One thing I’m super glad I learned back in the day was drybrushing. Aside from gaming miniatures, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to make use of the basic mini-painting skills. Sometimes, it’s the simplest thing that makes the biggest difference :)
I’m amassing quite the cozy little collection of these – almost enough to surround a steamy hot bathtub full of fragrant essential oils. ALMOST. The point is, craft stores keep coming out with these nifty-looking LED candles. Usually they’re for holidays. The two tallest ones in the back I got at Hobby Lobby, the one with the candleholder handle on it came from Walmart (I replaced the bulb in it later as well), and the gloopy-looking pillar and the candle behind it both came from AC Moore. The downside to these things is that while they’re calling out to your collector’s soul, the paint jobs (assuming they even have one) are…basic at best. I can’t just leave them like that.
All it takes is a couple of paintbrushes, some water, about six different colors of acrylic craft paint, and an hour or so.
In these cases the paints I used were either Apple Barrel (Walmart, $1.99) or Delta Ceramcoat (Michaels/HobbyLobby/local craft store, variable price). For the candles, a base of Antique White, a wash of Burnt Umber, and Misty White for the drybrushing. For the holders, a base of Antique Copper/Antique Gold metallic with Sahara Gold for the highlights.
To start you want a base coat – in this case Antique White – thick enough to cover whatever color the plastic already is. I don’t bother cleaning them beyond wiping off any finger oil or sticker goo might be on there. Depending on the plastic, it may take two or three coats to cover it to your satisfaction. With this one it took three, and on the last one I watered the paint a little to make sure it smoothed out. Considering this one started out as black plastic with red drips…not bad so far.
Now for the slightly more complicated part. The basic guideline for a wash is 1:1 – or one part paint to one part water. You can dilute it more or less, depending on the effect you want. With the candles, because I want a softer antique look to them, I used Dark Umber for the wash instead of black. The point of diluting is to get the pigment down into the cracks and crevices with minimal effort (as opposed to say… a single-hair brush and a dance with early-onset blindness), adding extra dimension to your figure above and beyond what natural lighting might provide.
Now to make it pop – as much as I dislike that phrase. The wash came out strong on this one, so I ended up drybrushing the Antique White over it again to lighten it up. Over that went the highlight, in Misty White. I like Misty White in that it dries slightly translucent. Drybrushing is probably the easiest, fastest part of this whole process. All you have to do is take a flat brush, get the tip of it saturated with your highlight color – but without any excess – and brush across the raised areas. If you do get a little gloop, just keep brushing. It’ll spread out as you go.
The candleholder base went pretty much the same way. I mixed the Antique Copper and Antique Gold for a warmer, brassy look. One thing to point out about the metallics is it’ll take a few more coats for a base because the paint itself is translucent. The end result is worth it, though. Seal with Mod Podge or in my case Rustoleum, and you’re done!
Works really well on el-cheapo Christmas Village props, too!
This isn’t advanced pro stuff by any means; it’s just how I do it. If you’re a perfectionist or you already have the advanced painting techniques down pat, use those instead. Base-wash-drybrush is simple stuff, it goes quickly, and it’s difficult to mess up too badly. It’s also fun to play around with the same way coloring with pencils is. Depending on your color choices, your base color can take on any tone you want it to between the wash (shadow) and drybrush (highlight) colors. You can add extra layers of different shades after the wash as well for different color effects.
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