 So anyway, these things are so stinking dry. Look at that. Like the paint doesn't even come out Yeah, that's that's the point. They're dry paints. Did you read the bottle? No, I mean I just threw them all away, so Right. Okay. Sure. That's definitely a good idea. Anyways, what are you working on man? What are you painting? I think I'm gonna paint another death guard. Oh good more death guard You mean like that thing you robbed me of a crystal brush with a few years ago like that kind of death guard? Yeah, I mean, what can I say the judges just identified the better painter, so I See I see that's what it was, huh? They identified the better painter. All right, John I see how this is gonna be look. There's only one thing we can do here. Okay, you're the better painter We're gonna have to settle this We're gonna settle this the only way we can high noon internet Dry brush showdown The strict technomancer that is Vinci V. Let us get to the technique and learn it Vinci V style Welcome to another hobby cheating video and as you saw this one's gonna be a little different So Ninjahn and I decided to do a little challenge with each other To see who could paint a better manager just using dry brushes now Dry brushes and dry brushing are often aligned as being something only for newbies or that's something that Display painters or high-end painters or I don't know pro painters or whatever stupid term you want to use look down on And I've always thought that's silly dry brushing is incredibly versatile as we're gonna see in this video So as I paint this emperors champion What I really want to show you is that this humble tool the dry brush comes in many different forms and can be used in many different ways so Let's get into it All right, so let's start out and actually talk about dry brushes they come in lots of different sizes some are more flat like these This is sort of the classic dry brush you often get from game companies Some have angles things like that, but they generally present a more flat face This is kind of the first dry brush most people have The other types of dry brushes around they have like large rounded tips These are often are makeup brushes or there's a specialty line from artists opus In either case They both have their different uses one thing I will say is don't buy gaming dry brushes Just go buy makeup brushes or cheap brushes. Don't overpay for a very simple thing Now since this is a dry brush only challenge Some of our very fine details, especially like things that need to be metallic present me some real challenges because if I get metal paint On things that it shouldn't be on it's gonna stand out So I'm actually just painting all the little steel stuff with metal first I'm also trying to work from the inside out Just hitting those tiny details and if I spill over like I did there with the red. I don't care I'm not gonna talk about paints those will scroll up in the top what I want to talk about here is techniques So here with the dry brush you notice I've worked almost all of my paint off like I mean I really wiped this on the paper towel And you'll notice that I'm just really grinding the paint in and that's the first thing I'll say when you're dry brushing one of the things you can do is simply Really get a lot lot lot less paint one of the things I usually see people go wrong with Especially people who are new in painting when they're dry brushing is they keep way too much paint on the brush It's fine. If you're doing some base coating type work like I'm doing here just to set the color for this Cloak to brown because I want to make it lighter and so I need to work it up So here it's fine to have a little bit more paint on the brush But often when you're trying to dry brush for fine detail or only hit edges you want to work a lot of paint off of that brush You'll see me use a combination of both flat and round dry brushes. We'll talk about why Here with the flats whenever I'm trying to do something That's a little more detailed that I want to catch just on the very very edges or using a more controlled fashion I'm using a flat dry brush because I can turn that sideways and use the flat edge of it to my advantage Effectively using it almost like a scraping tool to just scrape paint along the few raised surfaces that I want When I'm trying to do larger areas You'll usually see me go to the rounded brushes because there I have a lot more even application In both cases, I'm always wiping so much more of the paint off Then you think wipe until you think there's no paint left and then test on something like the back of your hand The natural ridges in your hand if you make a fist are the perfect place to test a dry brush For how much paint is going to come off and usually you'll be surprised You'll see how I'm using a dry brush much in the same way we would use layers here One of the cool things about dry brushing is that it can actually make blending really super easy Because if you just work up colors You'll naturally get some pretty organic blends each time I had less and less paint on the brush and each time I was using a brighter and brighter color Now you can also use dry brushes just to stipple or to edge highlight So you see here what I'm doing is a mix of both I drug very little paint across that leather hitting just the edges and then stippled in the middle to create a random pattern of wear Dry brushes don't have to simply move back and forth. You can also stab and dab like you see me often doing in this paint job Stabbing and dabbing is a perfectly fine use of a dry brush In fact the natural texture it provides can be very powerful You can use that to create things like some natural texture in metal or on things like armor You'll see people like Richard Gray actually use this quite a bit where he uses larger dry brushes to set down a base texture And then we'll sometimes layer paint or glaze over the top to