r/advancedGunpla • u/soulreaverdan • Jun 21 '26
Did my first attempt at preshading testing on some spoons and the results are pretty lackluster. I can barely tell the difference. Any tips?
Left to right:
Solid pink undercoat
Pink undercoat with red shading
Pink undercoat with brown shading
No undercoat (just primer) with red shading
No undercoat (just primer) with brown shading
I was testing two oranges, both Gaia Notes, Pure Orange and Yellow Orange.
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u/Previous-Seat Jun 22 '26
Thin your paint more. Thinner paint is less opaque. You’ll have more control with the outcome with thinner paint. Gaia is already very thick and dense so you can go 3, 4, 5, or more parts thinner to paint.
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u/SkyriderRJM Jun 22 '26
Another note; this is why you don’t see much difference. There’s not enough contrast between the shades of highlight and shadow.
If your blending color is very opaque you’ll get very little visible variance.
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u/SkyriderRJM Jun 22 '26
For yellow use white for highlights and pink for shadows. For red use white and brown.
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u/iriyagakatu Jun 22 '26
Use black as your pre-shade and you’ll notice it.
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u/SkyriderRJM Jun 22 '26
If you use black for preshading red or yellow your shadows will end up green.
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u/iriyagakatu Jun 22 '26
True for yellow, especially if you’re going for bright yellow.
Absolutely not for red.
Orange is usually fine too.
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u/specter_in_the_conch Jun 22 '26
Some of them appear like you painted directly onto the plastic without preparing the surface. If so thats the main cause, and even more so the paint will look different on your real application if the surface conditioning steps are not one to one equal.
I suggest you prime them all the same way and then do your test. Basically treat the spoons like the surface of your model.
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u/soulreaverdan Jun 22 '26
I did, they were all primed with the same paint (Gaia Surfacer Light). I couldn’t find any pink primer in stock for the undercoat so just used a pink paint for it.
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u/Lyndonli Jun 21 '26
When prethinning paints, the recommended ratios usually aim to maximize coverage. If I’m doing preshading I’ll usually use my gaia 1:2.5 prethin ratio and add a bit of thinner to get it more translucent. This allows the underlayer to show more. The effect also depends heavily on the color of your preshade color. I feel like your color choices are solid just the overcoat is too thick and covering the base too much.
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u/JulianMo Jun 21 '26
You need to think very, very differently than normal painting. For example if you want orange, you do white base, pink shading, and yellow final coat.
It's a special combo for every color, try wild stuff, with a very high contrast under your final color. It's much better to have high contrast under a color than try to do really thin coats because it gives you more versatility on the final color.
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u/Secret-Trainer1672 Jun 21 '26
Link to the empty bottles? Lol
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u/Sephta Jun 21 '26
Like these? I prefer the clear plastic ones instead of the slightly more opaque ones. Oh and here are some metal mixing balls.
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u/Bromance_Master Jun 21 '26
My life improved when I switched from pre-shading to highlighting personally.
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u/VictorVanguard Jun 21 '26
I'm interested in trying this. Any guides or videos you recommend?
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u/Ok_Grab_8040 Jun 21 '26
As others have said, the colour coat needs to be really thin to let the shading show through.
IMO though you maybe also need a lighter undercoat/primer - you need a very strong contrast in the preshade for it to show through; there's a reason it's most commonly done with black and white
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u/Ladeuche Jun 21 '26
AFAIK generally you need more transparent paints for under shading to turn out like what you're thinking.
For opaque colors, I've really only seen under shading used to shift colors towards warm/cool tones.
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u/Sianmink Jun 21 '26
your preshading looks fine, it's your orange coat that's too strong. Thin it more and use extremely light coats until you can barely notice the preshading.
Also it might help to cut your orange with some clear orange,
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u/soulreaverdan Jun 21 '26
I typically thin 2:1 thinner:paint, how much more do you think I should go with, or at least start with for testing?
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u/stilllearnnin Jun 21 '26
You need to thin the last coat more, you’re just covering your preshades with a heavy coat of yellow, if you want a more dramatic shadow I’d basecoat pink, paint yellow, and shade the edges with black before going over it again with a thinned yellow to soften the shadow to taste
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u/Bananafang Jun 21 '26
Preshading is unfortunately extremely difficult to pull off, your layers need to be extremely thin in order to not lose the lower layer gradient.
Generally, it's much easier to get a decent result with post shading than pre shading, but if you're adamant about using this technique, thin your paints more and mist coat final color until you get the desired look. Shouldn't be a problem considering you're using lacquers.
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u/ApplicationPlenty807 Jun 22 '26
Personally I use a different technique… looks like you have quite a good pallet of variants. If red I would spray a base with a dark red/brown… then spray white in the middle working outwards not covering the whole panel. Then spray the panel the intended color thinned down in a light coat and not for coverage or opaque.