I love Vince's work. This is a great vid. If you want more, definitely hit up NJM Marco Frisoni. He's got whole series on Zorn, blanchitsu and speed painting in this style. I cannot recommend him enough. For the love of all that is unholy, Vince, why have you not done an Interview with the Artist with him?
This is fast becoming my favourite painting video on TH-cam for my Mordheim Witchhunter minis. I've watched it several times and I still feel a sense of shock as the beautiful mini gets oil caked over it. Looks like I'm going to be stepping outside my comfort zone this weekend!
You said "big ole brush" and now all I can hear is LL Cool J going "Vinny got a big ol' brush" I haven't had enough coffee yet for this video lol. Thanks always Vince for your videos
I love you Vince. I haven't had time to paint in about a year and your videos and instructions are inspiring. They make me take up the brush. You are an amazing painter and teacher. The best I've seen on TH-cam. Keep up doing the amazing work you're doing!
I've always thought of John Blanche as a the British version of Mobius as an illustrator, that sort of weird other worldly style he has, different styles though.
The "blood channel" is called a fuller. Also, this is a great explanation of the style, really easy to follow. edit: I should have gotten all the way to the end before asking questions
Great stuff! I follow a lot of techniques from Michael Rinaldi too. I've taken the highlights and shadows a step further. It you can paint the most raised surfaces white/off-white and with a dry brush fade them out to the pure acrylic. It creates a gradient of dark brown oil, faded oil, base color, faded white, white. In shorts, oils are great and I've been trying to work them in a lot more with my figures. A couple of other things, I always put my oils on a small piece of cardboard to soak out a little of the linseed oil. It's not totally necessary but helps with drying time, especially when using artist oils. Secondly, I've found burnt sienna and raw umber combined makes a fantastic sepia-ish pinwash for gold.
Exactly the way I worked with oils before. I just adapted your video about using oil washes on buildings for my minis. Awesome job! Best explanation on removing oil colours as a secret revelation!!
i’ve had some sisters of battle models for over a year now that i never really found a paint scheme for that was time effective and looked good enough for an army. have tried a grimdark approach before but given up on it as i didn’t think it looked good. but this explaines it so perfectly and has such easy steps. really love the simplicity with only 4 colors. i’ve cranked out like 7 models the recent days and they look great so far. really helpful video vince, thanks.
Honestly I thought that maybe you'll produce something average+ at best, since it's really special. Then at 15:34, I changed my mind and imagined M.Blanche leaving a "Well done." in the comments. Thank you for the jaw dropping surprise, and my apologies for thinking you wouldn't pull something this special.
I was not interested in the topic at first, then I thought to give a try - THEN you had my interest! Very interesting look when sticking to this limited color scheme. I even learned some tricks on the wetblending! As always: it was a pleasure to watch and thank you!
Grimdark usually turns out rather (streaking) grime dark and Blanchitsu mostly looks like utter "chit". But not this here. Vince I applaud you and it's unreal what you've done for the hobby and community in all those years. Thank you sincerely from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you so much for this, Vince! This gets me inspired to paint up some converted Dark Angels that has been sitting on the shelf for far too long in a Grimdark style. Your videos are truly a great resource for learning new techniques and improving.
I think this style would work wonders on LOTR minis. I find people often paint their LOTR minis too dark and they lose their pop on the table, but grimdark might be realistic enough for the setting without giving up the eye catching colours.
This is a great primer on the Grimdark style. I think what people often lose with grimdark work is they think its all about dirt, darkness etc. Really it is a style about contrast. 1 or 2 focal points of colour against the darkness. It makes things like OSL work so well in the style.
I have been trying to figure this style out for a while now, go glad you did this video. It makes a lot more sense then dip it in streaking grim, and pour mineral spirits on it.
Sometimes I suspect that Vince gets a list of what people search his channel for because, within a week of me looking for something he's not done yet, it just pops right up on my feed.
This is very interesting, the palette is very similar to what Caravaggio used when painting chiaro skuro, and the Grimdark effect is also quite similar. Really loved this.
Thanks Vince. I started using oil and enamel paints to try and develop my own Blanchitsu painting style recently. Your videos have been an amazing resource. I love that shadow brown paint. It's like Agrax Earthshade on steroids!
I wonder how the effect would change if you switched from a vibrant red to a vibrant yellow, and desaturated the red instead? Yellow Ocre is iron oxide, as is Indian Red or Sienna; Cadmiums make either reds or yellows. This might be worth some experimenting!
I recently started working with oils for washes and I just love it. The dulling down of colours is something I actually really like, also the slight dirtiness. I tend to weather quite much on my models as I am not a good painter and it helps quite much to achieve an acceptable result (at least in my eyes.)
Love this video and the demonstration of the technique. I really want to take a plunge in trying to paint like this. Just a personal note, I feel like the skirt should be dirty and grimy on the bottom (where it drags around the ground, catches on dirt etc), rather than where the waist is.
Now I'm thinking about painting a Malifaux Reva Crew in the Zorn palette. I don't know if I'll go down the grim dark road but something like that reduced color palette was already on my mind. Thank you.
