Introduction
It’s always a good painting day when you can Pollock paint your plastic pony! Whee! Yes…splatter flecking does have a place in our painting repertoire even today, and not only is a lot of fun to do, but it can be applied to many different colors and patterns. So let’s talk about this wild technique that has been with us nearly since Day One we started customizing. Indeed, it’s an old, time honored method that still has a lot of love today, making it an important skillset to have in our painting know-how. So let’s go!…
What You Need
- Toothbrush: Any manual toothbrush will do, new or used. I actually use the free toothbrushes I get in my go-bag from my dentist! Just keep in mind that different degrees of softness and hardness will produce slightly different results so experiment to see which effect you prefer. And the harder the toothbrush, the easier the technique because you get more “flick.” However, the harder the toothbrush, the bigger the speckles whereas the softer the toothbrush, the small the speckles, generally speaking. So pick carefully and experiment.
- Roll of paper towels or a few sheets of white printer paper: You’ll want to do a test flick on the paper to get out excess paint and make sure it’s the right consistency so you get the flecks you want. Never just flick right onto you model as that’s just asking for blobs or drips, a big mess. Always do one or two flicks onto your paper before you hit your model.
- Old towels: You’ll need as many as necessary to cover your larger work area to protect it. This technique is messy so if you don’t want flecks on something, cover it up or move it away. This includes your floor and walls.
- Old clothes: You’re going to get paint and speckles on your clothes so wear ones you don’t care about!
- Small bowl: You’ll mix and thin your paint in this.
- Acrylic paint: This is the ideal paint to use because it dries so fast, is easy to use with water clean up, and thins easily with water.
- #6 Brush or some kind of "workhorse" mixing brush: You’ll use this to mix up your paint.
- 00 Round brush: You’ll use this to touch up some flecks to fix them if they streak or get weird on you.
- Hand hold: Know where you’re going to hold your model firmly and carefully as you definitely don’t want to grab onto finished areas and smear your beautiful speckles before they’re dry.
The Idea Behind The Technique
The goal is to run your thumb through the paint-laden toothbrush to flick speckles onto your model. It randomized and somewhat uncontrolled, but with practice, you can hedge your bets with a bit more control.
Tips To Get The Best Results
- Practice on a junker first to get a feel for this technique. It’s all by “feel.”
- Your hand has to be at the perfect angle to the model so you create circular or slightly oval flecks, avoiding streaky or “shooting star” speckles. Practice on a junker and you’ll get the gist of this technique quickly.
- Holding your hand at different distances will garner different results. For instance, closer and the bigger the flecks but father out and the smaller the flecks. However, the closer you are, the more control in an area you have whereas the farther away, and the less control you have. It’s a balancing act. But for a starting point, try holding your hand about 4" from the model and adjust according to your own comfort zone.
- How hard your flick the toothbrush will produce different results. The harder you flick, the bigger the specks. But don’t flick too hard or you’ll create “starbursts” or streaky shooting star flecks. There’s a Goldilock’s Zone for the pressure you need so practice first.
- Take breaks! Your thumb and hand will get tired faster than you think, so break the session up with some hand rest.
- Don’t drench your toothbrush because that’s just asking for blobs yet don’t be timid either since you won’t create sufficient flecks without sufficient paint in the toothbrush. There’s a Goldilocks Zone and you’ll find it with practice. This is how doing a test flick onto paper once or twice helps to mediate blobs or lets you know if you don’t have enough paint in the toothbrush.
- Make sure your paint is thinned down to the proper consistency, about that of 2% milk or ink. And use water to thin, not acrylic thinner. Consistency is important: Too thick and you’ll create braille dots and blobs but too thin and they’ll run and drip. So practice on a junker first.
- You don’t need to use a lot of paint for this technique so don’t think you have to put a big ol’ blob in your little bowl. Usually, just a dime-sized amount will do because once it’s thinned with water, it’ll make quite a bit of paint for you.
- Generally speaking, the less paint there is in the toothbrush, the smaller the flecks whereas the more paint there is, the bigger the flecks, so practice. This also means you’ll need to re-dip your toothbrush and re-test on your paper regularly as you paint because you want to create a consistent look over your model and on each side.
- You can use different colors of speckles for different areas on the body or for variety…or not. It’s up to you or what your reference is showing you to do.
- Use good reference photos so you know where to concentrate your speckles. Like notice on many fleabitten horses that the speckles tend to be sparse on the underbelly?
- Layer your speckles with different sizes and colors for dimension and interest.
- Use a contrasting color so your speckles show up well. However, using more subtle speckles can produce depth and interest, too, so play around with color with this method. Refer to your references, too — what are they telling you to do?
