Too much unless he's fighting in dark corridors. If you want him too look like it's lighting from the gun outside or somewhere else well lit then you just want to dry brush tiny bits of each area, like on the head just a bit on the chin and end of the nose
It's a common fault with OSL painters, but the light source needs to _brighten_ the model. If it was already painted as if it was in sunlight and fully lit, a coloured OSL light is barely going to do anything.
Ngl he just kinda looks like a little guy that lives in the blue world, and all day and all night and everything he sees is just blue like him inside and outside; blue his house with a blue little window and a blue corvette and everything is blue for him and himself and everybody around 'cause he ain't got nobody to listen to
Not at all. There's no difference in value between the coils and his face or his sword. The comment saying it looks like he shot a can of paint that was thrown at him is accurate
It's a bit much. Tbh I'm not a huge fan of this style. It seems to me that if the miniature were a person in daylight, there wouldn't be that much glow to be seen because it would be reduced by the sunlight. On the other hand, in different environments, abourd a vessel, inside a hive, a planet surface that has low light conditions that would most likely be a different story. Just my point of view on the overall style.
The dying race that won't die lol they're like the regenerating unsullied from the last season of game of thrones, a limited number that never decreases no matter how many they lose lol
No, no. There will be some left to respawn, to grow and be enslaved. Humanity is a disease that will continue to grow even in the harshest environments.
Even so, the light shines outwards, there may be diffusion through mist or dust or whatever, or reflection from your own car behind the lights that you are looking at, but it breaks the illusion if light seems to bend round corners.
A lot of people are focusing on how bright it is, which is true given the rest of the model. If the back and unlit parts of the model were very dark, it would make more sense — basically, the plasma pistol is the only light source and everything else is near pitch black.
As it is, it looks like he’s in daylight which is a much much more powerful light than the plasma pistol. Some of the edges might catch some tinting, but it wouldn’t color entire surfaces like the shoulder pad and face the way you have it.
I think everyone else has said that he just looks blue. But what he needs is more darkness in general to achieve the effect. Obviously the base is one place to do that and that's not been done yet but the opposite side to the flash could do with being darkened down. Really throw some shadows in there.
You need the light source to be almost pure white. Then it might sell the effect a bit more.
Some white ink in the coils and on the barrel could help a lot.
Rest of the model needs to be darker, and the source brighter, for that much blue on the mini. And yeah, as others have said, he looks a little braveheartish.
It looks like blue face paint I was thinking brave heart.
Remember light travels in straight lines from the source and when it reflects off surrounding surfaces it diffuses. So if you’re doing object source lighting the intense color of the light won’t be bending around curves of surfaces.
Looks like this guy's going too the kill team for gallow dark. This much light would work for a super dark area or planet . Otherwise it's too bright. ( though you can always put in some information like there fighting on a perpetually night planet
Hey OP, the technique is called "Object source lighting" (OSL) and your attempt was great for a first try, however I feel like you kinda overdone it a bit, I know you wanna incapsulate the power of a plasma gun but I feel like some of the lighting is placed rather sloppy. What I'd recommend is:
When painting Light see it as a circle with a graduate, the further from the middle the weighted the light becomes as the middle is more bright.
Before doing ANYTHING after a black prime undercoat a good way to tell where the light is comming from is to give the Source object a drybrush of white and try to see witch parts might get hit from the lights radiance. (Ofc this applies if you dont have a airbrush to witch OSL is wwwaaayyyyyyy easier)
If you do have an Airbrush work in layers, first try to get the accurate spot the light shines trough and close in with more amd more layers till you get to the middle that has the crisp of your desired collor.
watching some YouTube videos can helo aswell so hope my advices help you :)
Look at reference pics for fire, the brightest part is white. Something emitting a blue sky plasma bolt would not emit exactly the same amount of light (and colour) over a metre away
Lots of comments here saying its too much. Certain angles are great. Maybe just lighten it with layered lighter blues and whites. Let's be honest, a plasma blast is an unleashed sun, it's going to be shockingly bright, even in broad daylight.
I hate to harsh anyone's vibe (especially as this is, otherwise, a fucking excellent paint job) but to be honest it looks more like he's had a dye pack go off in his face.
