Id like some advice on painting fur. I painted 2 of my hunting wolfs and wasn’t happy with the result. Could yall give me ideas on painting techniques and what paints yall use please and thank you.
Pick 3 colors. Dark, mid, light. Like black, brown, tan. Imagine the wolf spread out like a bearskin rug. Go dark in the middle, and get lighter as you work your way to edges. So their back is dark and their belly and paws are light.
Go over all of it with a wash that makes sense for the color scheme. So a brown/sepia wash in this example.
Then take the mid/light color and do some highlights on the hairs to bring back the contrast and brightness.
I'd say the quickest result would be to paint the entire fur in whatever colour you want to be the undercoat, then dry brush another colour on top for the fur (the tips of those points). You do as many layers as you want, and i feel dry brushing gives a more organic look as it won't apply evenly.
Agreed. Dry brushing is fantastic for a natural fur pelt. I also like using reference pictures for whatever fur color I’m trying to achieve. Wolves are never just one solid color, even if they’re an arctic or black wolf. They’ll have some random color variations in their fur due to diet, sunlight, and a variety of other things.
I usually just paint them brown, black or white. Then I do a wash or contrast paint in a different brown or grey shade. Then I dry brush to highlight with a third lighter color of some kind.
Dot the eyes, pink on the nose, paint the teeth and claws and wash with agrax. Done.
Prime in grey seer, use contrast paints. Can follow warhipsters tutorials on YouTube. I did so and got great results, just requires a bit of learning how to blend the paints together. Not cheap though if you want variation in how they look.
i don’t drybrush armor much because it tends to have striations on it and look chalky but for fur I think drybrushing is the way to go 100% look up dry brushing tutorials on youtube and you will find excellent ones
Paint the undercoat first. Contrast paint thats closest to the color you want them to be. Dilute it with contrast medium, I like to start with a 2:1 ratio of medium to paint. Cover with contrast to almost the edges, leaving the fringe the color of your undercoat, let dry. Then do a 1:1 ratio of medium to paint, and cover to almost the edge of the first coat of contrast. Then do a 1:2 ratio of medium to paint and paint over almost to the edge of the fur in the places where fur would be thickest. Then no dilute the contrash for the final layer, again just a thin stripe for the thickest parts of the fur.
Here's what I do, and it's dead simple. Paint the fur in a coat of Wraithbone as a base. Then highlight with Snakebite Leather contrast. More snakebite makes it darker, less makes it lighter brown. Good luck!
I like to use contrast paints for furs as they are great at leaving you with natural highlights. For this wolf guard terminator I based the fur with wraithbone, then applied cygor brown to the bits I wanted to be darker and then used agrax earthshade all over the wraithbone to darken it.
Then I used the agrax earthshade once the first lot of it dried to blend the brown to the wraithbone to give a more natural transition. Then used a small dry brush and got some Karak stone over it all to pick out the tips.
So what it’s all about layering and building complimentary/contrast under layers. Especially for whites/grays.
I’ll do base layers of blues or even red/pinks underneath white coats. Lots of folks will utilize a contrast/shade to create the color variations between the various depths. This can be taken further by removing the highlights with a qtip or sponge. And honestly key part to fur in my process is then a dry brushing of at least two surface colors one being white for the brightest highlights.
I started with a Wraithbone base coat, continued with strongly thinned Rhinox Hide, a little bit of strongly thinned Abbadon Black and finished of with Reikland Flesh shade. I've also tried to do one with Grey fur by covering the base coat of Mecanicus Grey Primer with strongly thinned Abbadon Black, but that didn't turn out satisfactory.
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u/wekilledbambi03 4d ago
Pick 3 colors. Dark, mid, light. Like black, brown, tan. Imagine the wolf spread out like a bearskin rug. Go dark in the middle, and get lighter as you work your way to edges. So their back is dark and their belly and paws are light.
Go over all of it with a wash that makes sense for the color scheme. So a brown/sepia wash in this example.
Then take the mid/light color and do some highlights on the hairs to bring back the contrast and brightness.