Friday, July 5, 2019

Adventures in Contrast: Gems


Welcome back to Adventures in Contrast, where I show you all sorts of little tricks and techniques that you can do with Citadel Colour's Contrast paint system!

This time I am going to go over how to paint gems using Contrast. This is basically the same principle as I had shown in my review of the gemstone paint and my tutorial for doing gems with them. But the biggest issue with the gemstone paints is that they are limited to red, blue and green.

Contrast on the other hand comes in a wide range of colors and acts similar to the gemstone paints. Which means we can use them to make all kinds of gemstone colors! From red, to orange, purple and blue and even pink!


This tutorial uses the basics of high contrast true metallics to give us an undercoat that will give the finished gem depth while also allowing for bright coloring in the highlight areas.

This all comes together in the following steps:
Base: Black
This one is pretty easy. Paint the gem are black.

Layer: Leadbelcher:Black
Next up, mix some Leadblecher and Black until it's about half way between the two color, or even slightly lighter. Paint this on half of the gem, leaving the other half black. 

Layer: Stormhost Silver
Now we are going to add the main highlight to the gem. Paint a J along the one outside edge and down along the bottom of the area you painted in the previous step.


Highlight: Aluminum
Our final metallic step, we'll take Vallejo Air Aluminum and add a pair of spot highlights to the gem. One in the middle of the curve of our J and one opposite it in the dark portion of the black.

Contrast: Voluptuous Pink
Now it's time to give color to the gem. For this we'll paint on the contrast. For this one, I've decided to use Voluptuous Pink. Paint this evenly across the entire gem. It could take two coats.


Gloss: 'ardcoat
Once your Contrast coat is dry and the model is sealed, cover the gem with a layer of 'ardcoat to make it shine!

And that's it! Most of the Contrast colors will work well for this. Yellow is kind of iffy though, because it ends up looking like gold instead of a gem. The browns also might not work well, especially the darker ones. But one that works really well is Black Templar, which makes a very nice looking onyx, and I am fully hyped about that.

So there you have it. Go wild and try it out. If you do, hit me up on Twitter with your results! I'm interested to see what people to with it.

Until next time, you can catch me on Twitter and Instagram. Where I'll be sharing pictures of tests I am currently working on and you can ask me any questions you may have.

If you like what I do and want to support the site and my painting endeavors, you can do so over on Ko-fi. All it takes is $3 and it's much appreciated. Also, you can buy The Brush Wizard shirts and such over on my Teespring shop, where you'll find a growing selection of shirts and other goodies. 

Thanks for reading!