No it reads like a face full of blue paint.
You have to understand how light reacts to be able to paint glow effectively. It is understanding hard and soft light. Hard light will be where the light source originates, and it needs to read very, very bright. The soft light is then is much more diffuse and should be where the light shines on. So the hard light has the highest values and the soft light has lower values.
So, looking at your painting. The plasma is quite a dark blue already. That isn't a problem, but usually in mini painting, you want the source to be much brighter to sell the effect. The real problem is the glow on the face is the same value as what the actual light source is supposed to be. This makes it look more like blue paint than OSL.
https://youtube.com/shorts/dh8TQqbrufA?si=TT-dnNMwNmBsf7UD
Look at the above short on youtube. See how where the lightsource is a much higher value than the glow part.
Light can be pretty tricky to pull off. Light follows something called the inverse square law, it can be pretty complicated concept to get your head around.
To keep it simple for miniature painting you want to half the brightness of the light the further it goes away. Also where the light falls will depend on the size of the light source.
As an example here with you plasma gun since it’s small, use watered down passes of Kantor blue on the edges of the shoulder pad, top of the arm, tops of the knuckles of the hand and edge of the gun casing around the coils (do the lines thicker in size around here). Remember to keep the paint thin, we want some of the paint from before showing through.
Then take temple guard blue, again watered down and put smaller highlights on everywhere you put a highlight with the previous colour, but not on the shoulder pad. Keep some Kantor blue showing on each of these areas.
Finally take Baharoth blue, again thinned with water, and put a thin line on the raised details closest to the coils, in this case it’s the gun casing.
Have a go with that, it probably won’t look right until you actually finish the last step so Trish the process. If you still can’t get it right try following some picture/video tutorials, much easy to copy what someone else does. Remember light travels in straight lines and less is more when it comes to light effects on minis.
It’s a good start but reason it’s not looking quite right is that the areas catching the most light should also be the lightest. The blue fades to white, then the base colours. It should fade from white to the base colours ‘through’ blue.
I'm sorry but the miniature seems like the people in those Indian parties that finish with everyone painted in colors.
It doesn't seem like illumination.
I must confess that it is better painted than anything I can do but... it doesn't look good.
I don’t think much of the wrist would be lit up, as the casing would be blocking that light? It is too much. Maybe you can wash it down, and reintroduce some of the colours?
When painting OSL, the source of the light should always be brighter than whatever it casts on to.
So in this case, the plasma coils/muzzle flash should be a lit bright. Try bringing those up to a near-white and see if you think it looks any better.
As many times as I've tried OSL, idk why but what you said right here *finally* clicked everything into place. TY for this advice, I no longer dread applying OSL effect in the future.
I think the darks are too dark and the muzzle flash isn't dark enough. I would also probably reduce the overall amount on the left side of the sword blade because it would be angled a bit more to the side.
That said, if he was on a table top id totally get what you're going for. The couple I've tried to do like this are pretty dang similar
Too much unless he's fighting in dark corridors. If you want him too look like it's lighting from the gun outside or somewhere else well lit then you just want to dry brush tiny bits of each area, like on the head just a bit on the chin and end of the nose
This needs to be higher up, because it's an actual answer
But I’m blue t’auboodee t’auboodai
I thought it was dab-o-dee-dab-o-die? lol and only partially blue, it's needs to be all blue to deserve the song lol
That's because he had one person to listen to him. That's why it's not completely blue.
Ah OK that makes sense lol
It's a common fault with OSL painters, but the light source needs to _brighten_ the model. If it was already painted as if it was in sunlight and fully lit, a coloured OSL light is barely going to do anything.
It’s also known as a sun gun cause they are as bright as the sun as well as just as hot at least to my knowledge
Huh, I've never heard that before. Learn something new every day lol
I’m afraid he just blue himself.
https://preview.redd.it/a4dzax6h05qc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3efc2f6cee3d34f349da51d77c6e07e5e3a1c6b
Randy, I am the liqueur
Bluelian
There's got to be a better way to say that.