somewhat soften it You still have the impression that it's not a perfect smooth surface and those little micro inconsistencies Create visual confusion that makes the blend look smoother than it is When the paint is applied completely Solidly on a layer. It's very easy to notice a break between one layer and the other When it's applied roughly with this sort of stippling motion like you see me using here or on the cloak It actually becomes very hard for your eye to distinguish inconsistencies in the paint layers because they're not even there's not a straight line between them There's a host of visual confusion that's tricking your eye into thinking it's much more much more smooth than it is You'll notice that I go back and forth between the stabbing and the swiping and that's really what dry brushing is stabbing and swiping and As I work smaller and smaller areas to build up my highlights You'll see how I never did a glaze or anything like that Of course, this is dry brushing only and yet even with whites I was able to build it up to a nice bright color and have it look rather smooth in its effect where I want it to Now a couple times I did get a little too much red or sorry white where I didn't want it onto my red symbol So I just went back and repaired that real quick again with almost no paint on the brush Now we're gonna start hitting the actual armor itself And there is no easier way to paint black armor than with some dry brushing By simply going over it with this light gray color I'm able to very easily pick out all of the edges and effectively edge highlight this guy in seconds now Note I'm using soft makeup brushes and as I mentioned earlier. Those are really the key Soft makeup brushes mean that you only deposit a very small amount of paint You can work it repeatedly Without getting any paint anywhere. You don't want it I want to jump in here in the middle and just say as you're watching this you're probably thinking It seems like you're going to a lot of effort in some steps when it would be easier to just use a different technique And that's exactly right because the nature of this challenge We had to stick to only dry brushes and dry brushing and that does create some fun limitations The point of dry brushing isn't to be used all the time like we're doing here. This is just a bit of fun Dry brushing is a tool a tool in your toolbox. It's a hammer It's a very valuable tool that doesn't mean you get it out every single time if you've got a screw You go get a screwdriver So don't try to emulate everything you see here. I'm probably working harder just for the purposes of this challenge But I hope you see all the different ways that this application that this brush that this technique Can be used and maybe integrate some of that in here Let's get back to the action. You see how as I continue to work the dry brush all over the figure I'm just getting all those edges and Because I'm always working in a motion where I'm not trying to hit every part of the miniature I'm basically working from the top down just as though I was almost zenithaling the thing basically with this One you see how little paint goes anywhere but the edge and two You notice how easy it is for me to create the impression of highlighted black armor I can however go back in with a darker color like I did here and dry brush in the opposite direction To control that shadow and tint it so by using this darker color and then working up or stippling I can actually then tint the armor of color in the same way I would with a glaze But I'm just doing it with a dry brush and it's a lot faster and a lot easier You just work with very very little paint now. I didn't want to get out my secret weapon this early But let's get into it The other thing to do with dry brushing is work on something dry dry pigment with a dry brush So here I'm using some straight black pigment to deepen my shadows I start by just applying a fair amount of it And then I use a brush that doesn't have any pigment to wipe it away and smooth it out Dry pigment is a fantastic tool with a dry brush You can actually just apply it push it into the miniature and then smooth it down It won't leave a whole lot on there But it'll leave enough to soft and soften the transition in the same way as a glaze that the best part is it's way easier Here I'm just doing some cleanup again You notice I'm using the flat dry brush here because I want to hit a specific area whenever I'm trying to be very precise It's time to get out the flat dry brush when I want to hit a bigger area a rounded tip works With the metallics I make sure to just go in and scrape them very very lightly There's very little metal paint on there And I want to leave some of the natural shadows of the matte paint to create my deep shadows With the other colors here where I want to hit the edges. It's the same trick as with the black So here I'm using this lighter brown and I'm just touching the edges and making sure that those details are popped Here I work with a very very very small dry brush, but effectively the same thing in the same motions When I want to create texture I start stabbing dabbing and moving the brush in random directions because then the pattern it leaves is Also random making it look very natural Working in shadows is as easy as taking a matte paint and then dry brushing it from below just like you saw me do with the armor Highlighting it is exactly the same thing again very little silver paint But I'm just taking it and very lightly touching it and pulling down from above The important part to remember here, and you're going to see it a lot as I work on the sword is Directionality matters One of the things you always want to be thinking about when you're dry brushing is what direction am I moving my brush? How is that angle and then whether I have a flat or a rounded brush going to interact with the surface? So as I work the sword