How To: Paint Cloaks

Hey again everyone!  In this tutorial, I will be going over the steps needed to paint a nice striking cloak on your miniature.  This will include useful highlighting and shading techniques on to end up with smooth transitions and crisp edge highlights for your "cloth!"

I will be using the Age of Sigmar: Idoneth Deepkin, Isharann Tidecaster for our subject figure (which is an excellent model, by the way!), but l've also included pictures of multiple other models with different cloak types for you to see the techniques used with different colors and folds/designs.

To start, I've base coated the model with a combination of black and white primers.  I've done this as I plan on painting the back of a cloak with a nice, deep blue.  The underside, on the other hand, will be a crisp off-white color.  In order to keep off-white, flesh tones, yellows, or any other brighter color looking clean, I prefer to use a white or gray undercoat.

From here, we begin by putting down our base colors.  On the back of the cloak, I used Ritterliech Blue, from Reaper.  The underside was painted with Zandri Dust from Citadel. Be sure to thin down your paints and do multiple coats for your coats, as it will keep the paint nice and smooth on the figure.  You don't want clumps on your cloak!  I used between 2-3 coats of blue on the back of the cloak, and 3-4 coats of Zandri Dust on the front.

Once this step was complete, we can begin with our first highlight.  The blue will be highlighted with Brilliant Blue from Reaper.  Be sure to keep your layers nice and thin (think the consistency of milk) and be patient, once again, by using 2-3 coats. For the blue, notice that I have focused towards the "edges" of the folds on the cloak, leaving the base color in the recesses of the cloak.

For the underside of the cloak, we highlight with Ushabti Bone, from Citadel.  This is once again thinned down and painted in 3-4 thin coats.  You can see that I specifically focused on painting the edges of the folds, once again, leaving the Zandri Dust in the upper recesses of the cloak.  Be sure to paint "long-ways" down the cloak, following from top to bottom.  This will keep you from getting a cross-hatched effect on your nice smooth cloak.  Additionally, be sure to work from your "wet-edge" out.  Meaning, don't paint one side, move to another, then go back to your original spot without allowing the paint to fully dry.  This will keep you from pulling up paint, as mentioned before.

The next photo includes 2 steps for the blue.  For some reason the photos of my 2nd highlight did not save, so I will discuss the 2nd highlight and edge highlight processes of the blue here.  Our second highlight will be done with Cyan Blue from Reaper.  You will once again focus on the "edge" of the folds in the cloak, this time being sure to leave some Brilliant Blue showing towards the recesses.  Using the multiple thin layers that I've mentioned before will allow you to get smoother transitions of color.

Once you have done your second highlight, you can put down your "edge" highlight.  For this step we will be using True Blue from Reaper.  This color will be used very sparingly, as seen in the pictures.  We are attempting to capture light peaking on the edges of the folds in our cloak.  This we be applied differently or every model, based on the shape of your respective cloak.  I would caution you to start off with a smaller area when doing this step, and slowly add more lines as you see fit.  Do not feel like you need to "outline" the cloak, you are mainly trying to create vertical lines that follow the major folds in the cloak.  As you can see on the right hand side of this model's cloak, I did a few small lines to emphasize a crease in the fabric. If you make your lines a little too big, you can always go back and clean them up with a combination of Cyan and Brilliant blues.

For the next highlight on the underside of the cloak, we are using Menoth White Highlight from P3.  This color is once again going to be focused on the "edges" of the folds, leaving some ushabti bone behind to create a transition.

In this step, I glazed black into the recesses of the folds on the backside of the cloak.  The more layers you do, the more intense contrast you will get.  I was happy with 2 layers here, to simply make it a little darker.

To finish off the underside of the cloak, I did a very small highlight of Ceramite White from Citadel on the edges of folds in the cloak, being sure to leave the Menoth White Highlight showing, once again to create a transition of color.  This was used very, very sparingly, and was not harsh like our edge highlight on the blue.  I added this to simply create more contrast on the underside, as we started with a brighter base coat, compared to our blue areas.

Voila!  You should now have a nice crisp cloak for your figure.  I've included some photos below for study on how these techniques can be used with different colors and on different figures.  Thanks for reading!