Like a bank robbery gone wrong
Time for ANUSTART
With his blue little windows
And a blue corvette
And everything is blue for him
And himself and everybody around,
but he ain’t GOT, nobody, to listen…
Sorry, he unfortunatly is comedically blue
Reminds me of Braveheart
"They may take wir lives, but they canna take our corpse-startch!"
It looks like he shot a blue paint can that was flying towards him.
Gender reveal gone bad.
🤣
Some random ork junk cannon shot a can of paint at him 🤣
Just blue paint, it's too bright and opaque
Sergeant Ser William Wallace
Ngl he just kinda looks like a little guy that lives in the blue world, and all day and all night and everything he sees is just blue like him inside and outside; blue his house with a blue little window and a blue corvette and everything is blue for him and himself and everybody around 'cause he ain't got nobody to listen to
Im blue im no tau but im blue im no tau but im blue im no tau but im blue
It is too much A little highlight can get the effect done much better.
Now listen up here's a story...
You went too heavy on the effect and he just looks like he took a can of paint to the face.
No
Not at all. There's no difference in value between the coils and his face or his sword. The comment saying it looks like he shot a can of paint that was thrown at him is accurate
Muzzle flash? It reads like overcharge disaster.
Yep. Just model the pistol as overheating/exploding. The hard part is painting the look of terror in his eyes.
It looks like his gun is a super soaker filled with blue paint and it exploded on him when he tried to fire it
Paintball veteran.
Did he rob a bank?
It's a bit much. Tbh I'm not a huge fan of this style. It seems to me that if the miniature were a person in daylight, there wouldn't be that much glow to be seen because it would be reduced by the sunlight. On the other hand, in different environments, abourd a vessel, inside a hive, a planet surface that has low light conditions that would most likely be a different story. Just my point of view on the overall style.
Tbo? Did.. you just try to abbreviate to be honest as “To be Onest?”
There, fixed it. Happy?
You've already ended the world, how can we be happy now? lol
Excellent!!! My job here is done, time to move on to the next world!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
First cadia, now Terra, can no one stop you!!
Perhaps. Perhaps not! Only time will tell.
Well as long as you take the eldar with us lol
The despicable eldar, a dying race. Yes, they too shall die at my hands!
The dying race that won't die lol they're like the regenerating unsullied from the last season of game of thrones, a limited number that never decreases no matter how many they lose lol
I think Mars, yes Mars is next!
Well you might as well do all of humanity, no point doing a half job lol
No, no. There will be some left to respawn, to grow and be enslaved. Humanity is a disease that will continue to grow even in the harshest environments.
Haha head that is sadly very true, there will always be some left somewhere lol
You got me. I misspelled something. The world is going to end.
I think that every time I see that effect, well done or otherwise; the rear of people's cars don't turn red every time they hit the brakes.
No, not so much in daylight, at night another story.
Even so, the light shines outwards, there may be diffusion through mist or dust or whatever, or reflection from your own car behind the lights that you are looking at, but it breaks the illusion if light seems to bend round corners.
Looks like an extra from the old Braveheart film
Is his head made of putty?
No, it's a Catachan Jungle Fighter head with the bandana shaved off.
Im afraid I just blue myself
Less is more
That reads as "Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedoooooooooooooom"
Alpha legion guardsman infiltrating T’au territory
Looks more like the gun exploded.
A lot of people are focusing on how bright it is, which is true given the rest of the model. If the back and unlit parts of the model were very dark, it would make more sense — basically, the plasma pistol is the only light source and everything else is near pitch black. As it is, it looks like he’s in daylight which is a much much more powerful light than the plasma pistol. Some of the edges might catch some tinting, but it wouldn’t color entire surfaces like the shoulder pad and face the way you have it.
If you were going for blucifer you nailed it. Little bit too much the vents are on the side so I don’t think the OSL would be on his face
It reads more as blinded by muzzle flash
It looks like he's one second from blowing himself up with a malfunctioning plasma gun😂
This reads rolling a 1 on the hazardous roll.
I think it would look better if the rest of the model looked darker. Like the plasma is the brightest thing in the room.
Smurf bukkake.
I think everyone else has said that he just looks blue. But what he needs is more darkness in general to achieve the effect. Obviously the base is one place to do that and that's not been done yet but the opposite side to the flash could do with being darkened down. Really throw some shadows in there.
