Bobinator took the time to get back to us and left a series of comments explaining how he painted the realistic flames on his Legion of the Damned Marines. I really appreciate how quick he was in getting out there with a helpful detailed write up of the process. I also included a few more photos from his gallery. Enjoy the excellent paint jobs and maybe the write up will inpire you to make your own Damned Legionnares! Thanks again Bobinator..
Bobinator said...
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Hi all, I guess this is the place that fo2gs meant when he shot me a message on cmon. After recieving dozens of emails about the legion guys I decided to do a breakdown on the fire process but never got round to finishing it, so heres a quick summary, its no great feat really it just takes a crazy amount of time. Anyhoo, after watching Mike Lavallee of killer paint fame, I wanted to see if I could adapt the 'true fire' scheme he's famous for on the custom automotive scene, its normally done on cars and motorbikes and such, so I thought I wonder if I could somehow do that to my legion guys and still have a sort of firey look.
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After much study and many many trial pieces some using airbrush and others not I kinda got a method that actually worked, its pretty straight forward really.
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The first thing I did was assemble the guys and blast them with black, obvious I guess 🙂 next I get all the paints I'm gonna use and dilute them so their thin, really thin. Then taking my darkest red I loosely blob it on in a rather hap-hazard way where I want my flames to be, thats my base and also a guide for the next levels, so when thats dry I move onto the next level which is a slightly lighter red, with this red I just want to start building up the random blobs and squigles leaving small parts of the original red showing.
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After that layer is dry I move onto a dark orange and try to connect some of the lighter reds with little bridges of colour, all pretty random still but trying all the time to get a flame that looks kinda ok. Now it starts getting tedious, Now we got to kick it all back with a good red lacquer this kicks the orange back into a nice bright red and makes the dark red we started with very dark, the pics dont really show the red to well, I figure the camera just cant see it with all the yellow sucking up the light or something, hell I'm not a photographer so dont know much about that stuff but they are much redder in parts in real life, anyhoo, once the lacquer is dry we start getting the orange on again, this time though I try to make little bridges between other flames and add much more flamey type shapes to bits of armour that dont have any.
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So now these little bits need to stand out a bit more than the deeper flames so I add little bits of yellow all over here and there even go so far as to bridges a few areas to make it look like licks of flame right up front with darker flames to the rear. Also as I'm progressing my brush strokes are getting smaller and neater and trying to build some hard edges to the flames, I think in the last lot of legion guys I probably put in to many hard edges, I should left some bits open or looser so they look like bits of fire breaking of or something.
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Err, where was I... the yellow, okay now I got the yellow on I want to kick it back to orange again so out comes the orange lacquer and is put over everything, the top most yellow becomes a nice bright vibrant orange and the reds just get a bit more subdued. now I want to take a look at what I got and think where the last bits of colour should go to bring it all together, the next step is to build up the hot areas with yellow again, these are the bits that would just be nice with a lick of hot flame like the edges of a flame or a bridge between two flames, some bridges could look darker if you want like the flame has separated but there is still some heat there, then on the very very hottest areas like the tips or whatever a tiny little touch of white paint, then hit it all with the yellow lacquer to kick it all back, this yellow lacquer is the clincher, the application of this last layer does something mad to all the other coats, it just draws the whole lot together, makes the reds richer and everything more vibrant, then as a very last touch pop on the hot spots again with the white and your done.
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The other method that I had used on some of the older stuff was easier and used an airbrush, just load up with red and blast away until you got a rough layout then go over that leaving some red showing with orange then over that with yellow, dark to light, loose to tight, simples.
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Anyways, I'm sure that helped no-one not one bit but I will get round to finishing the tut one day and I'll fire it to all you guys that wanted the run down. If theres any thing you want running through again drop me a line on CMON and I'll try to help you out.
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Also, if I may, just wanna say thanks to everyone that leaves all the great feedback and encouragement, cheers dudes, take it easy.Bob.