Excellent, this came out great! Easy explanation of the technique too, I'd be able to follow this. The thing about Blanche's work that sticks out for me is not so much the reds (definitely the accent color), but the yellows. Everything has a yellowish tint to it, ranging from brown, through the very ocre yellow to the bright yellow highlights, as if he uses yellow as the mother color, and pretty much paints over with the rest of the Zorn palette. So while this Sister looks absolutely fantastic, she is missing all that overall tone that says Blanche to me, if you will.
Totally fair, and you are right, there is definitely a sepia tone to all of his work, I think that's something that's totally fair to bring into it exactly as you describe. The goal here was to give something more simple for folks to follow.
@@VinceVenturella That's the conclusion I'm forced to, too-I've also been told that they're not real, but I'm quite sure I've seen them on historic weapons. Anyway, the weight explanation certainly makes engineering sense and (FWIW) there's a wikipedia article that supports the idea. It would be nice to ask a swordsmith but it's been some time since I moved in anachronistic circles!
Hey Vince, I was wondering (especially with the new Stormcast coming in a few months) if you were thinking of doing a video about high quality TMM on a large amount of armour? I know you have a few hobby cheating episodes on speed painting TMM and how to do TMM weapons which are all very good, but I feel like there aren't really too many videos out there that talk about how to achieve a high quality TMM effect for characters or minis in mostly armour and how to add visual interest to the large amount of metals. Anyway I love your videos, they've taught me a lot, keep up the great content!
Great video, really useful technique! Can particuarly see how I will use the subtraction method with vehicle units in particular! Thanks for the content
Looks amazing, Vince. I actually picked up some oil paints recently to make up washes. Think I might use this paint scheme for my Crimson Court vampires.
Imho, I think that you missed the mark on this one. It's not only about having a black oil wash... but also including sepia with splashes of green, in addition to dark red with splashes of orange. Otherwise it lacks the tone contrast that blanchitsu has.
I know you mentioned that you could do the oil wash with acrylics, but how specifically would you recommend doing that? My first thoughts are high translucent grimy brown wash + highlight, maybe 2 or 3 times. Or maybe dry brush instead of traditional highlight, to make it slightly more organic
Yeah, that's one way, you could also mix in a fair amount of flow improver and drying retarder into something like contrast, apply quickly and then wipe it down.
Lovely piece and demonstration of how to use oils for a grimdark effect. It's a real test of faith to take your nicely painted mini and weather or Blanchitsu it like this but well worth the leap. Have you experimented with the speckle/splatter effect that is also a trademark of Blanche's work? Would love to see any results of that. Many thanks for uploading another gem.
A lot of the grimdark style as applied to minis is just too much, more than a 28mm scale sculpture can bear, but this was just right. I think the Zorn palette helps a lot (and if you’re wondering how you can do Ultramarines in this palette, remember that a lot of tubes of cobalt blue were found in Zorn’s studio after his death)
@@oliverp3545 yeah ultramarine is a very distinctive colour and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a space marine painted with it. But in practice most commercial mini paints use a green-biased phathlo blue as the base of their “ultramarine” formula.
Hi Vince, I wonder if this is the same Recipe you used for your Novitates Kill team on the Warhammer Communty? If not, do you have the Schema details available somewhere?
Once again, amazing videos (currently binge watching a lot of yours but I still have a lot to watch 😅) ! How did you prime it? Is that a zenithal or a pure grey? I got a similar approach for the white cloak but I start from a black prime and it is taking me forever to cover with ivory 😭
Hey Vince, I was curious just as a general hobby question as i couldn't find if you talk about it in your backlog. Do you varnish your armies? I know a lot of painters talk about using the different finishes of paint, but do you find it is valid to just focus on the color and unify with a varnish? Thank you in advance for your time, and thank you for all the free education with your videos.
SO in general, I actually varnish mid-process. What I generally do with armies is I paint all the matte paints, varish with a matte varnish to even everything out, then I apply any metal paints and that's done.
Hey Vince! This has nothing to do with this vid, but thanks as always. I did enjoy it. I know you’re always looking for ideas for videos, and I’m in some pretty dire need of hobby cheating... though this may just be beyond help. I only really paint board game figures, and sometimes they’re... bad. I just got a big-box delivery full of tons of minis who, heroes included, basically have no faces. Just melted plastic. Any tips or tricks for how to make it look like they have a face, or to cover up/distract from that fact?
It's really tough, when the sculpt is bad, there often isn't much to do. My best advice is this, the worse it gets, the more you are basically needing to freehand the sculpt back to life. You have to create dark lines to separate everything, then you sort of have to add in the shading and build in highlights into areas.
Love this Method. Quick question, once the oil paint is completely dry do you feel it needs a varnish to be tough? So far I varnish my acrylics prior to applying the oil and gore on my zombies. I’d like to avoid another coat of varnish to avoid lessening the impacts of the gore but I also don’t know how fragile oil paints are and I will be playing with my minis
Must continue to resist buying oils. On the other hand I think I'm getting that green stuff world gold pigment. Also a question, what happened to Hobby Cheating Q&A?
