Friday, December 4, 2015

Painting "Ice"?

Does anyone know a good tutorial on painting "ice"?

I have a mini I'd like to do up as made out of solid ice, rather than whatever the heck it is (crystal, maybe, who knows?). It's opaque metal, if that matters.

Obviously, white and blue tones are what I'm going to need here, but I just don't have a basic technique that comes out with anything good. I keep ending up with "blue with white slopped on" or "creamy blue" or "blue with white highlights" and not something that says, "ice." I've done an "electric" sword with dark blue, and flame is easy, but ice . . . yeah.

Any pointers to a good tutorial would be greatly appreciated. Except by my players, who probably assume this means doom (you know, from the ice golems that dwell in the Lost City). Really it's just because this mini would look cooler with an ice effect than as jagged rock (easy) or obsidian (easier) or something equally typical.

5 comments:

  1. Apparently, in the past I've done a sky blue base coat with a heavy white dry brush, but I don't think it comes out as "icy" as it could:
    https://www.prismnet.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Minis/SuperBlasters1.jpg

    Looking at images of ice cubes and cars covered in ice, you might want to start with a pale gray, then a heavy drybrush of sky blue, then a heavy drybrush of white, including painting sections of white on the upper facets (https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRh4H4tyZ71pwotnKIshs2z-EPjwhUdKSMmF2Fd-5_-cD3apOCD) but that's just a guess. I hope you get some better answers!

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    Replies
    1. That's pretty helpful - that guy is more icy than what I've managed so far!

      It doesn't need to be perfectly real so much as make people think "ice" first when they see it. Not, "Oh, so that's ice? Oh, okay. Guys, the blue thing is icy."

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    2. Here's a good one that isn't a video:
      http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/05/painting-icy-trollblood-rok.html

      And a pair I scrolled through quickly on doing icy miniature bases:
      http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/43463-tutorial-creating-ice-bases/
      http://wappellious.blogspot.fr/2013/07/my-newest-secret-weapon.html
      Though both are about using very specific products to get the "effect" of ice.

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    3. Thanks.

      Seems that "ice" is blue, pretty universally. Which is okay, it's just odd that it's more like a settled question than actually, yes, that's what ice really looks like.

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