Glazing explained in under 5 minutes

glazing is yet another painting technique that will help you achieve smooth transitions and gradients but not only that in this video you will learn what is glazing how to apply glazes properly and in which cases should you use glazing over other painting techniques is glazing actually the ultimate painting method let’s find out also just before the video begins i can see that just a fraction of my viewers are subscribed so go ahead and subscribe it’s free and you can always change your mind and unsubscribe later if you want alright so what exactly is glazing to put it simply glazing is a way to paint something using multiple thin layers if you are asking okay but how thin of the layer excellent question according to this diagram and believe me it’s not as complicated as it sounds you get a glaze when you combine paint and more water than the amount of paint if you add too much however you get a wash if you add less you get a layer if you add even less you get a base coat then you get something you would use for dry brushing and if you use too much paint and no water well let’s not talk about that anyway as you can see when you are glazing you are not exactly using universal ratio of paint and water but you can add more paint or water depending on what you want the more water you add the less control you have but blending results will be really smooth if you add a little more paint the result might not be as silky smooth but it will give you better control and save you a lot of time so glazing in general will take you a lot of time but you will get a really nice result for that reason i like to layer down my shades highlights and mid-tones first and then just use glazing to create seamless transitions this exact method is what i have used for my non metallic metal explained in another 5 minutes video so check it out if you want but for now let’s see how we can use glazing for blending without risking your precious miniatures when you are trying out any new painting method you can simply use a spare base for testing purposes this can be especially useful when you are trying to figure out which paints can be what blended well together or when testing any other blending techniques now if we compare what blending to glazing as blending methods when i’m wet blending i’m trying to mix two layers of paints together while they are still wet when i’m glazing however i’m going over transitions of two layers and waiting for each applied glaze to fully dry before moving on to apply another one if the glaze doesn’t have that much water in it waiting time doesn’t have to be too long also if you want to get rid of the excess water in your brush you can simply take a paper towel or toilet paper and let it suck the excess water by rubbing it off a little bit you can also see that in both cases i’m sketching out multiple layers before starting blending them together which can save you a lot of time but it’s not necessary when glazing you can definitely build up a solid gradient by glazing over one color without having any other layer there but it will most likely take you more time whether you are trying to build up a gradient from zero or you are trying to smoothen out transitions between two existing layers the certain thing is that glazing is on average more time consuming than wet blending but the end result can be way smoother as i said using bases to practice any miniature painting method really is a good idea to grasp the basics of it but in the end base is just a flat surface without any shapes so it’s not realistic what is not flat however is the chest of this kingdom death warrior of the sun miniature to demonstrate glazing properly simply look at what i am doing on this miniature for example i don’t have multiple layers sketched out on her skin but i just use thin glazes to highlight it and shade it wherever i feel like there should be a shade i simply add some purple to my cadian fleshtone and glaze that part of the miniature notice how i’m starting from the middle part that is just barely tinted by the purple and push the pigment towards the darkest area which is the recess this way you can use glazing as a substitute for washing since you have way more control over the layer but still keep in mind that you have to get rid of the excess water by gently rubbing the brush over a paper towel otherwise you’ll lose this control this works the same if you want to highlight the miniature too so i just take mix of vallejo ice yellow and cadian flesh tone and glaze from middle up pushing the pigment towards the center of the highlight if the end result doesn’t look smooth enough or intense enough you can add more glazes and focus on stacking pigment where you want this higher intensity or smoothness of course if i want a smoother result i would just take pure cadian fleshtone which is the midtone here and glaze just the middle part but focusing on spreading this layer instead of letting the pigment pool in one place as always i get rid of the excess water and wait for the layer to fully dry before applying another one since i don’t want to pull off the drying paint glazing is a great way to build up smooth gradients and transitions but if you want to be faster you can get a really nice result by wet blending on the miniature first and finishing your job with just a few glazes instead of 1055 but glazing is also useful for other purposes for example if you want to paint damaged leather and yet you want it to look natural you can paint the damage first and then use glazing to soften the end result similarly if you drybrush something and you want to soften the ragged up look you can apply a glaze over such spot to make it look better just like influencers use filters on instagram another great use is to paint some glow effect or object source lighting since you need to build up dim light that gets more intense towards the light source carefully glazing towards the light source should do the trick you can also use it to paint some ambient light just as you see it here there is still one last question that needs to be answered and that is should you use mediums instead of water while you definitely can do that so you will have better time thinning down some paint i personally don’t really like that since any medium will make the layer just a little bit thicker if you use pure water it will evaporate and you are left with pure settled pigment medium however behaves like a transparent paint layer after all for example lahmian medium can be used as a varnish as well there are certainly more nuances when it comes to glazing but it all comes down to applying thinned paint layer but if you have still any questions left you can leave that down in the comment section to this day i am trying to answer every single one of them and if you like what i’m doing here definitely subscribe to my channel and hit that bell so you will know when next video comes and lastly if you want to help others get better at painting miniatures definitely give this video a thumbs up so that way youtube gods will know that they should take this video and recommend it to them and see you in the next one bye .