I tried the grimdark style for the first time and the mistake I made was that I basecoated everything, then did an enamel wash thinking that I will just do my gradients and highlights last, but then I realized I'd have to do all that with the olive-green filter that streaking grime does. So I kidna ended up overriding that whole process in the end :(
Dumb question maybe, but how would you tackle a project with a pronounced color that's not part of this 4-color palette? Say for instance a Dark Angels unit where the green needs to pop. Maybe just swap out the red with a dingy green?
I think a more vibrant style will be more for me but I still love seeing other style and I'm sure I'll try this out sometime and does oils seems to be like magic. I'll have to try to find that red color from Kimera, did you use it on The Duchess (Don't tell Scott but I prefer your paint job more but both are really awesome, I can only dream of painting that well).
There is already two videos about those pigments one about the pigments themselves then exploring how to use them. I don’t think that exact mix was explained but close enough for use
@@bodotrenaud7441 Yeah, I watched those, but now he's mixing the pigment with VMC gold and copper instead of the metal varnish and im curious to learn why.
Do you think there's room for using different palettes, while still achieving a 'grimdark' style? I know Blanchitsu is specifically the red, ivory, ochre and black, but I'm trying to come up with a colour scheme that has the same grimdark feel, while being colder. Any ideas how you'd go about doing that?
What is the most common cause of a base layer of acrylics coming off when the oil wash is applied? Incomplete or too thin of coverage? I tried a squad of imperial guard with an oil wash and I had this issue in a few placed.
Usually too much pressure with the brush, the oil paint as a wash is a lot of liquid sitting on the acrylic paint softening it. If you're not careful with the brush, or use something with stiff bristles, it will peel the paint.
Nothing like a Hobby Cheating vid to pass the time while working from home! Love how you made Blanchitsu easy to understand. I think too many people use grimdark in general to make excuses for poor paint jobs rather than taking the time to get better. My own work trends toward grimdark/Blanchitsu, but I'm not fully there yet I don't think. Currently working on a squad of "Angry Marines." I'm wondering how it would look if I tried to go full Blanchitsu with something that's supposed to be a bright yellow paint job...
And down the John Blanche research rabbit hole I go! Hahahaha I have so much of his artwork and never even knew his name! I kind feel terrible about that....
Great video as always, Vince! I'm curious what your personal opinion on Blanchitsu style mini painting is, though. Do you have a fondness for it? A lot of painters tend to have a love it or hate it reaction to Blanchitsu. I've heard Miniac mention on Trapped Under Plastic before how he doesn't particularly like it, for example.
I have a fondness for the art, not as much for it applied to miniatures when it's used as an excuse for painting badly (as it often is), but that being said, there are really, really talented people doing Grimdark work and I wanted to highlight that it doesn't have to be just dirty and messy.
For the gold mixture do you use any additives? And if there's any way of putting a number on "very small amount" of gold pigment I'd be curious to know. Great vid as usual. Looking to move from AoS to 40k and may actually go for some Sisters.
This is the kind of paint scheme I both love and hate. I love how simple and effective it is, but I hate that my eye goes straight to all the tiny mistakes that nobody else would ever care about even if they noticed.
@@brentwood7660 Different medium; different rules. Blanche's style isn't exactly to my tastes, but I can see that it isn't intended to be 'realistic.' The 'mistakes' I'm talking about mostly are where you get those splodges of paint that don't follow the sculpted detail.
@@nicholassmith7984 Thank you for your conjecture regarding rules and medium. I was having trouble reconciling why I am so judgmental for 3d art, when 2d illustrations get away with “mistakes” wonderfully. Personally, I think your going to see less of this “clean” art going forward (focused on realism) and more impressionist art with a sketch style painting. This is not easy to pull off. It leans heavily on shadows while accentuating key details of the model. Sam Lenz just did this with his 1st edition Warcry set. Check out his Patreon! It’s Unchained!
Is it okay to do two separate oil washes as long as you wait proper time between each, or does the second reactivate the first? For example say I paint a light red cloak and want a light darker red oil wash first for depth, then want to do a black oil wash and wipe away all but the deep recesses, should this be okay? Thank you, very helpful video and a really cool style of painting
If I wanted to extend this palette while keeping the same melancholy feel (I'm envisioning Wentz, Bekinski, etc.), do you have any recommendations for adding greens or blues into a mini?
Nope, didn't varnish here. I don't generally varnish in the end over metals, but a little mix of satin and ultra matte is my general go-to if I need to.
Great vid as usual! Just a quick question, I bought some odorless mineral spirit and 2 oil pains to try some oil washes. Is it OK to premix a wash and store it in a plastic dropper bottle? Wont go bad with time? Thanks!
Concerning the oils how long exactly dos oil paint need to dry before you can add a second layers, and is there any way you can speed up the drying process, i always thought that if you paint a layer of oils and don't let it dry properly the next layer will just mix with it. Hence the question since i don't wan to ruin layers already applied. Thx, love the videos :)
Very interesting to see your take on some grim dark techniques! How well do you reckon this workflow would work with a more colourful palette, e.g. the Venturella palette ice yellow, magenta, teal & paynes grey?
