Do you struggle with this? Squidmar is back with another a tutorial on the difficult technique of Object Source Lighting (OSL), and how to master it!
We have featured Squdmar multiple times on SpikeyBits and all of his work is great. I haven’t seen a single one of his videos drop in quality. No matter what he is talking about he gives it his all and lets the viewers know everything.
The first thing to keep in mind for OSL work is to keep it real! Unlike some fantasy pieces that you can go crazy on, it is important that most of the time OSL is a realism piece and it will look better the more realistic the lighting is.
The next tip is two in one. Make sure you make the piece in the night time, it makes glows brighter and in turn easier to capture. Another tip is to use two light sources. In the picture above it is the moonlight above, and the campfire below.
Now we begin the miniature with a base coat of Vallejo Dark sea blue. after that add a tiny bit of sunny skin tone just to tint the highlights on all the armor a little brighter while keeping it in the night-time color scheme. following this, he does advise us to cheat, just a little bit. and by that he tells us to brighten up the face, just a tad, to draw attention to it, even though the metal in real life would be brighter, we want the focus to be drawn to the face.
After you are finished, you should have something similar to this! Next up is the exciting part with the Object Source Lighting.
As we get started he reminds us of a few behaviors of light, first without reflections it only travels in straight lines, and second, the intensity drops significantly as you getting further from the source. With these two in mind, we can base the first layer of the OSL in red.
He creates transitions relatively quickly. Starting furthest away from the source you want to add light oranges to highlight everything the light catches on, as you get closer and closer using more and more orange. Once you get right next to the source you can add some white dots to help the highlight pop even more in those areas. Finally, add the yellow core to create the illusion that it is much hotter than the rest of the model.
With that, the OSL model is done! Check out Squidmar for more videos and watch the video below if you want to see it first hand.
Squidmar Miniatures is a great place to learn all kinds of painting techniques! Be sure to subscribe to Squidmar Miniatures YouTube channel for more tutorials.
About the Author: Andrew Schrank
College student, Lord of fluff, and Master of Ice Hammer
