As requested, I decided to document and create a sort of tutorial on just how I went about doing the "comic style" cars. I was pretty shocked overall by how the first car I did like was received, and I'm more than happy to share exactly how I did it... that said, I hope no one is disappointed, as there really isn't some model-guru secret, and in fact, it's rather very easy and simplistic. Heck, I'm sure someone can come up with plenty of improvements to the overall process, as there was definitely a hefty dose of experimentation involved and I'm sure the process could use some further refinement. It's also a bit trickier to try and WRITE a tutorial than it would be just to demonstrate it in realtime on YouTube, like almost every other tutorial out there... but I'll do my best to make due with what I got!
... that said, if you do have ANY questions, please don't hesitate to ask! I'll do my very best to respond to any comments below, OR shoot me a question via social media as well.
Overview:
Before we get crackin' there are just a couple of things.
1) - I chose to keep wheels separate. This was mainly so that I could have an easier time turning the car around while I worked. I then glued the wheels on just prior to sealing car at the end.
2) - Everything required 3-4 thin coats to gets to get a smooth, consistent finish.3) - I worked from the mid-tone basecoat, to shadow, followed by the highlight. As they say on The Mandalorian: "this is the way", whether it was the grey portions or the windshield, I found this to be the easiest process.
4) - Some minor color mixing involved. In the case of this one, it was simply adding some mid tone color to white to create a highlight. Alternatively, if you lack a good shadow color, a tiny bit of black added to the mid tone should work fine in a pinch!
5) - I'm skipping over the wheels, as it its the same process as the car, and I highly doubt anyone *really* wants to know the secret to painting the dubs....
6) - Google "Cel Shaded Cars" if you'd like some further reference. (Recommended) Honestly, the whole concept came about from me just trying to recreate what I saw happening in some old Transformers stuff from the 80's.
The Paints:
Here are the paints I used. I recently picked up a box set of Army Painter paints, mostly because I prefer the droppers to the GW paints. Truthfully, and colors will do, the first car I did was bright red, so I this time I decided to for a silver/grey one as a kind of contrast on the table. The red one followed the same method as above: mid tone, shadow, highlight.... just the process used reds as opposed to grey.
Matt Black and Necromancer Cloak are used on the black portions, Matt Black being the mid tone, and Necro Cloak being the highlight. For the car itself, Ash Grey is the mid tone, while Uniform Grey is the shadow. For the highlight, we'll be doing a 2-to-1 mix of Matt White and Ash Grey.
For the window portion, we'll use Voidshield blue as the mid tone basecoat, followed by Crystal Blue for the darker portions, followed by adding a touch of the voidshield to white to create the last reflective highlight....
The Way:
1) - After priming the model using my "ghetto zenithal" method, which in the case of the cars, literally adds nothing other than an extra step, I start by painting all the black areas first. Spots like the ABS plastic of the mirrors and doors, the little black sealant sections around the windows, the windshield wipers, license plate frame, etc. I start with this, as I find it easier to get this part out of the way, and come back in with some final touch ups at the end, than it would be to carefully line everything at the end with no screw ups.
2) - Once the black portions are done, I put on the 4 thin layers of Ash grey, which serves as mid tone and base color of the car. Note the shadows on the side panels caused by the mirror and door handles. I often try and paint in whatever shadows I see being naturally cast. It's completely optional, I took it really far on this model, but not as much so on the red car...
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| Step 1 & 2 |
3) - Once the Ash grey is dry, it's time to paint the shadows using the darker Uniform grey. The side panels are easy, just it the lower 1/3 of the car in a semi-straight line. (I say semi-straight, as it doesn't need to be perfect) You'll notice that I painted the shadows mentioned above as well, again, it's optional, but helps demonstrate a bit of how I go about choosing shadow placement. The front grill portion is done by looking at where the natural shadows fall. When it comes to the hood, roof, and windows, I like to paint sharp angles which gives it that vintage cartoon/comic look. I know I didn't capture it at this stage, but you can see what I'm referencing Shape wise, there really isn't a hard set of rules or method, I just experiment with carious shapes and sees what works and what doesn't. If in doubt, just stick to triangles and rectangles.