Fantastic! Been getting into oil paints some, but haven't messed with any enamels. Have you found these two products to be equivalent, or having some substantive difference? Also, the music gave me some slight age of empires vibes 🎵
Thank you. Nice to see your take on it. How long do oil paints take to dry, for you? I've been seeing varying results, and honestly I have a hard time telling what factors might influence the process. Do your version of oil paints, with the white spirit mixed in, dry faster? I know washes are fairly quick.
Vince has that same energy as the community college professor who's classes are out of major but you take them anyway because their fun.
I love that and happy to help. :)
Lol i never went but that is perfect. He reminds me of my favorite teacher in high school, my art teacher.
Wipey wipey..... dibble dibble dap... the dark chorus of Vince painting.
You summon something dark if you keep going.
There should be T-shirts with these lines, “sticky-outie bits,” and “I like to keep those pinks poppin’.”
As a bad painter, this video is kind of mind blowing.
I hope it's helpful. :)
This is hands down the best explanation of the Blanche style, palette and oils I have seen in a long while 👌🏼👍🏼
Agreed 👍
NJM did some good videos on the topic too
@@dv_xl Marco is quickly becoming THE authority on advanced technique and paint theory.
Glad it was helpful!
I love Vince's work. This is a great vid. If you want more, definitely hit up NJM Marco Frisoni. He's got whole series on Zorn, blanchitsu and speed painting in this style. I cannot recommend him enough. For the love of all that is unholy, Vince, why have you not done an Interview with the Artist with him?
This is fast becoming my favourite painting video on TH-cam for my Mordheim Witchhunter minis. I've watched it several times and I still feel a sense of shock as the beautiful mini gets oil caked over it. Looks like I'm going to be stepping outside my comfort zone this weekend!
Thank you so much 😀
You said "big ole brush" and now all I can hear is LL Cool J going "Vinny got a big ol' brush" I haven't had enough coffee yet for this video lol. Thanks always Vince for your videos
😁
I love you Vince. I haven't had time to paint in about a year and your videos and instructions are inspiring. They make me take up the brush. You are an amazing painter and teacher. The best I've seen on TH-cam. Keep up doing the amazing work you're doing!
Thank you, I very much apprecaite that. :)
I've always thought of John Blanche as a the British version of Mobius as an illustrator, that sort of weird other worldly style he has, different styles though.
If you want the Japanese version of Mobius or Blanche, check out Tsutomu Nihei
Good comparison.
Or Philippe Druillet maybe?
The "blood channel" is called a fuller. Also, this is a great explanation of the style, really easy to follow. edit: I should have gotten all the way to the end before asking questions
You can ask questions any time. :)
Great stuff! I follow a lot of techniques from Michael Rinaldi too. I've taken the highlights and shadows a step further. It you can paint the most raised surfaces white/off-white and with a dry brush fade them out to the pure acrylic. It creates a gradient of dark brown oil, faded oil, base color, faded white, white. In shorts, oils are great and I've been trying to work them in a lot more with my figures.
A couple of other things, I always put my oils on a small piece of cardboard to soak out a little of the linseed oil. It's not totally necessary but helps with drying time, especially when using artist oils. Secondly, I've found burnt sienna and raw umber combined makes a fantastic sepia-ish pinwash for gold.
Great thoughts for sure. :)
Exactly the way I worked with oils before. I just adapted your video about using oil washes on buildings for my minis. Awesome job! Best explanation on removing oil colours as a secret revelation!!
Glad I could help!
i’ve had some sisters of battle models for over a year now that i never really found a paint scheme for that was time effective and looked good enough for an army.
have tried a grimdark approach before but given up on it as i didn’t think it looked good. but this explaines it so perfectly and has such easy steps. really love the simplicity with only 4 colors. i’ve cranked out like 7 models the recent days and they look great so far. really helpful video vince, thanks.
Awesome, happy to help. :)
Thanks for really explaining what this style means, Vince! I had been unable to understand so far.
Happy to help!
Honestly I thought that maybe you'll produce something average+ at best, since it's really special. Then at 15:34, I changed my mind and imagined M.Blanche leaving a "Well done." in the comments. Thank you for the jaw dropping surprise, and my apologies for thinking you wouldn't pull something this special.
Awesome, so glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you for anothet golden nugget of wisdom Vince. You are truly inspirational.
My pleasure!
I was not interested in the topic at first, then I thought to give a try - THEN you had my interest! Very interesting look when sticking to this limited color scheme. I even learned some tricks on the wetblending! As always: it was a pleasure to watch and thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Grimdark usually turns out rather (streaking) grime dark and Blanchitsu mostly looks like utter "chit". But not this here. Vince I applaud you and it's unreal what you've done for the hobby and community in all those years. Thank you sincerely from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you, always happy to help. :)
Ver'nice! I've seen several tutorials on this subject, but this was by far the easiest and best explanation. Thank you for another great tutorial!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much for this, Vince! This gets me inspired to paint up some converted Dark Angels that has been sitting on the shelf for far too long in a Grimdark style. Your videos are truly a great resource for learning new techniques and improving.