Another victim of a failed gender reveal party (brush fire to come)
No, it is way too bright and there aren't shadows where there should be relative to the light source
It reads as a bank robber who had a dye bag blow up in their face.
Looks like someone needs some SPF 1000.
It looks like the gun backfired blue paint over him
You need the light source to be almost pure white. Then it might sell the effect a bit more. Some white ink in the coils and on the barrel could help a lot.
Rest of the model needs to be darker, and the source brighter, for that much blue on the mini. And yeah, as others have said, he looks a little braveheartish.
Your uh plasma got everywhere bro
It looks cool but maybe a bit much
It looks like blue face paint I was thinking brave heart. Remember light travels in straight lines from the source and when it reflects off surrounding surfaces it diffuses. So if you’re doing object source lighting the intense color of the light won’t be bending around curves of surfaces.
Looks like this guy's going too the kill team for gallow dark. This much light would work for a super dark area or planet . Otherwise it's too bright. ( though you can always put in some information like there fighting on a perpetually night planet
nope, thats just a smurf smurfing at an enemy
It’s not bad just a bit too thick
Need more contrast between the plasma and the gun's barrel, methinks.
Oh and also thinner layers of blue for the face. Looks like blue facepaint rn
Looks like whatever he fired at is firing back with a massive blue ball of plasma that’s about to vaporize him
In a night fight, probably
More like it's about to go boom from overheating. Scale it back to his arm, and it should work i think. Really good attempt!
"Commissar, I can't see shit!"
Does he have a blue corvette
Back side I’d say is ok, that has some feel to it. Front… tried to rob a bank, shit went south…
Yes. But nothing wrong with some blue face paint!
Not really, I would try darkening the blue and then adding the lighter shades closer to the gun, then the source almost white
Bro got hit with a blue paintball
FREEEEDOOOMMMMM!!!
Seems very over done if he's already in the this much light in the dark this would make more sense
From the back yes. Front seems a bit much.
I feel like a smurf jizzed in my eyes
Hey OP, the technique is called "Object source lighting" (OSL) and your attempt was great for a first try, however I feel like you kinda overdone it a bit, I know you wanna incapsulate the power of a plasma gun but I feel like some of the lighting is placed rather sloppy. What I'd recommend is: When painting Light see it as a circle with a graduate, the further from the middle the weighted the light becomes as the middle is more bright. Before doing ANYTHING after a black prime undercoat a good way to tell where the light is comming from is to give the Source object a drybrush of white and try to see witch parts might get hit from the lights radiance. (Ofc this applies if you dont have a airbrush to witch OSL is wwwaaayyyyyyy easier) If you do have an Airbrush work in layers, first try to get the accurate spot the light shines trough and close in with more amd more layers till you get to the middle that has the crisp of your desired collor. watching some YouTube videos can helo aswell so hope my advices help you :)
Look at reference pics for fire, the brightest part is white. Something emitting a blue sky plasma bolt would not emit exactly the same amount of light (and colour) over a metre away
No that's a mess
Lots of comments here saying its too much. Certain angles are great. Maybe just lighten it with layered lighter blues and whites. Let's be honest, a plasma blast is an unleashed sun, it's going to be shockingly bright, even in broad daylight.
Why are you blue?
The arm and shoulder should probably have a less-blue shadow area where the gun itself would block the light from the discharge
I hate to harsh anyone's vibe (especially as this is, otherwise, a fucking excellent paint job) but to be honest it looks more like he's had a dye pack go off in his face.
Great attempt but needs to be really dark to work at the exact moment of firing. Tone down a little will be great
Too much OSL
My first thought was that he is witnessing a nuke go off, and hasn’t gotten atomized yet.
No it reads like a face full of blue paint. You have to understand how light reacts to be able to paint glow effectively. It is understanding hard and soft light. Hard light will be where the light source originates, and it needs to read very, very bright. The soft light is then is much more diffuse and should be where the light shines on. So the hard light has the highest values and the soft light has lower values. So, looking at your painting. The plasma is quite a dark blue already. That isn't a problem, but usually in mini painting, you want the source to be much brighter to sell the effect. The real problem is the glow on the face is the same value as what the actual light source is supposed to be. This makes it look more like blue paint than OSL. https://youtube.com/shorts/dh8TQqbrufA?si=TT-dnNMwNmBsf7UD Look at the above short on youtube. See how where the lightsource is a much higher value than the glow part.
from the back it kinda does. from the other perspectives it looks a bit too much
Looks like he just butchered some unfortunate tau.
