"Glorious Black & White (And All Shades of Grey)?" Topic

HELP!!!

I know there was a recent topic (last year of so) on painting models and dioramas in nothing but black, greys and white, to simulate all the old movies we grew up with.

It must be age, exhaustion, or just plain insanity, but I cannot find it now.

CC

link

It's not a tutorial, but shows an amazing diorama set in WWII.

Enjoy

Actually if you want to cheat to see what that effect will look like, just tell your printer you want a particular picture printed in "greyscale." That way it will print as white, black and the 8 artists' shades of grey.

You might also look at a color wheel or chart which shows the 10 variations ranging from black to white with all the greys in between. It's something artists use when they're trying to get the correct tone of a given color.

I seem to recall the technical name for this is "griselle."

Vosper,

That was actually one of the links I remember from that other thread (the one I cannot find, for the life of me)!!!

Very nice indeed.

CC

CC
I think it may have been on the Old West message board, or even on the LotOW yahoo group. I actually posted to the discussion, but I can't remember exactly where it was either :-(

I recall that it was largely about a game put on at Salute several years ago, where a stagecoach was being attacked by Plains Indians, but where the terrain, not the stagecoach was moved. This was all done in "greyscale", so may be what you remembered.

Norberto

Thank you for the link. I saw this some time ago and couldn't remember where. It is an outstanding piece of work.

Working with black and white is not, per se, grisaille. In that technique you paint the picture black and white, then wash it with colors. Many of the old masters did this. I tried it on some figures and was less than impressed since it takes a broad area to make it work effectively. I did learn one thing that has stuck with me though. Shadows take on a tint of the complementary color. What this means is they turn toward a greyed shade of brown. As far as faces go, this means the shadows that so many of us paint in hotter shades of brown are actually mauve on a real human. Take a look at someone and see if those shadows are really red-brown. I tried the mauve technique on a 54 and it really looked like a person, but bland. I have tried undercoating faces with purple then painting and that does give some hint of real color, but people still think it looks bland, and it does. So, back to those red-brown shadows to meet the biases of the players.

That WWII diorama is excellent – I've never seen anything like that before!

Norberto – I recall that discussion as well and I think I contributed to, echoing your comments about seeing that stagecoach game.

I'm also a model tramway builder and there is a guy in Australia (I think) who has built an entire 00 tramway layout, trams, buildings, people etc in brown sepia! Its somewhere on the net and looks just as if you had picked up a victorian postcard or photo.

This is an interesting train of throught. I had actually toyed with buying duplicates of some of the Pulp Miniatures figures to try to paint in shades of gray. I was thinking about also making some urban terrain in the shades of gray as well.

Buck Surdu

Alas, I never did find the thread I was looking for (it must have had a very cryptic title).

However, there is some really good info in these previous threads:

TMP link
TMP link
TMP link

CC

This is a great candidate for the technique:

TMP link

CC

We also talked about printing cardstock buildings and and sets in b/w. I think that for contrast, however, the main characters should be painted in desaturated colors rather than true b/w.

"for contrast, however, the main characters should be painted in desaturated colors rather than true b/w."

Wonderful tip. Thanks, Saladin!

CC

CC I have painted all of my Copplestone gangsters in black and white- you can see them over at coolminiornot.com (just browse under the manufacturer/ copplestone category.) Under one of the photos I left tips on how I used the technique. Feel free to email if you have any questions. I'd love to find that guy (gal?) who did that WWII diorama. I saw that a few years ago- and remembered seeing it as I sat there wondering how to paint my gangsters last year.

Evilcartoonist,

I cannot find it now!

CC

Try this specific link: link My stuff is toward the end. Sometimes the link to coolmini just doesn't work, so that may be the problem too. If that doesn't work- I posted one of the pictures on my gaming blog just for you: link
Hope that works for ya. Let me know if ya need anything!

Oh, man, that just blows my mind!!! I am psyched.

I have lots of projects on the table ahead of the figs I want to do in B&W (Samurais and Ninjas mainly).

However, come Spring, I will definitely need however many pointers you are willing to offer.

CC

CC,
Drop me an e-mail anytime!

CC- I have posted more black and white minis over at Cool Mini if you'd like to see. (they may not be available to see just yet- I just posted them this evening.) Browse through the Copplestone stuff, and you should find them.

evilcartoonist, I just have to say that is the coolest thing I've seen in quite some time. The Newstand really blew my hair back… that is some fine work.

Ledded, Thanks for the compliment: Here's some more for ya!

picture

picture

The newsstand and the hot dog cart are scratch built. These were done for a roleplaying game- EVERYTHING was in black and white for that game- we had black and white cards (for initiative), black and white dice, the black and white minis, I even made a custom black and white battlemat. (Black and white and shades of gray, that is.)

This method isn't for everybody- but it works when you go all out with it like I did. It took some courage! :)

And a tutorial…

link

What a cool idea… I'm thinking you could just add a thinned brown ink to give the models a 'sepia' look afterwards. Or is that just oversimplification?

I've never tried brown ink (for a sepia.) For sepia, I just use a selection of premixed colors (premixed specifically for such)and paint the same as I did in the tutorial. It's alittle harder to get the right colors, but the effect is just as good, I think:

picture

I'll have to give the ink a try to see what it does- Always experimenting- fun fun fun!

Evilcartoonist,

WOW. That is quite an accomplishment! Exactly what I was hoping to see. I love both the grey and the sepia styles.

Can you tell me how many shades of grey were used with the first examples? Those really remind me of the Pulp movies I grew up with.

This is what I would love to try some day in "B&W":

link
link
link
link

Many thanks.

CC

I hate that bug!!!

Anyway . . .

More:

link

CC
PS. What were those leaves that were used to reanimate the mummy? "Tannah" or something like that?

Here are the specific colors (Reaper Pro Paints) I use for the gray scale: in order from darkest to lightest, Dragon black, Armor gray, Ash gray, Granite, Dove gray and Dragon white. I also mixed a custom gray to fill a shade "jump" between Ash gray and Granite.

Also, a couple more examples for ya:
picture

picture

Look here:

TMP link

CC

More tips:

TMP link

CC

Evil,

I just can't get over how the B&W look makes your figures even more appropriate for the genre:

link
link

CC

I think I left out this other thread on this topic:

TMP link

CC

:) Thanks, Cacique!

Another tip I just thought of when painting in B&W: Keep your colors analagous, ie, make sure your greys are different mixes of the same white and black pigments. If you want to add a touch of blue or brown or green into the mix, you'll have to add blue or brown or green into all your grey mixes.
Keeping the colors (well, the greys) analogous really helps to "unify" the figure.

I built a "Mayberry" police car (Ford Galaxy) with Barney standing over a dead Otis (he finally had enough, and used his one bullet to shoot the town drunk)all in black and white. Tougher to get it right than you would think.

Another great example here:

TMP link

Dan

WOWWY!!!!!!!!!!! Now THAT'S how you do black and white!

I suddenly feel like a little girl in the world of black and white minis.

Thanks for sharing, Dan!

It is cool stuff, isn't it.

Hope you enjoy it.

Dan

Just paint them in Kansas. (But if you take them to Oz, they will turn to color!)

LOL

Dan

wow