Topic: Painting Fire or "Fire in the disco!"

[CM Dante]

Well, after a few questions from people on this and other forums on how I paint fire, I have finally created a step by step article.
So without further ado, grab your fire safety blankets and get to the CD player because "I am the god of hell fire and I bring you.....FIRE!"

Anyway, I always (ALWAYS) paint over a black undercoat (while this may not be the best method I find it works for me).
So begin by undercoating the entire model with chaod black (or equivalent) paint.

Stage 1
Next step is to paint the entire area of flames with scab red paint.



Stage 2
Follwoing on from this, give the entire area a light wet brushing (like drybrushing only the paint is still fairly wet, run the brush flat along the surface so the paint catches on the raised areas.) with blood red.



Stage 3
Next is a drybrushing of orange over about the top 7/8ths of the flames. I don't actually own an orange paint (I dont really like my old blood angels orange as it is too translucent) so I just mixed blood red with sunburst yellow at about 50/50.



Stage 4
After that, mix some more yellow into your orange mix to make it about 30/70 red to yellow(or mix a little yellow into your orange paint if you didnt mix your orange) and again dry brush this over about the top 6/8ths of the flame area.



Note that at this point I decided to paint the metal grating around the torch as the messiest stages have passed, be careful when doing this as any mistakes will need covering up with your mixed colours.

Stage 5
After the metal was painted I gave the top 5/8ths or so of the flame a drybrushing with sunburst yellow. The yellow will still be fairly translucent when applied so it will take two or three layers of drybrushing to get right, this gives the perfect opportunity to blend the flame up a little by drybrushing each progressive layer of yellow a little higher than the first.
Don't worry if any of the yellow gets on the metal as this will add to the effect.

after first layer of drybrushing yellow

and after the second layer of drybrushing yellow


Stage 6
Finally, mix sunburst yellow (or whichever yellow you decided to use) with skull white about 70/30 yellow to white and highlight the top 3/8ths or so of the flames and thats you done!



You'll notice in my examples that I got a little bit of yellow on the metal, I think this looks good as it looks like the glow of the flames on the metal and all adds to the effect!

Well, now your done you can sit back and relax to some electric 6 and be safe in the knowledge that the heretics will burn by your hand!

(Interesting point of note, when I sat down to paint the flames on the example model I was listening to the song "Learn how to start a fire" by Further Seems Forever from the album of the same name! This was also completely by accident!)

Again, I don't suppose the images will work in this post (Gructh, hopefully you could sort this? Also if you have any program that could maybe lighten the pics a little would be great as I'm pretty crap at this stuff!)
Images can be seen here:
http://groups.msn.com/CMDantesGalleries/paintingfire.msnw?Page=Last

Well, let me know what you think!

Cheers,

Dante

[Schmeisser]

Hey CM Dante.
Hope this is usefull
http://www.danindo.dk/wh/cmdante/paintingfire.htm

took it upon me to lighten the pictures a little, as you requested.

Schmeisser.

[Dragonis999]

Um, I can't see the pics at all.

[CM Dante]

Yep I think this is one for Grutch, if you click on the link I provided at the end you can see the pics there for the time being!

Cheers,

Dante

[Treant]

my first post on the forum, and i hate that i have to use it to point out something like this,

In real life flames will be yellow at the hotter spots and red in the cooler spots meaning that yellow should be in the middle (or closest to the fuel) while red should be on the outside.

you painting on the other hand is well done.

[CM Dante]

Yep, your absolutely right, I thought I had mentioned this in the article but it appears I missed it.
I realise that it isn't correct but to my eye it looks better as it is harder to paint flames the other way as it relies more on the translucency of the flame.

Thanks for pointing this out though.

Cheers,

Dante