get decent pics of mine ... =(

[drathirbarrastudios]

I love your drow Monkey!
This whole thread has given me some inspiration to paint my Malagaste in Jan. I think I am gonna grab a couple more minis and get in some practice (and experimentation) on this skin tone when I do him.

[sgtslag]

The thing we often miss, in painting miniatures of creatures, and buildings, is that the details we want, have to be done 'unrealistically', in an often exaggerated manner, if we want to actually see them. If you take a full-size image, and reduce it down to 1/70 scale, or so (~28mm), then reduce the resolution (to match the crude, low resolution of our painting abilities using a brush, and thick paint -- a microscope might help, a little...), you would not see as much as you would like. In other words, we amplify our painting style, to make the details visible. It took me a while to figure that out. Pedrodevaca is correct: to get the details to show up/pop, avoid straight up black.

That is what really sets the expert mini's painters apart from the hacks, like me. Even though I have painted 500+ figures, I paint to a low standard (I don't have time/energy/desire to paint museum quality, though I certainly appreciate the work of those who do!!!). I choose to be a hack painter, and I am OK with that. I will choose to paint my Drow (hopefully in a few weeks time) black, but I know why, and I am OK with my (low) level of painting.

I do enjoy, however, hearing tips from better painters. Even though I don't choose to paint at that level, it helps me understand how folks manage to achieve the results they produce -- it helps me appreciate their art form more. Art is an interesting subject, and hearing/reading these tips, is like pulling back the curtain to see how the magician's tricks actually work -- I still appreciate the trick, though! Cheers!

[pedrodevaca]

@monkey, your minis look great, your paint jobs are much better than I could do. =) I didn't mean to insinuate otherwise, sorry if it came off that way.
I noticed that your pics demonstrated a core painting concept and I referred to them for illustration. I didn't intend to be callous.

[monkeywithtacos]

Dec 27, 2013 20:50:26 GMT pedrodevaca said:

@monkey, your minis look great, your paint jobs are much better than I could do. =) I didn't mean to insinuate otherwise, sorry if it came off that way.
I noticed that your pics demonstrated a core painting concept and I referred to them for illustration. I didn't intend to be callous.

No worries, I didn't get that from your comments at all... I was being self critical with the frustration that my camera on my phone, combined with the sealer I have to use, makes my minis look much worse in photo's than they do in actual play (or real life, if you prefer)..... I'm self critical anyhow and the not so good pics make it worse for me... lol

Again, I definitely recommend the reaper "dark elf skin" paints as they have that almost black, with a cool undertone, colour to them... The coulour really works very well and believe me, over the years I have tried many different paints and colours to get them how I like them. I try to paint to what what could be considered a "table top quality". It's not an easy task for me to go beyond that but I do try to push the envelope as that's the only way to learn and improve.... best advice i can give is don't be scared... jump right in and try different things... always read, research and watch for tips, shortcuts and techniques....

[skunkape]

I would say find a look that you like best after looking at as many examples as you can. Personally, I prefer skin colored like the picture that adamantinedragon posted but maybe with a slight blue tint.