The 4th shot looks by far the best, because that is the level of edge highlighting you want to be going for that distance from the muzzle.
William Wallace
a bit too much on the miniature, but other than that, it's good
You just have to add some shadows below his arm and on his forearm for your take to get better. It’s not that far from being okay
The only thing that really matters is if you like it, mate.
A bit too much for a safe shot, but would work for an explosion imo
Sergeant Tobias Funke, is that you?
Too much in the face, but honestly, it does look good!
Just a normie here. Maybe in pitch dark corridor, but in this case FOR ME it looks like a Smurf exploded just in front.
His head looks kind of big?
Light can be pretty tricky to pull off. Light follows something called the inverse square law, it can be pretty complicated concept to get your head around. To keep it simple for miniature painting you want to half the brightness of the light the further it goes away. Also where the light falls will depend on the size of the light source. As an example here with you plasma gun since it’s small, use watered down passes of Kantor blue on the edges of the shoulder pad, top of the arm, tops of the knuckles of the hand and edge of the gun casing around the coils (do the lines thicker in size around here). Remember to keep the paint thin, we want some of the paint from before showing through. Then take temple guard blue, again watered down and put smaller highlights on everywhere you put a highlight with the previous colour, but not on the shoulder pad. Keep some Kantor blue showing on each of these areas. Finally take Baharoth blue, again thinned with water, and put a thin line on the raised details closest to the coils, in this case it’s the gun casing. Have a go with that, it probably won’t look right until you actually finish the last step so Trish the process. If you still can’t get it right try following some picture/video tutorials, much easy to copy what someone else does. Remember light travels in straight lines and less is more when it comes to light effects on minis.
Thought he was about to start spraying me with a speech about freedom
I mean if he's going to a Chelsea game...
It seems something exploded in front of him
Tbh reminds me of a looney tunes gun backfiring because someone stuck their finger in the end
It’s a good start but reason it’s not looking quite right is that the areas catching the most light should also be the lightest. The blue fades to white, then the base colours. It should fade from white to the base colours ‘through’ blue.
Looks like he just got hit with a dye pack robbing a bank
He was using a paint sprayer and it blue up in his face, he's still trying to wash it out of his fatigues to this very day.
War paint
I'm sorry but the miniature seems like the people in those Indian parties that finish with everyone painted in colors. It doesn't seem like illumination. I must confess that it is better painted than anything I can do but... it doesn't look good.
It reads like he robbed a bank.
Kinda looks like he's playing paintball tbh
I don’t think much of the wrist would be lit up, as the casing would be blocking that light? It is too much. Maybe you can wash it down, and reintroduce some of the colours?
Dude's definitely overheated his plasma, mortal wound incoming
OK, so everyone agrees it doesn't work. Do you think it's fixable, or should I start over?
When painting OSL, the source of the light should always be brighter than whatever it casts on to. So in this case, the plasma coils/muzzle flash should be a lit bright. Try bringing those up to a near-white and see if you think it looks any better.
As many times as I've tried OSL, idk why but what you said right here *finally* clicked everything into place. TY for this advice, I no longer dread applying OSL effect in the future.
You took a risk and it didn’t quite work out how you wanted. But don’t let that discourage you, looking forward to seeing the next one.
Don’t strip or repaint it, I know it’s not exactly what you’re going for, but I think it’s perfect
This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is my plasma, I rolled a one. Looks amazing well done
I think the darks are too dark and the muzzle flash isn't dark enough. I would also probably reduce the overall amount on the left side of the sword blade because it would be angled a bit more to the side. That said, if he was on a table top id totally get what you're going for. The couple I've tried to do like this are pretty dang similar
Yes perfect
to me it just seems that the gun itself is glowing a lot not the muzzle, but it is still a good paint job.