Deciding the color for your highlight.

There was a really great question over at the Bolter and Chainsword about highlighting colors and how to decide what to use. One poster was asking about the best way to highlight red. I thought I'd post my reply here as well, as I thought it was a great question.

The best way to decide on a highlight is to try and think about what happens to the color when it's hit by the sun.

In this particular case, if you look at a red car in the sun, you'll notice that the sides of the car would be a solid red color (the base color if you will) where as the bottom will be a darker red color (shading), while the top that's being hit directly will be a slightly orange color due to the light from our yellow sun (highlight).

So, take your base color and mix in just a touch of orange, thin the mix down with matte medium and/or water (I prefer the medium as you can thin it further without seperating the pigments), and apply a very thin coat to your desired highlight area. you can even thin the mix down further if you want to layer the orange up to the topmost point of your highlight. Just do multiple very thin coats.

Often people will just add white to a mix for highlights, and on some darker colors this can work great (purple, black, blue, some greens), but in some cases, red for example, it'll just turn the paint into a pastel. Red with white would make pink for example.

New paints, new project

So now that the weather has decided to cooperate, my next job is to do some Assault squad work.
I've got them built (except for heads) but I made the STUPID mistake of attaching the jump packs before basing.

Now it's going to be a huge pain in the ass to get the packs painted properly. Ah well, live and learn I suppose.

I picked up a couple new paints on the cheap, one of them was something called "sequine metallic black". I thought "metallic black? how does that work?" so I bought it. Maybe I'll use it as an experiment, or maybe I'll throw down a Space Marine chaplain with it. We'll see how it turns out.
I picked it up at Walmart (of all places) for about a buck a bottle. Seems like it's not too bad of a quality, but I haven't used a brush on it just yet, just opened it up and took a gander.

I'll post again with pics comparison soon, but I'll paint up a test miniature to see what it looks like first.

Ebay listings

I'm selling off a few things on ebay, trying to get rid of some clutter.

I've got some figures, some miniatures and some other stuff up there.

Currently my big deal is a collection of 74 ship in the Star Wars Starship Battles game.
I dig the game, I just don't have anyone to play with, nor do I really have the time to go to a gaming store and HOPE that someone there likes the game.

I've also got a Marvel Legends Icons Woverine up as well.

I may also be selling a few painted models in the future... so keep an eye out.