Painting models with oil paints

It took a number of days for the oil paint to dry fully, particularly the red paint. I was expecting a longer drying time but not quite as long but this is not too much of an issue for me as I’m hardly a prolific painter.

Inspecting the miniature, I prefer the results of the white shirt where there is a brilliant white on the upper shoulders gradually fading to a grey where there would be shadows. The red isn’t quite as brilliant and I think that I did not go dark enough with the shadow to make the upper areas stand out.

The two pictures below show the miniature and areas where I feel the blending worked particularly well.

Unfortunately, my photography skills, coupled with the shiny oil paint, isn’t quite providing the same view that I’m seeing with my naked eyes. I’ll look into this and try and improve to get better pictures.

Looking at the miniature very closely, I can seen that the paint is not flat and has a lumpy consistency to it. This is particularly apparent around the shirt on the back of the model.

I can think of two reasons for this. Either the zenithal highlight I applied first has speckled the model and caused this effect or I need to dilute the oil paint a little more and ensure that I apply a thinner coat. It’s also possible that the pigment in the paint is ‘clumping’ but the paints I bought were reasonably decent so I don’t think that this is the problem.

Next step will be to paint the skin. I’ll take on board the lumpy paint and try to thin the paints further before applying.

I also see that this project appeared on the Unofficial Hobby Hangout and there was mention of another youtube channel where oil painting is given an introduction. In case anyone is interested, I think that this is the video and also well worth a watch as an introduction.