Painting birds or other small animals

Hello,

I prepared a little extra Tutorial for you about how to paint the bird, which I have added on my wizard
model. Currently I haven’t a video camera, but I think the handy photos will also be good enough to
show the different steps. The final result was photographed properly in a light tent.

Animals are always a nice detail on a display base. When painting small models or animals that are part
of a larger scene, it is always good to add some brighter colors. Bright in general, but also add some
bouncing colors like a red, turquoise or blue. Paint that colors on a white or bonewhite surface, they will
stand out much more on white than on black for example. Sure you can’t paint an owl or deer in blue or
red, that doesn’t make sense, but on butterflies or birds you can always play around. Not the complete
model must be in the mentioned color, small areas are good too. These models are very small and can
have even more contrast than a 32mm figure for example. That will help us to recognize them on the
base. Sometimes they are good sculpted and casted sometimes not. Than we have to work the main
body parts them out with adding darker lines between those elements and working out lights. For
example this bird can be graduated in wings, body, head, feet.

Tip: If you don’t know how to paint your bird, just search in google, I often use it as inspiration.

So much about the theory. Now we start with painting the bird step by step.

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Preparation

Materials:

-Good brushes, I use Windsor & Newton, I use a “bigger” brush size 3 for the main volumes. Finer details
are painted with a size 0 long tip brush.
-Colors, I use mostly Model Colors from Vallejo
-animal figures
-piece of cork

Good animal figures I use are the small animal Set from Noch and from Minisocles-store.fr. They are bit
more expansive, but they are great sculpted and fit bit better to 32mm figures. And by far less people
use and know them. It’s always good when viewers don’t know the brand and not recognize the figure.

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I prefer to glue the bird on a piece of cork during the painting, because it’s better to handle during the
paintwork. In this case I stick a tooth pick in the cork and glued the bird on it, to reach the bottom areas
of the figure better. You also can see a little scale comparison. This bird is very small.

Start Painting
Painting on a bright surface is easier than on black, you don’t need so many layers to cover the base
tone. That’s why I started the painting with a basecoat of ivory & bonewhite/beige. This time I was too
lazy to prime it before, which could have been done with a grey or a white. On such a small model it
isn’t that important. For that you make 1 layer more of the basecoat. I painted 2-3 layers of bit thinned
color as base coat on it. The most painters name it as “milky consistence”. Enough wet that the surface
doesn’t look chalky and dry enough that you still have full control of the color and it doesn’t flow
everywhere. Let one layer dry before you paint the second and third. In the end it is not important how
many steps you have, but the color should cover the plastic properly. You shouldn’t see the grey (plastic
figure) or silver (metal figure) through the ivory/bonewhite color.

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Paint shadows

Now you can add bit more water to the basic color and start to paint the shades. That technique is
called blending. The color consistence is between a wash and a basecoat. With the side of your brush
you can pull the color into the direction you want. Darker colors in cavities, brighter colors on the
elevations. The darker tones can be more thinned than the brighter ones. I will explain this more
detailed in a future Tutorial with better blending examples.

Add a warm brown to the basic color and start painting the shades. Main areas for the shades are the
bottom of the body. But also add little darker colors on the neck, between wings and over the eyes. It is
good to paint the neck little darker, than you can work out the head and the body later. And you can see
even from distance that this body consist not of just one mass…no, you can see the anatomy. That is
important for a realistic copy of the real world.

Under the bird body I painted more dark shadows with adding a dark grey to the basecoat, it’s about 2
parts of the dark grey and 1 part of ivory/bonewhite. You can use this dark grey also to work out the
wings. Paint a thin dark line around the edges between wing and body. For such outlining the colors
should be thinned or only a little bit.

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Paint lights

The lights were painted with adding ivory to the basic color. We start working out details like the body,
wings and head. Lightest areas are the top of the head and the shoulder/top of the wings. The end of
the wings can be little less bright as the two other areas. For cabinet miniatures I recommend to use
about 2-3 different lighter tones, to get a good color transition. Last one can be pure ivory.

This arrows show only the area of light. The whole light should be painted like how the model comes to
your final diorama.

Decide what’s the main front of the figure. I checked the final position for the bird with the unpainted
model before. Have no picture of that, but here you can see the final position.

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Paint orange color variation

Areas on which you know they will covered with a very dark color, like black or dark blue, haven’t to be
painted properly with the ivory/bonewhite shadows & lights. Areas that just need a little touch of color
can be finished with the ivory/bonewhite and you just add a bit of thinned color on the area. Than your
shadow & light work will shine through the orange/red for example. I also like turquoise tones for that
technique.

The spout and the feet/crawls were painted with black and the lights were painted with adding more
grey color. I started with black so I can only go up to lighter tones. On the Spout the last light can also go
to ivory. Because we want to drive the view to the birds head. And the harder the contrast the more it
pops out (same as on bigger models). I tried to work out the different crawls with the grey highlights on
the black.

Paint eyes

For painting the eyes I used pure black and a fine brush and painted the eye as black dot with the tip of
the brush. That isn’t easy and needs training. If your eyes are too big, take your ivory/bonewhite again
and correct the sides of the eye. If you paint too much of the ivory you go back to the black. It is normal
that you have to switch a step back sometimes, especially on such small areas. When you like the result
you can go to the next side.

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I painted the eyes with a size 0 brush with long hair. I prefer that brush for fine details and blacklining.
With the eyes the figure looks much more alive, that’s why I prefer to paint them at the
beginning/middle of a project. On figures I paint them mostly together with the skin. First 70% skin than
the eyes than the last 30% skin. In most times, you will have to correct a little bit around the eyes. That’s
why I don’t finish skin completely before I paint the eyes.

Paint wings

Next step are the wings, for that I took a dark sea blue/brighter blue mixture and painted the wings
(used Dark Blue Model Color and Dark Sea Blue from Model Air, both Vallejo). Shadows were painted
with adding more black. For the lights I added bit of ivory. Try to work out the basic elements of the
animal body. In this case the two wings. That means darker lines around the wings and between the
feathers and the highlights on the top of the wings. You can also work out the different feathers with
the same method. First add darker lines between the feathers (not as dark as the lines around the
complete wing) and then add the lights adding ivory to the blue basecoat.

Now it’s time to check the model again. I can give you a rough guideline. But it is always possible to
switch a step back to another color and correct mistakes or change things. Mistakes will happen.
Sometimes you will change opinion about colors during the project. That’s no problem. At this step I also
added a few very last lights with ivory above the eyes and a little more lights on his chest. It hasn’t be
complete smooth, if you paint it with several irregular dots or little lines. It looks like little feathers.

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Finished bird
Here is a close up of the bird in better quality:

That’s it. Now you can glue him on the base and watch your result, always a great moment, when the
figure is on the final base and not on the piece of cork anymore.

And another shot in final position on the wizards backpack:

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I know the picture quality isn’t perfect, this bird was pretty small and hard to photograph during the
paintwork.

That was the first little painting Tutorial. I hope it is useful for you.

I am looking forward to see your results. And don’t get frustrated when the bird doesn’t look like my
example, painting needs training and I am doing it for years. Just try to improve step by step. I think
that’s the best goal without losing motivation.

Best regards
Oliver

Copyright 2018 Oliver Spaeth. All Rights Reserved.