Go for it!
I think this style would work wonders on LOTR minis. I find people often paint their LOTR minis too dark and they lose their pop on the table, but grimdark might be realistic enough for the setting without giving up the eye catching colours.
Yeah, its very adaptable.
This is a great primer on the Grimdark style. I think what people often lose with grimdark work is they think its all about dirt, darkness etc. Really it is a style about contrast. 1 or 2 focal points of colour against the darkness. It makes things like OSL work so well in the style.
Yep, I agree.
I have been trying to figure this style out for a while now, go glad you did this video. It makes a lot more sense then dip it in streaking grim, and pour mineral spirits on it.
Glad it was helpful!
Sometimes I suspect that Vince gets a list of what people search his channel for because, within a week of me looking for something he's not done yet, it just pops right up on my feed.
I'll say I would love that list. :)
Thank you Vince for this wonderful Blanchitsu style instruction video
Glad you liked it!
Love this vid! I think it shows a good understanding of the ideas behind the style that some other grimdark tutorials miss.
Glad you think so! :)
This is very interesting, the palette is very similar to what Caravaggio used when painting chiaro skuro, and the Grimdark effect is also quite similar. Really loved this.
100%, love that palette. Glad you enjoyed. :)
Thanks Vince. I started using oil and enamel paints to try and develop my own Blanchitsu painting style recently. Your videos have been an amazing resource. I love that shadow brown paint. It's like Agrax Earthshade on steroids!
Yes indeed. :)
Right on time. One of my favorite painting styles. Especially fitting for the 40k setting!
Glad you like it!
Nice I love the Zorn Palette ^.^ especially with a slightly blue tinted black to simulate genuine ivory black it really helps teach colour mixing.
Yeah, it's such a fun palette to work with.
I wonder how the effect would change if you switched from a vibrant red to a vibrant yellow, and desaturated the red instead?
Yellow Ocre is iron oxide, as is Indian Red or Sienna; Cadmiums make either reds or yellows. This might be worth some experimenting!
I think you could certainly do it, red is just more eye leading generally.
I recently started working with oils for washes and I just love it. The dulling down of colours is something I actually really like, also the slight dirtiness. I tend to weather quite much on my models as I am not a good painter and it helps quite much to achieve an acceptable result (at least in my eyes.)
Wonderful!
Vince, your two hours are like everyone else taking 8. Great job!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed.
15:40 Nice work!
Ah yeah, Grimdirt. Not something I really go for, but a lot of people love it. Good tutorial for it!
Thank you! Cheers!
Excellent video as allways. Some more with limited palette from You hand would be nice. Or: How to large scaly beasts.
I'll add it to the list. :)
Love this video and the demonstration of the technique. I really want to take a plunge in trying to paint like this. Just a personal note, I feel like the skirt should be dirty and grimy on the bottom (where it drags around the ground, catches on dirt etc), rather than where the waist is.
Indeed, certainly coudl have left more there or built it back up separately with the darker paint for some dirt. :)
Now I'm thinking about painting a Malifaux Reva Crew in the Zorn palette. I don't know if I'll go down the grim dark road but something like that reduced color palette was already on my mind.
Thank you.
Sounds like an awesome idea.
Such a great video. Had the Zorn palette on my mind for some time. Now I am really motivated to try it out.
You should!
Excellent, this came out great! Easy explanation of the technique too, I'd be able to follow this.
The thing about Blanche's work that sticks out for me is not so much the reds (definitely the accent color), but the yellows. Everything has a yellowish tint to it, ranging from brown, through the very ocre yellow to the bright yellow highlights, as if he uses yellow as the mother color, and pretty much paints over with the rest of the Zorn palette.
So while this Sister looks absolutely fantastic, she is missing all that overall tone that says Blanche to me, if you will.
Totally fair, and you are right, there is definitely a sepia tone to all of his work, I think that's something that's totally fair to bring into it exactly as you describe. The goal here was to give something more simple for folks to follow.
A fuller (“blood channel”) is, I believe, a thing. It reduces weapon weight without overly affecting balance, strength or rigidity.
Interesting, I was told that was not a thing, but maybe they just meant that term, perhaps it was the term that's wrong. :)
@@VinceVenturella That's the conclusion I'm forced to, too-I've also been told that they're not real, but I'm quite sure I've seen them on historic weapons. Anyway, the weight explanation certainly makes engineering sense and (FWIW) there's a wikipedia article that supports the idea. It would be nice to ask a swordsmith but it's been some time since I moved in anachronistic circles!
Very informative, thank you
Glad it was helpful!
Hey Vince, I was wondering (especially with the new Stormcast coming in a few months) if you were thinking of doing a video about high quality TMM on a large amount of armour? I know you have a few hobby cheating episodes on speed painting TMM and how to do TMM weapons which are all very good, but I feel like there aren't really too many videos out there that talk about how to achieve a high quality TMM effect for characters or minis in mostly armour and how to add visual interest to the large amount of metals. Anyway I love your videos, they've taught me a lot, keep up the great content!