you'll see not only do I work the sword only in a particular angle Notice how I only drag Horizontally across the sword and that's because I want those edges that are naturally sculpted to be catching the majority of paint as I create This non-metallic effect with a dry brush But also you'll see me rotate the flat brush to have more or less surface area of the brush touching the miniature This is another advantage of a flat dry brush versus a round one with the flat I can rotate it sideways and get a very thin working area effectively with the same color Creating a transition. So I started with a couple of swipes just all the way in an area Flip to the brush vertically and instantly I had a more tight highlight You can also edge highlight as you saw me do there just by dragging the side of your dry brush Now OSL effects are normally kind of a pain, but with a dry brush and dry pigment We can actually just easily create a simple blue glow down by this little Reliquary or whatever it is took some of that blue pigment worked it into the base of the thing and then worked it into the area around it Used and brush without any pigment to then soften that blue transition out and what we get is a nice soft blue glow in the shadows Once that's done I go back in with some steel and just very lightly dry brush over the metal to actually recreate the frame easy peasy So you can work back and forth when dry brushing to still create the same effect She would if you were being a lot more careful with a layer brush. It's just a lot faster The last thing to do is of course the base and this is pretty easy with the base I start with some dry paint dry. I'm sorry some dry pigment Scrape that all in get that brown up on his feet and up getting a little too much up there So I correct that but that's fine. So just tinting that all brown Work some up onto his cloak again. We want this guy to feel this is the embers champion, but he's on a crusade mission This is lengthy. It's tiring. It's exhausting. He's fought through the muck and the mire And the cool part is even though I got a little too much brown up there and softened some of my transitions I can just build them back in no problem I can also do some fun effects here with water. He's on an island. Let's say so with the dry brush This becomes incredibly easy To just of course pick out the texture on the base as well as create some nice color transitions in the water underneath Rocks and things like that. We all classically know are a perfect area for dry brushing and exactly where probably we most use it Never be too good to dry brush a rock that a miniature standing on. It's just the easiest effect and it looks great I can also go back to my stippling technique here where I'm just stabbing to create the effect of movement in the water Notice I don't want it to be super smooth I want there to be some kind of transitions and breaks and things like that because you can create texture You can create movement. You can create all those things just by the application of the brush So instead of trying to apply a smooth layer, which would actually be worse in this case I can just apply little stabs and dabs and create that transition When they work it in some red pigment and again pushing this up into the feet But especially in the shadows just to add more color to the lower parts of the miniature and some visual interest Dry brushing again with dry pigment. I've said it many times in this video But it really is a pleasure pigment is so easy to use to take a dry brush you get some dry pigment You shove it onto the miniature. There's no magic to this. It's the easiest thing in the world And that more or less has him ready to go I wanted to leave you with one final trick that isn't technically dry brushing I got a little bit of that red up onto his cloaks make it interesting, but I thought You know we said with the only brush work could be with a dry brush and that's fine, but we didn't say no cool water effects So I decided to get out some of my UV resin and have this guy standing on a little pond So I decided to create a little pool around him He's up on an island all alone and now we've got that nice transition of blue and red all over the miniature I thought hey, let's apply some of that UV resin You can smooth that out with a little brush or something similar once you've Gooped it on there, but it will self-level over a few minutes if you just let it sit there And then we just hit it with the UV light and it's good to go and with that That's gonna complete all the primary work on the miniature the last thing we got to do Black rim that base and there's no reason to switch from anything But a big dry brush for this one as we get in there and get that sweet sweet black rim on that many Mmm Always the best part and the greatest moment when you get to black rim that base Well, there you go. There's the finished model. I think he turned out pretty cool There's gonna be some pictures of him rolling here in just a moment Don't forget to go check out ninjans video. It's linked down in the description His channel if you're not already Give him a sub as well John is a truly great human being one of my best friends and just somebody I truly love And I thank him for offering to do this challenge it was a lot of fun and Honestly, I had a really great time painting this space green just with dry brushing It makes me think I could kind of do the whole black Templar army something like this Maybe with a few other techniques in there But thank you so much for watching if you liked this Hey, don't forget to hit that like button Subscribe for additional hobby cheating in the future. We have new videos here every Saturday Normally Saturday's happy Thanksgiving to those in the US And as always if you've got any questions drop those down in the comments, but as always Thank you so much for watching this one. We'll see you next time