Dear all,

I have bought 'Figure Modelling 1' from Mr. Black publications not too long ago. I read some of some of the painting descriptions by Pietro Balloni with great interest.

When describing how he painted his award winning Highlander and Maya warrior it would appear that he uses a fusion technique during his painting process in that hte base coat is done in acrylics and only shadows, lights and washes are done in oils.

I can see the point of doing this however i am not completely familiar with it.

Can someone please explain this technique to me?

Thanks!

Rossbach

Hi

that sound almost like how everyone I know paints with oils, except for one stage, most normally base coat with acrylics and then change to oil paints, doing another base then shadows and finally highlights in oils, this is done because oils are not as good as acrylics at covering the primer and because its so much easier to blend with oils.

The only difference to what you described is he is not doing the double base coat and he is satisfied with the Acrylic base finish and just using oils for highlights and shadows. doing it this way he has lost the advantage of being able to blend the shadows and highlights with the base colour though.

That's my take on it, although I am probably wrong and someone will soon jump at the chance to disprove my theory

Paul

Thanks Paul. What you describe is exactly what i thougth I was reading! And indeed the last stage, especially blending the highlights with the base colour on the edges of folds for example is being left out so it seems. The only real advantage I can think of is that it is easier to get a flat surface. This can a bit of a problem with oil colours (depending a little bit on what colour/pigment you are using).

Paul (we seem to have the same name)

Speeding drying, using heat, is probably the best way to ensure this especially when done in combination with soaking out some excess oil from the paint (particularly for colours that are naturally very high in oil). This will virtually guarantee a very matt finish and can mean the oils are ready to be painted over the next day if required.

Einion