How to make preshading?

Hi, Quick question on this technique, rather than a Dark Angels rhino tutorial :) How would you apply this technique to a vehicle that requires a black undercoat to start with? Painting Dark Angels would usually start with a black primer rather than grey - would you use grey and white to pre-highlight instead of shade, then a Dark Green coat around the bottom before covering the whole model to ensure the bottom of the tank is darker in colour? Or would you simply start from a dark green base colour over black primer and highlight with lighter green from there, skipping the whole pre-shading process? This question has plagued me for a while as I can't seem to find anywhere on the web with a clear answer. Thanks in advance.

Anyone have any thoughts?

I'm no expert, I'm here to learn from Jaroslaw just like you, but given that the master doesn't seem to be answering our questions I'll take a stab at it. I have seen videos where rather than pre-shade they pre-highlight as you pointed out. I also watched another where there was no pre-shading. There was simply levels of highlight and shade applied after the basecoat. The highlights on a landraider were applied such that they were slowly built up in the centers of the largest panels. Brigher on top of the vehicle, less bright on the sides. Hugo from Ichiban painting shows how to preshade after a base is applied to an Ultramarine storm eagle in the video in the link below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJdse2N5LFU He also repeats this for an Ultramarine landraider with the and building up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UdlqNsJjJs I didn't see anything for Dark Angels, but hopefully this gives you some ideas on Alternate techniques for pre-shading. Hope this helps.

Thanks mate, will check out those videos after work tonight. I decided to experiment last night with pre-highlighting and pre-shading, and it seems ok so far. I transitioned up from black to VMA Med. Sea Grey via VMA German Grey, then edge-highlighted with VMA Light Grey and pre-shaded panel lines with VMA Black. Then VMA Olive Green over the top - ended up with a passable result, though it needs a second dust coat of green, and then coloured highlights. My blog (darchangelminiatures.blogspot.com) has some pictures of the results if anyone is interested.

You could also check out OrcPainterNerds video on YT of how he painted a DA Rhino. He bascoated grey and preshaded, however he used mainly the badger airbrush colours which might allow for slightly different finished results than your colours. Also it could be too light for your taste but it could give you an idea of how to proced. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z67UOO6xqYo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdyl7TBw3H0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY0hoZA8lhs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smWM6_9vSvk