This year I’m planning to teach classes at KublaCon and Reapercon. I’m teaching Advanced Shading and Highlighting at Kubla: you can sign up here. Reapercon classes are not fully decided yet. I will likely be teaching my Advanced Shading and Highlighting again, as well as my OSL class. I’m also thinking about teaching a third class, and haven’t settled on a topic for it yet. If there’s something you’d like me to cover, please leave suggestions in the comments!

Class descriptions below the fold

Advanced Shading and Highlighting
Shading and highlighting is one of the most basic and critical concepts in miniatures. In this class, we go into more depth and cover advanced topics in shading and highlighting, including:

  • The concept of “light area” and “shadow area”, and how to achieve the appropriate level of contrast in each
  • Matte, satin, and shiny materials, and how to highlight them
  • How much contrast to use for different colors and types of surfaces

[slides]

Object-source lighting (OSL)
Lighting effects can produce amazing results when done well, but are extremely tricky to get right. In this class, I’ll provide my tips for creating strong lighting effects, including:

  • Placement of light sources for best effect.
  • How to make it look like a colored light source is producing illumination (it’s not as simple as just glazing!)
  • How different colors of light interact with different colors of material.

This will be a hands on class, where each student paints a goblin pyro using the techniques I’ve explained, with feedback throughout the painting process. This is my longest-running class, because it keeps being popular every year!

[slides]

[This class is based on my OSL tutorial.]

When teaching classes, I use a mainly hands-on approach. Classes start with a few minutes of demo and/or instruction, after which the bulk of the class is spent having the students try out the techniques of the class, and receiving feedback and tips as they paint. You can get a sense of how I explain mini-painting techniques by checking out my tutorials here on the site.