Well, you might not have to wait too long on that...
@@VinceVenturella Awesome, I'll be sure to keep an eye out
Best blanchitsu video on the tube 😁😁😁😁
THank you, very happy to help. :)
Great video, really useful technique! Can particuarly see how I will use the subtraction method with vehicle units in particular! Thanks for the content
Glad it was helpful!
Great content, nice simple steps and explanations, thanks.
Thank you, always happy to help.
Looks amazing, Vince. I actually picked up some oil paints recently to make up washes. Think I might use this paint scheme for my Crimson Court vampires.
Happy to help. :)
Fantastic video as usual, Vince. Very similar to Jon's latest. I'll definitely using something close to both for my cursed city box.
Happy to help. :)
Great job! Love the background tunes too
Glad you enjoy it!
Another great and informative video vince, stay safe, paint on!
Thanks, you too!
Vince, presented once again as, “low-hanging fruit” - attainable by noobs like me. Very appreciated 👍🏻
Happy to help!
Great video! Do you have any suggestions on making a Grimdark purple cape?
Same tricks as here, desaturate, get it grimy and stay out of the rich royal purple.
@@VinceVenturella thanks Vinny!
Imho, I think that you missed the mark on this one. It's not only about having a black oil wash... but also including sepia with splashes of green, in addition to dark red with splashes of orange. Otherwise it lacks the tone contrast that blanchitsu has.
You are right, but I wanted to keep this simple, part of the goal was to be fast and something people could replicate across an army. :)
I'm going to try this Gold mixture. I don't have the Green Stuff World pigments, maybe I'll try a scale 75 or Pro Acryl color mixed in we'll see.
Good luck! :)
I didn't want that video to end 😂 can you do more of these please Vince?
I'll see what I can do.
@@VinceVenturella grim dark vehicle video? A sisters Paragon warsuit? A rhino?
I know you mentioned that you could do the oil wash with acrylics, but how specifically would you recommend doing that?
My first thoughts are high translucent grimy brown wash + highlight, maybe 2 or 3 times. Or maybe dry brush instead of traditional highlight, to make it slightly more organic
Yeah, that's one way, you could also mix in a fair amount of flow improver and drying retarder into something like contrast, apply quickly and then wipe it down.
Nice video. Now, I might get clue how to make my battlemechs grimdark. But do this paint style is good for all scales, not only 1/56 byt also 1/300?
Lovely piece and demonstration of how to use oils for a grimdark effect. It's a real test of faith to take your nicely painted mini and weather or Blanchitsu it like this but well worth the leap. Have you experimented with the speckle/splatter effect that is also a trademark of Blanche's work? Would love to see any results of that. Many thanks for uploading another gem.
Thank you very much! Yeah, I am not generally a fan of splatter, but that might be a whole video honestly - how to splatter. :)
A lot of the grimdark style as applied to minis is just too much, more than a 28mm scale sculpture can bear, but this was just right. I think the Zorn palette helps a lot (and if you’re wondering how you can do Ultramarines in this palette, remember that a lot of tubes of cobalt blue were found in Zorn’s studio after his death)
It's still funny to me that they're Cobalt not Ultramarine.
@@oliverp3545 yeah ultramarine is a very distinctive colour and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a space marine painted with it. But in practice most commercial mini paints use a green-biased phathlo blue as the base of their “ultramarine” formula.
Good points on both. :)
This is really making me want to try tackling an ork squad using this technique.
Sounds awesome to me.
Lots of old-school orks were painted in red with black & white checkered trim...
Thanks, that was great to watch.
Glad you enjoyed it
And I suppose this brings us back to the discussion of realism vs impressionism
Doesn't it always.
Alternative title: quick way to achieving Golden Demon standard.
Well, I wouldn't go that far, but it has a cool look. :)
AK 047 Dark Brown wash would be good for this style.
Absolutely!
Great video! Any alternate suggested Yellow Ochres if we don't have Scale?
Any will work, Vallejo, Kimera, Scale, AK Interactive, as long as it's Yellow Ochre or something close, it's just fine.
Great video! I was just wondering why you don’t personally varnish before the oils?
No real need to. You can, it doesn't hurt anything, it's just generally unecessary.
Hi Vince, I wonder if this is the same Recipe you used for your Novitates Kill team on the Warhammer Communty?
If not, do you have the Schema details available somewhere?
Same scheme.
Once again, amazing videos (currently binge watching a lot of yours but I still have a lot to watch 😅) ! How did you prime it? Is that a zenithal or a pure grey? I got a similar approach for the white cloak but I start from a black prime and it is taking me forever to cover with ivory 😭
Zenithal, just makes the rest of the process easier. :)
Hey Vince, I was curious just as a general hobby question as i couldn't find if you talk about it in your backlog. Do you varnish your armies? I know a lot of painters talk about using the different finishes of paint, but do you find it is valid to just focus on the color and unify with a varnish? Thank you in advance for your time, and thank you for all the free education with your videos.
