Quick and easy OSL

OSL short for Object Source Lighting, often seen as a holy grail of miniature painting. The reason.

The only part older than this part of the brain is the Cerebellum which controls motor function why do I bring this up? We understand light on such a deep fundamental level that me even trying to explain it will make me look stupid… So why am I going to? Because maybe you want to paint Object Source Lighting…

So time to look stupid

This is not object source lighting…

This is what I like to call a lighting effect. Why? Let’s break it down

See the actual glow is almost completely gone…

Seeing an image in black and white will help you be the ‘values’ (how light or dark an area is). Now you can see that area facing it is a lot lighter but not all of it. Now this can be true is there is a secondary light source usually the sun.

So it could be seen as a secondary light source… this is how most ‘object source lighting’ is done. And there is nothing wrong with that. Having an effect lighting can add a lot to a piece, but rather than thinking of this in terms of object source lighting think of this in a similar manner to a big plasma gun glow and you will do a lot better…

True object lighting is slightly different (ahhh you see what I did there s-light-ly ha ha)

But why is it different? …

I don’t have the science-y know how to break all of it down… but essentially it works like this… because when something hits light in total darkness there is hard shift from either total opacity to being in darkness.

So how can you achieve an OSL effect without having a masters in physics?

Reach a new Zenith

No I mean literally choose a new Zenith for your painting…. A new top point…

The lightsource becomes your Zenith

So with these miniatures I established a ‘Zenithal Prime’ re-established the black on one side, then a ‘Zenthial Prime’ doing a grey, from the point of the light source, then a white and finally from the back I did a blue ink and from the light side a yellow ink (dark and light contrasts would work equally well).

Now like all ‘Zenithal Primes’ this can be done by brush by drybrushing (preferably with a make-up brush to make it light and the transitions clean).

After this I actually repainted small areas of a mix of light grey with mid, then light grey and finally a ‘pure’ white (the colours used for this were Mechanicus Standard Grey mixed with Ulthuan Grey, Ulthuan Grey and finally Scale 75 White). The reason I did this is what I explained before, opacity when light hits something in darkness it essentially hits it’s highest value almost instantly. Next I thinned paints down to glazes, thinned contrast paints or combined a thinned paint and a contrast paint.

If you carefully cover an area, twice maybe three times you may be done… however…

Sometimes what you will need to do is come in with the colour you wish it to be, so if you glazed get that colour and then use it in the highlighted area and its highlight on top of that.

And that is how to get ‘Quick and Easy’ OSL

I hope you found it useful!

Now say it with me!

Keep those brushes wet!

These models are painted to a tabletop standard as per the scale found here