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| Step 3 |
4) - Here you see what the other side of the car looked like, as well as some of the shapes I did on the hood/roof. at this step, add Ash grey to white in the mentioned 2-to-1 ratio. Here I continue with the sharp-edge shapes. I start by painting another 1/3 of the doors with this white mix, and either follow the curvature of the door itself, or hit the white "hotspots" cast by the light in a similar fashion to the shadows mentioned above. As with the previous step, there is no hard rules as to "how" to paint the shapes, I just experiment, but one thing I did discover is that you can create some interesting color interactions when you layer and overlap the mid/dark/light tones. I sort of "buddied things up" here, if the darker grey was rectangular, then went over the top with a white triangle, and vise versa. Again, no hard rules here, just have to experiment. This effectively finishes the bulk of the car.
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| Step 4 |
5) - In this step, I painted all the glass using the mid tone, Voidshield blue. Again, it took 4 thin layers to get this finish.
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| Step 5 |
6) - The darker portion of the glass was done using the Crystal Blue. Just as with the side panelling fo the car, I tried to limit the darker to no more than 1/2 of the space, 1/3 being ideal, as we'll be adding another level of white on top of that, but we want to retain some of the voidshield mid tone. Just as before, there are no real rules as to how to make the shapes, just experiment with whatever looks interesting visually. Example being, the windshield features jagged lines, while the driver's side follows more of the contour of the windows, while the rear features more jagged lines, and the passenger window follows the 1/3 method.
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| Step 6 |
7) - Just as with the grey portion, add in some white for the highlight. Again, I took 2 parts white and added in one part voidshield blue. Just as with the grey, I try and "buddy up" the colors, alternate between triangles, rectangles, and jagged shapes, overlapping, etc. As I keep mentioning, no hard rules, just experiment. **note: here you can also see what I did with the backside of the car as well.** Once the lighter portions of the glass are done, the car should really have taken shape...
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| Step 7 |
8) - For the lights I used pure red, the turn signals all got layers of Lava Orange, and the Necro cloak went on as a highlight for the black. (mostly the top of the side mirrors) Here you can also get a shot of what I did for the lighter portions of the driver's side.
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| Step 8 |
9) - The final step is black lining the whole car. Some like to use a liquid ink and brush, like a Higgins brand ink at this stage. Personally, I can't get the lines straight using a brush method, so I prefer Micron pens. **Tip: If you use pens, the model has to be 100%, fully dry, otherwise paint will ruin the pen tip, ruining it.** Micron pens come in all sorts of sizes, but for this car, I'm using a 03 for a bulk of the lines, and a 003 to get inside the really fine, detail lines. Don't fret if you can't find these exact sizes, I use a combination of everything from 003 to 08 on my stuff. the difference between an 01 and 03 is pretty minimal, so use what you can find. This is probably the one step that defines the comic style, the heavy black lines. Basically, using your pens, trace every single line. Things like creating a comic or kid's coloring book. All the details get outlined, all the shapes you painted, etc. You can also make little hashmarks to give it a comic feel, or some like to make little chip-like circles. **Tip: have something handy to wipe away mistakes. It can takes a few moments to dry, so if you do goof up, you can wipe it away and fix it.** If you do mess up, or don't like something you just did, just erase it, or repaint a small portion if necessary.
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| Step 9 |
10) - Let the black ink fully dry, I did 2 hours to be extra safe, then glue on the wheels, and seal the model.... then DONE!
I hope you found this helpful. As I said, there really isn't anything to it, just requires you to experiment with some crazy shapes and usage of color. As I kept mentioning, there are now hard "here's how you do it" kind of rules, maybe someone smarter/better than me can create something more scientific out of this, but who knows. Overall, I'm pleased with how it works, and truthfully, it's really fast to do as well. I was able to complete the whole model in almost a single sitting, as acrylic dries so quickly, I was able to constantly move around the car in a big circle and things would be dry by the time I made my way back around. As mentioned before, if you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to ask either below in the comments, or on Facebook/twitter/Instagram and I'll do my best to help!
Thanks for stopping by!
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