SO in general, I actually varnish mid-process. What I generally do with armies is I paint all the matte paints, varish with a matte varnish to even everything out, then I apply any metal paints and that's done.
Hey Vince!
This has nothing to do with this vid, but thanks as always. I did enjoy it.
I know you’re always looking for ideas for videos, and I’m in some pretty dire need of hobby cheating... though this may just be beyond help.
I only really paint board game figures, and sometimes they’re... bad. I just got a big-box delivery full of tons of minis who, heroes included, basically have no faces. Just melted plastic.
Any tips or tricks for how to make it look like they have a face, or to cover up/distract from that fact?
It's really tough, when the sculpt is bad, there often isn't much to do. My best advice is this, the worse it gets, the more you are basically needing to freehand the sculpt back to life. You have to create dark lines to separate everything, then you sort of have to add in the shading and build in highlights into areas.
Love this Method. Quick question, once the oil paint is completely dry do you feel it needs a varnish to be tough? So far I varnish my acrylics prior to applying the oil and gore on my zombies. I’d like to avoid another coat of varnish to avoid lessening the impacts of the gore but I also don’t know how fragile oil paints are and I will be playing with my minis
They will take a few days to completely cure, but once they do so, they're tough.
Must continue to resist buying oils. On the other hand I think I'm getting that green stuff world gold pigment.
Also a question, what happened to Hobby Cheating Q&A?
I want to get back to them, but I just haven't had the time, I will eventually find a way to work it back into the schedule. :)
I tried the grimdark style for the first time and the mistake I made was that I basecoated everything, then did an enamel wash thinking that I will just do my gradients and highlights last, but then I realized I'd have to do all that with the olive-green filter that streaking grime does. So I kidna ended up overriding that whole process in the end :(
Yeah, this is one of those things where the order of operations is important.
Dumb question maybe, but how would you tackle a project with a pronounced color that's not part of this 4-color palette? Say for instance a Dark Angels unit where the green needs to pop. Maybe just swap out the red with a dingy green?
Yep, you have it, swap out the primary red for your other primary bright color, just always ask - how I can I minimze and neutralize the palette.
I think a more vibrant style will be more for me but I still love seeing other style and I'm sure I'll try this out sometime and does oils seems to be like magic. I'll have to try to find that red color from Kimera, did you use it on The Duchess (Don't tell Scott but I prefer your paint job more but both are really awesome, I can only dream of painting that well).
Yep, same red color. :)
I feel like Vince should have his own university.
Awesome video! Could you recommend me and alternative for Kimera Red and Black?
Any good solid red from pro Acryl or the army painter will work. Same for the blacks.
@@VinceVenturellaThank you so much for your answer! Greetings from Spain!
Can we get a full video on the gold mix you mention? I'm happy with my silvers, but golds, coppers, and bronzes continue to cause me trouble...
There is already two videos about those pigments one about the pigments themselves then exploring how to use them. I don’t think that exact mix was explained but close enough for use
@@bodotrenaud7441 Yeah, I watched those, but now he's mixing the pigment with VMC gold and copper instead of the metal varnish and im curious to learn why.
I will see what I can do to work it into a video.
Do you think there's room for using different palettes, while still achieving a 'grimdark' style? I know Blanchitsu is specifically the red, ivory, ochre and black, but I'm trying to come up with a colour scheme that has the same grimdark feel, while being colder. Any ideas how you'd go about doing that?
Sure, even Zorn had 2 different blue/greens he would use. So absolutely. :)
What is the most common cause of a base layer of acrylics coming off when the oil wash is applied? Incomplete or too thin of coverage? I tried a squad of imperial guard with an oil wash and I had this issue in a few placed.
Usually too much pressure with the brush, the oil paint as a wash is a lot of liquid sitting on the acrylic paint softening it. If you're not careful with the brush, or use something with stiff bristles, it will peel the paint.
Great mini for this tip
Glad you like it
Great stuff friend 👏 👍
Thank you 👍
Nothing like a Hobby Cheating vid to pass the time while working from home!
Love how you made Blanchitsu easy to understand. I think too many people use grimdark in general to make excuses for poor paint jobs rather than taking the time to get better.
My own work trends toward grimdark/Blanchitsu, but I'm not fully there yet I don't think. Currently working on a squad of "Angry Marines." I'm wondering how it would look if I tried to go full Blanchitsu with something that's supposed to be a bright yellow paint job...
You can certainly do it with yellows and it's awesome, but you generally want to alter the colors slightly.
This just looks awesome.
Where did i put that sisters box ?!
Exactly, this will get them painted fast. :)
And down the John Blanche research rabbit hole I go! Hahahaha I have so much of his artwork and never even knew his name! I kind feel terrible about that....
You're going to have a great time.
Fantastic video! What brush (size and brand) are you using when you apply the initial colors and red highlights at the end? Thanks!
Generally just a size 1, with metal paints, you want to be careful with your nicer sable brushes as the metal paints can damage them easily.
