Painting a lightsabre
If you're painting some of the Star Wars Legion or similar figures, you'll want the Jedi or Sith sabers to look good. There are at least three or four ways to paint them, and I'm going to show two very, very similar ones here. Although these methods do not show the lightsaber "realistically" as in the movie, they achieve a satisfactory effect very quickly and easily. And the secret of everything is in ... glazes.
Prepare your Jedi or Sith figures and prepare 4-5 shades of the color you want or need to paint the lightsaber. The difference in the darkest and lightest shade should be whatever you want, although I think that the contrast in this case can hardly be overdone. The darkest shade should not be too dark (perhaps like a kind of midtone if you were to dye clothes in the same color), but it should have the consistency of a basecoat. Other shades should be more rare, i.e. the consistency of thicker glazes.
I start from the darkest shade and that's why it has a thicker consistency than the others. No special reason, just out of habit. However, if it suits you, you can also start with the lightest one. When the basecoat was dry, I painted 4/5 of the saber with the first following shade. So about 1/5 is left in the darkest basecoat. As I am painting 2 figures in this tutorial, I left the tip of one saber the darkest, and the base (near the hilt) of the other saber. In the end, you will choose which effect you like better.
Apply the next shade to 3/5 of the saber and continue until you reach the lightest shade that will cover only 1/5 of the saber. You should now have a saber, painted in 5 shades each covering roughly 1/5 or 20% of the saber. For some, this will be satisfactory because from a distance the saber already looks decent.
For those who want more, here's how to improve the result: You can dilute the existing glazes even more and paint the transitions between the two shades with them. Simply, if you are not satisfied with the transitions, you will have to play with the glazes a bit, back and forth. If at first it doesn't seem like it, the glaze is probably wet. Wait for it to dry completely and then decide if you need another one or not. If by chance the contrast between the darkest and lightest shades is too strong for you, make a thin glaze from the middle shade and go over the entire saber with it.
And finally, let me mention what are the other 2 ways to paint a lightsaber. The third is that after the basecoat, paint the line of highlite with the length of the saber with several shades, each of which is thinner than the previous one. This suits the movie better, but it's only effective from one angle. That's ok, if you're going to photograph the figure for some boxart, instagram, etc., but if you want it to look effective from all angles, the first one is better. And the last way is that some companies produce paint that conducts electricity and lights up (Green Stuff World). This requires that you paint the saber in that color and somehow connect it with wires to the battery, which you will hide somewhere in the base. But I leave that step to you.
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Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
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U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
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