- This technique has a high degree of chaos so be ready to relinquish any sense of real control over it. If you want a more realistic fleabitten or speckled effect, handpaint them on instead.
- Don’t worry about getting flecks onto areas that will later be painted over like the mane and tail. So that said, flicking is best done when all the shading and highlighting is done on the model but before the nitty gritty of clean up and detailing.
- Always allow each layer to dry thoroughly before proceeding with the next layer otherwise you’ll have flecks bleeding into other flecks into big drippy blobs.
- Some horses are lightly fleabitten or speckled while some are heavily so, so pay attention to your references and flick accordingly.
When To Use This Technique
This method is great for:
- Fleabitten greys: Use acrylic paint colors in various hues based on Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna or Mars Black or Ivory Black, or a charcoal color. Study your references to see what color your flecks should be over which areas of the body.
- Appaloosa patterning or certain ticking effects: Use Titanium White (which you can also mute if you mute your whites) to create white speckles in key areas.
- Roans: You can use various colors and Titanium White (you can mute it if you want to) to build up a speckled look for a roany coat.
- A template: Use a muted tone to lay down a template or “sketch” for later more-refined handpainted fleabites or ticking in order to reproduce that look of “organic chaos” so characteristic of these effects.
- After sealing: If you’ve painted your model in oils first, be sure to seal it with a varnish or Dull Cote or similar sealing spray that has “tooth” then let that dry. Then do your acrylic speckling on top otherwise the acrylic won’t be able to stick to the oils well enough and those lovely flecks will just rub off with time.
Trouble-Shooting
Oopsies are going to happen with this technique, even if you’ve being using it for years. It’s just the nature of the beast! That’s the price of chaos…more chaos! But it can all be fixed because, remember…it’s just paint! So here are some common errors we may encounter and how to fix them:
- Shooting star or streaky flecks: Easily fixed with the appropriately colored body color paint and a small round brush, painting key areas of the steak to break it up into dots. Or you can paint over it completely, your choice. Voilá…fixed!
- Blobs: Your paint is too thick so thin it down with more water. Hopefully you tested your flecking on your paper first so you determined this before hitting your model! Now if you didn’t, wipe it off quickly, and you can even use a bit of water with a shop towel to get as much off as possible. Then let that dry and restart with thinner flecking paint.
- Drips: Your paint is too thin so add more paint. You can tell if your paint is too thin by looking at it in the bowl plus it’ll be a lighter color on your paper than the intense color you intend. If in doubt, flick onto a junker to make sure first before hitting your model. But as you learn this technique, over time you’ll be able to tell quickly if your paint is too thin just by looking at it in the bowl.
- Oversized flecks: Sometimes a random fleck will pop out that just bugs you with how too-big it is. Easy fix…just paint over it with the appropriate color body paint.
- Donut specks: When the centers of your speckles tend to be paler which indicates your paint is too thin. Thicken up the paint a little bit then go back with a 00 round brush and fill in those middles carefully.
- Lack of variety: If you’ve been too timid with your flecking, you piece may lack a variety in size or color with your flecking. So just take a small 00 round brush, and carefully dab on some diverse flecking in key areas. In fact, you can go back in like this to accentuate certain areas or to “move the eye around” on the model better.
- Flecks that are too tiny: You need more paint on your toothbrush and get your toothbrush closer to your model.
- Flecks that are too big: Try less paint on the toothbrush and hold it a bit farther away from your model.
- Mismatched sides: You want to have a consistency in speckle density and general sizing on either side of your model, so compare the two often and make adjustments.
Conclusion
There are five main things to keep in mind with this method. First off, it’s all by “feel.” There are so many Goldilock’s Zones with this technique, ones that you only learn by doing, and doing a lot. Which brings us to, second, do lots and lots of practice on a junker model first! The good news is though, it’s a very easy technique so you’ll get the hang of it quite quickly I wager. And third, as-is it will produce more of a Vintage Custom feel to your piece. Now if you want a more modern look, you can handpaint over them to refine them, morphing the effect into the more specific standards we have today. Fourth, always use good references to work from so you can somewhat place flecks where they need to be in the proper hues. And fifth, remember to have fun! It’s amazing to see your paintjob “wake up” with this method into your full vision, so don’t let that moment slip away by being too caught up in chasing “perfection.” Let wabi-sabi rule the day and just enjoy this exciting painting experience!
So with all that under your belt, get out there and make your model sparkle with speckles! You totally got this! We can’t wait to see what you make all speckled n' special!
“In the midst of chaos lies creativity.”
— Unknown