Nailed it again, thank you
My pleasure!
Great video as always, Vince! I'm curious what your personal opinion on Blanchitsu style mini painting is, though. Do you have a fondness for it? A lot of painters tend to have a love it or hate it reaction to Blanchitsu. I've heard Miniac mention on Trapped Under Plastic before how he doesn't particularly like it, for example.
I have a fondness for the art, not as much for it applied to miniatures when it's used as an excuse for painting badly (as it often is), but that being said, there are really, really talented people doing Grimdark work and I wanted to highlight that it doesn't have to be just dirty and messy.
@Vince Venturella, Is the painting footage in this video 1.5x speed or real time?
I generally run footage at 1.25 speed.
For the gold mixture do you use any additives? And if there's any way of putting a number on "very small amount" of gold pigment I'd be curious to know. Great vid as usual. Looking to move from AoS to 40k and may actually go for some Sisters.
I would generally use my new recipe for gold which integrates the pigment.
@@VinceVenturella I don't know if that means you use any additives or not lol. 3 Gold, 2 Copper, pinch of pigment anything else?
This is the kind of paint scheme I both love and hate. I love how simple and effective it is, but I hate that my eye goes straight to all the tiny mistakes that nobody else would ever care about even if they noticed.
I’m curious how you feel or react when you look at the illustrations. Do you notice the same “mistakes”?
Yes, you do have to let it go. :) _ with this style, there will be these kind of mistakes.
@@brentwood7660 Different medium; different rules. Blanche's style isn't exactly to my tastes, but I can see that it isn't intended to be 'realistic.'
The 'mistakes' I'm talking about mostly are where you get those splodges of paint that don't follow the sculpted detail.
@@nicholassmith7984 Thank you for your conjecture regarding rules and medium. I was having trouble reconciling why I am so judgmental for 3d art, when 2d illustrations get away with “mistakes” wonderfully.
Personally, I think your going to see less of this “clean” art going forward (focused on realism) and more impressionist art with a sketch style painting. This is not easy to pull off. It leans heavily on shadows while accentuating key details of the model. Sam Lenz just did this with his 1st edition Warcry set. Check out his Patreon! It’s Unchained!
Is it okay to do two separate oil washes as long as you wait proper time between each, or does the second reactivate the first? For example say I paint a light red cloak and want a light darker red oil wash first for depth, then want to do a black oil wash and wipe away all but the deep recesses, should this be okay?
Thank you, very helpful video and a really cool style of painting
You can do both washes, but you do want to wait for the first one to dry completely. So do a batch.
@@VinceVenturella Excellent. Thank you!!
If I wanted to extend this palette while keeping the same melancholy feel (I'm envisioning Wentz, Bekinski, etc.), do you have any recommendations for adding greens or blues into a mini?
A good turquoise (as it's portrayed in paint) and a light blue green are the traditional additional additions to the zorn palette for those colors.
Hey Vince, can we expect you to review those new "contrast likes" from S75? I'd love to see a professional's outlook on them
I want to eventually, I am sure I will pick them up at some point.
Great job 👍🏼 did you use varnish in between? and which kind of varnish would you use at the end ?
Nope, didn't varnish here. I don't generally varnish in the end over metals, but a little mix of satin and ultra matte is my general go-to if I need to.
@@VinceVenturella ok thank you Vince :) I will try the color sheme on my sisters very soon :)
Great vid as usual! Just a quick question, I bought some odorless mineral spirit and 2 oil pains to try some oil washes. Is it OK to premix a wash and store it in a plastic dropper bottle? Wont go bad with time? Thanks!
Glass bottles will do much better, but yes.
Concerning the oils how long exactly dos oil paint need to dry before you can add a second layers, and is there any way you can speed up the drying process, i always thought that if you paint a layer of oils and don't let it dry properly the next layer will just mix with it. Hence the question since i don't wan to ruin layers already applied. Thx, love the videos :)
So you generally want to let it dry at least 24-48 hours. You can speed up the drying time with both additives and by exposing it to light/heat.
Brilliant. I want a sisters army now lol
Awesome. :)
Very interesting to see your take on some grim dark techniques!
How well do you reckon this workflow would work with a more colourful palette, e.g. the Venturella palette ice yellow, magenta, teal & paynes grey?
It would be tough, my usual colors are very much outside of the palette of this work, but that's part of what makes it fun.
Fantastic! Been getting into oil paints some, but haven't messed with any enamels. Have you found these two products to be equivalent, or having some substantive difference? Also, the music gave me some slight age of empires vibes 🎵
They are similar, but I prefer oils. I just find them easier to work with and remove.
Thank you. Nice to see your take on it.
How long do oil paints take to dry, for you? I've been seeing varying results, and honestly I have a hard time telling what factors might influence the process.
Do your version of oil paints, with the white spirit mixed in, dry faster? I know washes are fairly quick.
I give them 24-48 hours, but you can speed it up with light/heat.
@@VinceVenturella Thank you.
Much slower in my experience. I'll try with more spirits, or sunlight.